Colt SR25 Designated Marksman Assault Rifle (1:3 Trumpeter)

[Mike]

I've just reviewed this here and as I have the Airsoft version of what is (to me) the best looking variant of the AR15/10 family, I decided to crack it open for a quick build. I started slapping it together last night, building up the major assemblies so they would be cured by today. The parts all fit quite well, with a good friction fit of the pinned parts, and only a little mould slip and ejector pin marks on the sight mounts to worry about. There are quite a few lips on the edges of parts that need a little work, but overall it went together quite quickly. I've begun working on hiding the seams on the receiver, magazine and stock, only to re-scribe them later as appropriate to their construction, in an attempt to get a nice clean line. The magazine seems a little tight in the magwell, so I've been scraping and sanding that area a little bit to sort it out, to avoid splitting the front of the lower receiver over time.

The model breaks down very similarly to the real thing, and I've had plenty of experience in dismantling the Airsoft version too. Even the pins holding the upper and lower receivers are there, and they are a friction fit too, so you can leave them unglued while you're building it. One of the lenses for the scope was missing in my kit, but I'm not too bothered, and if you look closely at the sprue pics in the review, you'll see it was missing from the outset.

The barrel of the rifle is nicely moulded with no mould-slip and a fine seam running down it that's easy to scrape off with a concave blade, then sand back smooth with a polishing stick. Here's how it looks at the moment:

A bit dusty, but that's to be expected at this stage. The tricky part is remembering which seams are present in the real rifle, and which aren't. I'll have to check my references before I go ahead and re-scribe, but I'm rather enjoying the build. Incidentally, the gun-rack that comes with it is quite fancy. As well as extending vertically to suit the rifle, it can also be turned slightly left or right to better show off the rifle in your cabinet if you're so minded. Sure it's not very realistic, but it is quite a good idea, and with some weathering over an olive-drab base, should look good.

[Mike]

A bit more progress. The scope has been made up and the seams dealt with, but as I'd lost one of the lenses even before I started building, I decided to crash-mould some covers for it to hide the fact. I heated up some styrene sheet with a hot air paint stripper and plunged it over the apertures, taking several attempts to get it good enough to use. I cut them back to length and glued them on, fettling any ripples as I went along. I chose to do the simple push-on covers rather than the fancy flip-up captive caps you see in the movies, mainly because I'm lazy!

Here's a pic of the rifle push-fitted together - only the RIS grips are missing now, and I'm going to give her a coat of black primer shortly to finish fettling any seams, then scribe in the mould lines on the stock, receiver and mag once I've looked at my references. Oh, and I also need to remember how the foldable front sight sits in the down position, because I can't right now, and don't fancy a trip to the loft to find mine. There's the laziness again

[phildagreek]

Looks smart.

[Giorgio N]

Mike, your model so your choice, but personally I'd get rid of the front sight completely. If there's a front sight, there should be a rear one and I'm not sure this is in the kit parts

[Mike]

I hear ya, and looking at this pic from Wiki, it makes me wonder what the armourer was thinking leaving the rear sight block on so close the to eye-cup of the scope.

IIRC the rear sight block is a much easier task to remove than the front, and that's why I removed my rear one and left the front one in-situ. I've seen a few on t'internet with the same set-up, so I'll fold it down with a little surgery. I think the front portion of the barrel was on a sprue labelled "M16", so it's probably a standard part that Trumpy figured would fit all eventualities.

[Mike]

I broke out the scratch building tools, and cut off the moulded in foresight (wouldn't we all like one of those?), retaining the crooked L-shaped part for later. The top of the gas-block was a bit concave at that point due to a slight mis-match in the mould and my ministrations, so I skinned it with a piece of 0.5mm styrene sheet, glued down with CA for speed. I cut a circular notch in the top of the sight post with a drill bit and another hole further down the post, and then attached a piece of 0.2mm brass wire to portray the needle. I shortened the bottom leg of the L, and built up the sides of the sight from stock, rounding off the corners as per some 'net pics. I drilled a couple of shallow holes in the sides to represent the retaining pin on the uprights as well as the top of the block and then glued the shortened sight-post back in place laying down as flat as it can because of the front cap on the RIS/handguard. This isn't a kludge, as I've actually seen them in this position for the exact same reason.

