TargetTalk

This is a review on the 10X XPR Small Bore Target Rifle. Retail price $2150

I ordered this rifle and after several months I received it in June of last year. I am finally getting around to collecting photographs and summarizing my thoughts for an honest description of the new rifle that I received from 10X.

I would like to start by mentioning the things that I liked about this rifle. First, this rifle IMHO looks killer. The stock is very comfortable when you get in position and and has a good range of adjustment in both the buttplate and the cheek piece.

Now for the photos and my observations on the issues with the rifle that was delivered to me.
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Trigger....
One of the options that I selected for my rifle was a Jewell single stage trigger. Upon testing at arrival, it was an extremely heavy trigger for small bore position rifle with a release weight around 1.5#. Other springs were supplied loose with the trigger, but why didn't 10X install them from the outset. They know that a heavy trigger is useless in benchrest competition, so why did they leave it that way for a position rifle?

Adjustable Buttplate....
The buttplate looks good but the wings come loose after you are in position only after a few minutes. It did not make any difference on how tight you cranked down - it never stayed in the position it was set. The vertical stem that allows the buttplate to go up and down is weak and distorts when you are behind the rifle in position. To correct this, I made a thicker one out of stainless steel and it is no longer a problem. The wings will take a lot more time and effort to fix before it is fully reliable for use in position - especially prone where it has the most contact and pressure.
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Cheek piece......
The cheek adjusts vertically, slides side to side and tilts. The obvious problem is that there is no way to adjust the tilt without removing the cheek piece off of the rifle and taking the thing apart. A simple fix is if a slot is added to the front of the assembly to give the wrench access. Without adding a slot, the cheekpiece would take forever to adjust and not allow a 3p shooter full range of function between prone, standing and kneeling. If you cannot adjust the rifle properly, it is of little use.
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Bedding......
When I ordered the rifle, I had an extensive conversation of what options I wanted, one of which was to have the action fully bedded in Devcon steel putty. As you can see in the photo, the action was not bedded. To be honest, I was set back a little on the bedding, and I am still in awe. I have never seen or heard of a target grade action bedded this way.

When the action is tightened down onto the supplied bedding, it actually "rocks" in the stock with minimal pressure.
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Accessory rail........
This is a photo of just one of many places on the accessory rail where there are machine marks. A little scotch bright and about 1 minute of effort goes a long way for the cosmetic appearance of machined parts. I guess I might be nitpicking, but for a domestic company that wants to make a name for themselves, this does not bode well. They appear to want to make a run at producing a US made prone/position rifle, but marginal clean up before assembly will not provide a professional appearance.


At this time it is time to get down to brass tacks and talk about it's accuracy.

Upon receipt, I tried several different brands of match grade standard velocity ammunition and the best results at 50 yards were around 1" groups (5 shot). I am an NRA smallbore prone competitor with an Expert classification and will possibly make Master in 2013.

I was stumped and after some checking, I noticed that there is no engagement between the bullet and the rifling. Normally in a match grade chamber, there is at least a minimum amount of engagement which enhances the accuracy of the rifle. It appears that the barrel chamber is too deep and it prevents the engagement. The only way to fix this is to remove the barrel, cut off the old chamber section and redo it properly.

As the accuracy was so poor, I called 10x twice and never heard back. The first time I called it was for a bore guide and the next time was after I had shot the rifle and had less than acceptable accuracy.

I was also told by 10x that the rifle is safe to dry fire as much as I like because in their design the firing pin would never touch the face of the barrel. Based on their input, I did so and now the chamber face has a nice dent.

I knew I was going to have to have the barrel rechambered so I took it off the action and took some additional photographs.

Barrel threads.....
I guess they will be functional, but definitely not a good fit or finish.
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Crown.......
After checking the chamber end, I took a closer look at the crown. For some reason, when 10x bead blasted the barrel, they also bead blasted the crown. I do not know why they would have done this and there is no indication that any masking was applied to protect the end of the rifling.

After additional examination to determine the impact of the bead blasting (and if it went into the actual barrel), I noticed that a metal burr exists on every land on the crown. It appears like it was done with a chamfer tool. The burrs were large enough that you could snag it with a dental pic and vertically pick up the barreled action.

I tried to get a photo of the burrs on the rifling, but I am not a professional with a camera so this was as good as I was able to get.
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I also tried to take some more photos of the chamber area.
There is a firing pin dent but it is hard to see.
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As I had disassembled the barrel and the rest of the action, I noticed that there was a sandy residue. I then removed the loading tray from the bottom of the action. In the photo, you can see that the bottom of the loading tray is partially bead blasted. From what I can deduce, the action was fully assembled and then bead blasted....that is the only way I can see how this pattern was produced.

