A MP5SD conversion or B&T SD is out of reach for me, but this seems like a cheap way to try out the SD design. I have an old Scorpion SBR that I don’t shoot that much anymore, and an old Optimus suppressor that isn’t getting much use, so why not try something different? Any thoughts?

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X-SD Scorpion conversion

My friend who I sold mine to ordered one. I’ll see where he’s at with it. Thing is, they recommend the full Nexus package for the best suppression, which means a new receiver, so you lose the benefit of having a stamped gun sitting around. That, and it’s fucking spendy. Still, by itself, it should be better than a standard can without the bearing delay upgrade.

I do have a Gen 2 Nexus upper on order, but it isn’t here yet. I’m getting all the parts to build a new Scorpion when it gets here, and once I do that, I expect I wouldn’t get much use out of my old CZ SBR unless I did something different with it. Price wise, I don’t think $400 is much at all. I already have a suppressor to use, and I’ve already spent a ton of money upgrading that gun over the years, so it’s basically just that added cost. People spend as much for just a new Scorpion mag lower for various PCCs, not including the added cost of the trigger, safety, and grip. I already have the Nexus bolt in the gun, although I took the 125% recoil spring out because I had some issues, but I can put it back in if it works better with the SD kit.

I haven’t seen anything saying that the Nexus roller delay upper has better suppression than the standard blowback Scorp. I can see less port noise, but the amount of suppression coming out of the muzzle should change that much.

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Originally posted by Dwill104:
Price wise, I don’t think $400 is much at all.

Oh, I was talking about the full Nexus setup, not the X-SD. Honestly, I'll be doing the same thing from the ground up with an AR-9 integral built on the Broad River Tactical/CMMG RDB platform hopefully pretty soon. Whether it ends up being any cheaper remains to be seen, I suppose. Two of my friends have builds with these and they're the quietest, most comfortable shooting PCC's I've encountered so far.

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Originally posted by Dwill104:
I haven’t seen anything saying that the Nexus roller delay upper has better suppression than the standard blowback Scorp. I can see less port noise, but the amount of suppression coming out of the muzzle should change that much.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Port pop and noise to the shooter with direct blowback guns is the main thing the proponents of the Nexus hammer on. I'll be honest, I'm not sure I particularly care much these days about noise at the muzzle vs noise at the shooter's ear. I'm fully a convert to the reduced backpressure camp.

Got the conversion yesterday and installed this morning. Swapping the barrels was pretty easy. Plan to go to the range next week and try it out.

I look forward to your feedback. The can you use will have more of an impact on your experience than you may suspect. Bring along some others to try out if you can.

Because everything is torqued together, it’s not really possible to swap cans at the range. I have to remove the handguard and use a couple of wrenches to get the can off the adapter or get the adapter off the shroud. One of the downsides of the system is that it’s not as easy to swap suppressors as a 3 lug or similar QD system.

I’ll see how it does with this before I decide if I want to spend the money and effort to optimize it.

Took it out today for a quick run at the indoor range. It definitely works in keeping 9mm subsonic. 115gr and 124gr sound the same as 147gr, no supersonic crack. Also a positive surprise was no gas to the face whatsoever, which was a change from the Wolfman I was using last time. While the system was fine, I wasn’t impressed with the sound from my old Optimus 9. It was louder than I expected, even taking into account it’s an older can, but I was hoping it would be better considering it has the Gen 2 baffles. I may try other cans, although I’m a bit limited by the inside diameter of my handguard.

After shooting this a couple of times, and after swapping to a RXD 910ti can, I’m leaning on giving up on this and going back to a standard barrel with a muzzle mounted suppressor. It works as advertised, but there are a couple of things that bother me about the setup. It’s more difficult to clean the barrel with the suppressor installed, and I don’t want to have to remove the handguard and disassemble it for routine cleaning. Unlike an AR, the Scorpion has a solid rear receiver, so you can’t just use a rigid cleaning rod inserted from the chamber end. I use a flexible pull-through cable, but that gets hung up trying to go through the suppressor.

The other issue is the true value of the ability to run supersonic ammo. Yes, it’s cheaper than subsonic ammo, but I have a number of other PCCs that I buy subsonic ammo for, so it really isn’t saving me any money. Also, I’m concerned with the terminal performance reduction of rounds that are designed to go faster. For example, how well are 124 grain hollow points going to work going 150 fps slower? As cool as it is, I don’t think the faux SD juice is worth the squeeze for me.

Now I have to decide whether to go back to the original 7.8” barrel, or a 5.3” barrel. The shorter barrel would be tucked under my handguard, which is something I’m on the fence about. The reduced OAL is nice, but the handguard around the suppressor tends to get warm.