Sweet setup! Love the LMT, adds character

 

Awesome video and nice set up! I have nothing but positive experience with my AP53. I also have no issues using the 25 and 30 round HK steel mags.

 

Awesome video! I have nothing but positive experience with my AP53. I also have no issues using the 25 and 30 round HK steel mags.

that looks great. I've been meaning to buy 6-8 40 rounders. but the plastic mags i got for it are running great... they can be a challenge to load, though.

 

Mine has been flawless. Got it about 6 weeks ago. Approaching 1500 rounds. Have not replaced anything mechanical on it. Still OEM extractor/ spring / ejector / locking piece. I put a tailhook brace on it until I get to 2000 reliable rounds, then I am going to form1 and put a A3 collapsible stock on it. Any tips on where to find the MKE one for this 53?

 

I ordered one from Atlantic. Haven't done a Form 1 yet, so just had it shipped to my local SOT.

I've also been impressed with mine--~500 rounds, no cleaning, no oiling, no problems. Ran into a little weirdness torquing a Dead Air 3-prong suppressor mount, but got through it and the gun runs equally well with or without my Sandman X.

 

The only major gripe i have is the trigger. Might splurge and get a nice trigger for it. Or just replace the full housing including pack. Cause the safety takes like 20lbs of force to disengage.

 

I’m waiting on a working hk53 super safety option to do anything to the trigger

 

I am actively testing on that front. just need a working trip bar available. Metal one should work fine, just waiting on one to be on sale. I believe ASD is working on that.

 

Mine has a little more wiggle with the metal mags than I'd like, but so far that hasn't appeared to manifest in any functional issues. Still waiting on my stamp to slap a stock on it.

 

My HK 40 round mags have a little wiggle but not an issue. I am going to try the “anti wiggle” mag release, but I am concerned that then the plastic mags might not work with it. In which case I would leave it as is. The plastic mags are an acquired taste, but they work great.

 

My opinion on any clear/yellow plastic mags is NOT good.
Nice set up guys. I have a HK93 and a Vector93, and you guys are making me want an MKE.
Who do I send the bill too?
Thanks Moose

 

Sent my lower to Bill Springfield for trigger work, night and day difference

 

What kind of turn around from Bill?

 

1 week

 

How is the muzzle blast on the AP53? I had a 10.5 inch AR and the muzzle blast and noise was pretty horrible, and I imagine the 8” barrel on the AP53 is worse. I know an answer is to just always run a can, but you’ll need a hard use can that doesn’t have a barrel length restriction, and even so it’s going to be pretty rough on the can.

 

How is the muzzle blast on the AP53? I had a 10.5 inch AR and the muzzle blast and noise was pretty horrible, and I imagine the 8” barrel on the AP53 is worse. I know an answer is to just always run a can, but you’ll need a hard use can that doesn’t have a barrel length restriction, and even so it’s going to be pretty rough on the can.

The louder the better. this gun is SO fun. I went opposite direction of a can and added the 40mm to make it even louder...

my favorite ammo to run is pre covid wolf steel case because so much powder burns outside of the barrel. it basically doubles the amount of blast.

Sent my lower to Bill Springfield for trigger work, night and day difference

i just emailed him. he's done several packs for me. thanks for the reminder. this trigger is pretty slow with a long reset.

My opinion on any clear/yellow plastic mags is NOT good.
Nice set up guys. I have a HK93 and a Vector93, and you guys are making me want an MKE.
Who do I send the bill too?
Thanks Moose

have you killed one?

I ordered one from Atlantic. Haven't done a Form 1 yet, so just had it shipped to my local SOT.

I've also been impressed with mine--~500 rounds, no cleaning, no oiling, no problems. Ran into a little weirdness torquing a Dead Air 3-prong suppressor mount, but got through it and the gun runs equally well with or without my Sandman X.

nice!

 

I’ve got around 500 rounds through my AP53 so far using nothing but 25 and 30 round factory HK mags. Not one malfunction. I’m quite pleased with how this one turned out. I used to have a C93P years ago that was utter trash. Glad this one isn’t.

 

Has anyone chrono'd 55, 62, or 77grain from one? Im wondering how close to 10.3" AR velocities may be.

 

Haven't yet, but it wouldn't be terribly hard for me to do. Probably a Sunday or Monday thing. I know I have some PMC XTAC M193, and I am pretty sure I have some XTAC Match 77gn floating around somewhere. I am just waiting for a buttpad for my G3 stock to arrive.

 

Man I’d love to see some chrono results too. Please update us when you can!

 

Well, half way there. Buttpad came in yesterday, and I dug out the XM193 and the XTAC 77gn. I dug through the giant plastic bin of assorted gun parts and found a Surefire legacy brake and an AAC Breakout. I wanted to go with the Surefire, both because the can is a lot smaller and lighter, and because I wanted to see if I could give the guy in the lane next to me shooting .338 Lapua a concussion.
But unfortunately, It needs the shoulder to index off of and I don't trust the conical surface of the flash hider bushing for either shimming or reference. Fortunately, the oddball version of the BreakOut I had in the box indexes off the muzzle face and was naturally timed with the appropriate 30 ft-lbs of torque. But the AAC 762 SDN is a pretty big can, and from what I understand it is not super great to have a lot of backpressure on a roller-locker system. So I won't be rattling a lot of suppressed rounds off quite yet.