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Before taking the rifle apart I also checked the headspace. The .042 low limit gauge would not even let the cam of the bolt to even start to shut.

To be honest, I more than anyone else wanted this rifle to woop my Anschutz. I am an American toolmaker and take a lot of pride in this country and wanted this rifle to work out.

From the photos and observations, I will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. I am very disappointed in the product that was delivered and have decided that the only way this will be resolved properly is to do the repairs myself.

Others may disagree on this approach and think it is best to have 10X perform the repairs. In my view, if 10X let a rifle out of their shop with this many blatant issues, I don't want to go through the hassle. In addition, I am not sure I would not be constantly questioning the rifle every time I got into position - and that will not help me make Master.

Thanks for reading this, and hope you find it informative. I have already started redoing the rifle and I will keep you informed of my progress and additional observations.

Just getting you money back from them would make me happy. Put that 2K back into something else. If they wouldn't give your money back for such a lousy job then relay that to the forums as well. Don't waste your time fixing it, unless you just like doing that.

tenring

Thanks for the detailed review.

You lost me at 2 minute groups at 50 yds.

I can't believe a gunsmith who claimed to be making match grade smallbore rifles would put out a POS like this. My kids' Anschutz Acheivers shoot better groups.

I also can't believe you are even contimplating fixing this yourself. Get your two grand back and build yourself a real gun.

Gees, those threads look like an amateur's first attempt!

I have been down to their shop and saw a lot of guns in un-assembled condition, and none of the barrel threads looked like that. I believe it was there second run.

FWIW, they pillar bedded my Anschutz 1909 and did a beautiful looking job that really woke the old girl up. It used to be so finicky with ammunition and only shot R-50 or higher grades of Eley with what I would consider acceptable accuracy. It now shoots low buck ammo very well, nominal .22 cal 5 shot groups off of a rest @ 50 feet.

Someday I will take pic of their pillar bedding job if I ever take the barreled action out of the stock; if it ain't broke, I ain't fixing it. I torqued it once and it has been great since, well over a year!

Hi Roadthing,

Is it too late now to get your money back? From June of last year, thats 6 months? It's still under warranty I presume?

I agree with other posters, fixing the issues yourself is not the road I would take personally, go back to the supplier and request them to fix your issues you've outlined in your post above. By doing this you might void your warranty?
As you are a toolmaker yourself I'm surprised you're willing to accept this level of workmanship.

Did the rifle come with a test card? If so how do your groups compare to it?
You mention that the rifle did not come with the trigger or bedding you had requested, I presume you have a receipt/emails outlining what your paying for i.e. Jewell trigger/ type of bedding etc?
Although you mention that the stock is comfortable etc the level of workmanship is pretty poor (leave aside the access to adjustment, some rifle can take time to adjust),you mention that the buttplate will not stay in position no matter how tight the screws are, is the rifle fit for purpose?

My 2c.
D.

Denton wrote:Hi Roadthing,

Is it too late now to get your money back? From June of last year, thats 6 months? It's still under warranty I presume?

I agree with other posters, fixing the issues yourself is not the road I would take personally, go back to the supplier and request them to fix your issues you've outlined in your post above. By doing this you might void your warranty?
As you are a toolmaker yourself I'm surprised you're willing to accept this level of workmanship.

Did the rifle come with a test card? If so how do your groups compare to it?
You mention that the rifle did not come with the trigger or bedding you had requested, I presume you have a receipt/emails outlining what your paying for i.e. Jewell trigger/ type of bedding etc?
Although you mention that the stock is comfortable etc the level of workmanship is pretty poor (leave aside the access to adjustment, some rifle can take time to adjust),you mention that the buttplate will not stay in position no matter how tight the screws are, is the rifle fit for purpose?

My 2c.
D.

No test card, and I have a friend that sent his back 4 or 5 time and the gun still would not shoot right, he ended up getting his money back.
So I have no interest in sending it back and forth till he gets lucky. As far as getting my money back, I called twice and gave up. I dont play with people. I will just fix it myself and have learned a valuable lesson.

Doug K.

Hi Doug,

It's a disappointing situation you find yourself in, not just the financial side (its hard to find an extra 2k to spend on anything these days) but the disappointment of the item you purchased in good faith...very poor workmanship and customer service from the supplier, I can only hope that this is a warning to others...
Best of luck with resolving the issues.