Sorry the white of the scratch-built bits is blown out - it's tricky to get both the blacks and the whites to look good in a close-up

[AngloSaxon]

Looks really great, Mike. In fact, I would be tempted to start a collection if they did some UK weaponry.

Mike D.

[Mike]

I know what you mean Mike. I'm really enjoying this for some reason - probably my affinity for weapons after skirmishing for a year, but like you say, some British and some historical stuff would be great. I particularly fancy a Grease Gun, our SA80, maybe an MG42, a Luger, Broom Handled Mauser, MP40, STG44 and a few others that aren't readily springing to mind right now - an AK47 would have some pretty wide appeal too. Maybe they're just opening up the US market first, and once they've got everyone hooked, they'll widen the appeal.

The black primer has been shot ('scuse pun) and clean-up isn't looking too bad. A couple of tiny bits here & there, but not so shabby really.

[Giorgio N]

Mike, the sight on the rifle in the picture is correctly positioned at the rear end of the rail. On the military Mk.11 Mod.0 the sights are pretty much always on the rifle and are meant as a backup in the unlucky case of the scope being damaged. Of course the sights can only be used when the scope is not on the rifle. The rifle in the picture is a military one as can be seen from the markings on the lower receiver.

Commercial rifles are generally used for long range target shooting and in this case there's really no need for the backup sights. It should also be said that the commercial SR25 rifles have gone through a certain evolution and when the rifle was first introduced several years ago it was quite different from what Trumpeter represents today... At the same time a number of military rifles seem to have hit the civilian market today. The matter of commercial vs. military from a modelling point of view is important for the markings, markings that differ quite a lot between the two.

In any case, you're doing a good job on this one !

[Mike]

Thanks for the info Giorgio - you clearly know the rifle well My knowledge is limited to having owned a replica

Anyway! on with the silliness! I sprayed the rifle with a coat of Alclad Aluminium after masking off the butt-stock and the handgrip, after which I overcoated it with some Lifecolor Panzer Grey or similar. The number has rubbed off the bottle Once that was laid on thick enough, I removed bits with a cocktail stick, paying attention to areas of wear and remembering where mine was worn. I also burnished the paint a little with a polishing stick and detail painted all the adjustment turrets on the scope in LC Panzer Uniform for contrast, adding a little Dark Earth to the mix to paint the lens caps. The masking was removed and the black primered stock and grip give a nice contrast to the slightly oxidised look of the main colour. Handling also adds a bit of difference, as the paint absorbs some finger oils, just like the real thing.

Next step is to give the rifle a coat of Alclad Aqua gloss and add a little pigment grime into the deep recesses of the handgrip, butt-stock and the rail covers. After that, a matt coat, and some final weathering, and I'll call 'er done. Me and my big mouth saying I won't get anything else finished this year

[John_W]

Nice.

I have a set of RIS covers that have done duty for a number of years. Started on an SR16 and now on a G36K and they are pretty battered and scratched with ingrained dirt and shiny high spots.

Have you noticed that M16s get shiny patches where the web of the shooting hand rubs the reciever above the pistol grip?

I always got shiny patches on the LHS reciever where it rubbed on my Assault Vest.

[Mike]

RIS covers are pretty handy, and keep your hands a little warmer if you're carrying in cold weather. It's amazing how quickly holding a piece of metal will chill your hands, even through a pair of nomex gloves

[Mike]

A well-worn plastic mag added to the mix:

[Mike]

Well... that was fun

I decided against gloss coating the rifle because I really liked the patina it had obtained during handling and weathering, so I buffed it up a little more and then set about it with some pigments in a fixer solution, running it into the knurled areas and any grooves that would be hard, or unimportant to keep clean. I rubbed any excess off with a small piece of kitchen roll and that's her done. The finish is fragile as hell, so I don't think I'll be handling it over-much, but I'm quite pleased with how it's come out. If I had the energy to go and get my full-sized replica out of the loft, I would, but I haven't, sorry!

No banana was available for scale, so the paint pot will have to do

I really did enjoy that, and made a liar of myself when I said I wouldn't finish another model this year. Oh well... can't be helped If you're in the modelling doldrums, you could do a lot worse than pick one of these up for a relative song, and enjoy the hell out of building it

Review sample courtesy of

[John_W]

Not an SR25, but my M5/M16A4 for comparison. (Fullsize replica)

Nice job Mike, without the pot you couldn't tell.

Edited December 16, 2013 by John_W