I will be back in a few hours with chrono results if all goes to plan.

 

Were did u find the green handguard?

 

I am back and I had a good time. Started out with a CZ600 Lux which I needed to confirm a suppressed zero on. Running a Surefire legacy FA556-212, which is has been beaten to heck and has the melted remains of more than one range bag / sandbag peeling off of it. Regardless, it's short and the lightest-weight can I currently own, and I am pretty happy with the 100 yard zero.

Then I put my quiet rifle away and broke out the MKE AP53, which rattled teeth in the lanes next to me.

First was the PMC XTAC M193, which is actual 5.56 ammo loaded to real 5.56 pressures. 55gn. Fed fine, everything worked without issue. It was surprisingly mild, all things considered. 20 shot average of 2455 FPS.

Next was the PMC XTAC Match 77gn, which is .223 and considerably lower pressure. First round did not feed great and slammed the bullet back into the case. After that, ran fine, recoil very mild. 20 shot average of 2092 FPS.

Both of these groups were shot with the site on center of target. That upper right group is where I learned that my rear sight assembly was not centered from the factory. The reference marks on the sight base align with the sight significantly to the right. It took me all the leftward travel of the rear sight to bring it to the centerline for windage. Grrrrrrr.....

Switched to the LMT MRP, which is a 10.5" barrel. It is as reliable as ever with whatever I run through it. The XM193 clocked in a 20 shot average of 2623 FPS. The XTAC Match 77gn clocked in at 2119 FPS

Looking at the difference in the XTAC Match 77gn .223, The extra two inches of barrel didn't add all that much velocity.

Looking at the XM193, there was a considerable difference (~+170 FPS in the 10.5" AR) that could be felt as well as looked at on the Garmin.

I also ran 10 rounds of the XTAC Match 77gn through the Mke AP53 with the AAC 7.62 SDN can on. And then I stopped, because it felt significantly different. A lot more felt recoil and the gun was running significantly harder. Enough that I won't do it again with this locking lug, and I went over to the retail counter and bought a B&T Print-XH RBS SC 5.56 can. Which is a lot of letters.

So... Two less inches of barrel make not much difference at all with 77gn .223, and a whole lot of difference with XM193 5.56 55gn.

 

JohnnyEgo
Did you fire the AP-53 at 100yds? If so, pretty commendable benchwork. Honestly, even at 50 I wouldn't call it bad!

 

That is very kind of you. It's 50 yards and I was tearing through it at about the max speed the Garmin could pick up the shots. I'd hope to do a little better at a slower pace, but honestly I don't shoot iron sights on rifles very often these days, so maybe not a lot better.

I was fairly pleased with the unsuppressed LMT. I get about a 2 MOA shift in elevation going from suppressed to unsuppressed. I didn't feel like adjusting anything, so I just shot it as it was and it came out how I expected, which doesn’t always happen. I have a 1000 yard steels course about 30 minutes from me, and I can be reliably minute of plate out to 500 yards with magnifier and off the bags with the LMT. I suspect the AP53 is probably a 200 yard or less gun in my hands, and I am fine with that.

 

Very nice. Have you run it yet with the B&T RBS SC can?

 

MKE 62g SS109 ball averaged 2,412 for ten shots from my AP53. Fiocchi's 77g .223 SBR load, advertised 2,750 fps:

16" AR: 2,442
11.5" AR SBR: 2,264
AP53: 2,076

Candidly, I was a bit disappointed in the SBR load, but the .308 version performs far better.

 

Have you killed one?

I do not have a MKE 53 (yet) so not their mags, but I have broke the mags PTR sends with the MP5 (I think ETS?), the locking lugs broke off the clear Bulgarian AK mags, one cracked down the side. A friend broke a few different AR clear and yellow mags. So I stay away from them. Just my opinion. Thanks Moose

 

Have you killed one?

I do not have a MKE 53 (yet) so not their mags, but I have broke the mags PTR sends with the MP5 (I think ETS?), the locking lugs broke off the clear Bulgarian AK mags, one cracked down the side. A friend broke a few different AR clear and yellow mags. So I stay away from them. Just my opinion. Thanks Moose

I don't do any plastic mags (for subguns)... none. My latest plastic mag was an ETS for one of my Sig 320s. I reversed the mag release so I can use my best nose pickin' finger to drop the factory STEEL mags. The ETS won't even seat in the gun unless I depress the mag release to allow it to seat. Mag got severely nicked up by trying to reload the gun normally.
Garbage. It's now a range mag only and I've bought 4 more OEM 320 mags (steel) for spares.

 

Has anyone had issues/concerns with their AP53 that may of been brought to light in this video?
HK parts Not fitting?
Use of G3 parts in place of 33/53 parts?
Sights not aligning?
One of my main concerns would be with the mag-well being over sized allowing German steel magazine over-insertion as shown in the video.
The stock seemed to be an easy work-around.
The charging handle being a G3 versus a 33/53 and it's spacing gave me pause.

 

Wow, very interesting about the B&T can. Thanks for following up. I too have a legacy can and mount and this will help me a lot