D.

Sorry to hear about your poor quality rifle-you should return it and get your money back-if possible. You should also write a documented letter to the company with your findings-the person responsible for this kind of workmanship should be dealt with.Didn't the company accuracy test the rifle?? Shouldn't they do that on a rifle that cost more than 2K?? If you asked for steel bedding and didn't get that-what else are you going to find wrong. I recently received an Armalite AR 10 260 Remington that wouldn't eject and reload properly-in essence a SS rifle.They couldn't possibly have tested this rifle. This rifle was set up as a target rifle with a bull SS bbl and guaranteed to shoot less than .75".

Sent them this thread.

Thanks for the report Doug and sorry for the trouble you have to go through ! It is good to see honest reviews and hopefully the manufacturer will see this report and lift there standards ?

Cheers
Lowey

Re did the crown,re set the chamber, and set the head space to .043

thats a much better looking crown,

did you get those threads fixed?

Did you have to saw off a little bit of the muzzle?

Having owned a boat load of custom .22's in my day, I can say a couple of things right off the bat. One is, I'll never be the owner of a 10X part, and two is, that you are a much better builder than they are, by a long shot!!

I've only seen one other completely custom rifle with that many problems. One of our local shop owners hunts all over the world and has custom guns built for nearly every trip. He had a custom big bore made that was a total disaster for around $3500, so it does happen, thankfully not often.

You have chosen your route of recourse, and I don't criticize you for it, as it certainly looks like your on the road to a much better gun. I think I'd have a serious talk with 10X, no matter how I had to go about it, and try to work out some sort of reconciliation even though I repaired the rifle myself. You have pics and the shoddy work is obvious. I'm just that stubborn that I would not be ripped off. I'm also the type of guy, that if I couldn't get them on the phone, via email or whatever, that I would show up at their shop in person to discuss the problem. I would go that far!

I've seen their actions, and even thought about having one built, but that now that will never happen. NO self respecting 'smith with competition asperations would ever let such a piece leave his shop, AND if such a gun did get out, IF the business is reputable, then they would definitely want it back and replace it!

Quite honestly, that looks like a gun that was assembled as quickly as it could be, with almost EVERY corner that could be cut. That is no way to build any gun, much less a competition piece, and it shows their total lack of knowledge in the arena of competition accurate .22's.

I'm sorry for your headaches, and the financial loss, that's shameful of them. I think it adds salt to your wounds that they refuse to talk about it. My guess is they won't be around long with that kind of product. There simply are too many custom builders and folks have such a hard time paying those kind of prices in the first place to take, even a chance, of getting that kind of rifle.

Good luck with the repairs, and I hope you can recreate the rifle it should have been.

Thanks BC, I just don't feel like dealing with the guy, my friend went back and forth to many time. I have a bad temper and don't need the stress.

But thanks for everyone's input.

Doug K.

bluetentacle wrote:Did you have to saw off a little bit of the muzzle?

No ,when I scoped the bore it was not as bad as I thought. I did face off about .100 and then put a 11deg. crown cam out perfect. when I got done I slugged the barrel and the bullet looked real good and was tighter at the muzzle.

Doug K

Well I have not got to bed it yet but It was almost 70 degree's her in northeast Ohio so I got to shoot it. Wow what and improvement, The rifle went from inch to inch and half groups at 50m to I shoot 30 shots and 29 of them in the 10 ring, on the NRA 50m target. I still have some work to do on the stock but am very happy on how it is shooting so far, now that I made the changes,

Doug K.

"NRA 50" the A26 target? was this off a rest or shot from prone?

Its good to hear that your making some progress with this rifle, but its still not good that you had to do the work your self.

Thedrifter wrote:"NRA 50" the A26 target? was this off a rest or shot from prone?

Its good to hear that your making some progress with this rifle, but its still not good that you had to do the work your self.

This was the first time I have got to shoot since Nov, of 2012. it was prone with a 20x Leupold scope. In my back yard at 50m into a rimfire bullet trap had to shoot one target at a time. hope to get to the range as soon as the weather breaks. I need to bed the rifle and fix the problems with the buttplate assembly, but it ejected every round and every round fired so far.
I will post this pic of 30 shoots but don't pick on me to hard I am rusty,LOL


30 shots 50m


And my other toys,

Doug,

I know you will make this rifle into a shooter......it just sucks that rifle made it out of the shop.

pmelchman