With free stamps, and on a bit of a whim, I picked up a US made HK G26c clone kit from HK parts late last year, and then snagged a S5 Tactical SG-36 stripped receiver. I assembled it late last year, waited for a free tax stamp, and then SBR'd it first thing this year.

First off, assembly. I was disappointed with the receiver, as there were several mold lines that weren't cleaned up (see pictures). I trimmed the excess off pretty easily with a utility knife, but it was a worrying early sign.



Actual assembly was shockingly easy. It makes putting together an AR look like skilled labor. The only real hard part was the mag release catch, doing the whole "aligning a pin while the part is under spring pressure" thing. Installing the barrel required two specialized tools, a mandrel (basically the equivalent of a Geissele Reaction Rod) plus a barrel wrench. Hand thread the barrel on to the extent you can, set your torque wrench to the proper tension, and boom. No real timing or alignment issues, it more or less just screws right on. After this, the rest just snaps right together, three screws for the carry handle and everything else is just a bunch of pins. It honestly took less than an hour going in cold. Super easy, and the most fun firearm I've ever worked on.



Overall, the ergonomics of this rifle are interesting. This is a gun designed by engineers, for engineers and it shows. The number of parts is shockingly few, assembly easy. It is a proper ambi rifle in that the manual of arms is perfectly identical for both left and right, to the point of using a single part for every operation. Paddle mag release, naturally ambi. The top charging handle, naturally ambi. Bolt catch/bolt release, in the trigger grip, naturally ambidextrous. Fascinating design. But in practice, it doesn't all quite gel. First off, I'm not a fan of putting extra controls inside the trigger guard, it just seems dangerous to make users fumble around in there. Using the charging handle isn't bad, but you do kinda have to search and find the handle a bit. The gap to the bottom of the rail-handle is just barely enough, but could be bigger. The top of the bolt just sticks out the top of the receiver, with a flippy floppy handle directly attached. It reciprocates, but is tucked away in a place so you just don’t care. Finally, no paddle mag release is quite as good as an AR style button.

I've had the rifle out to the range three times so far, only a couple of hundred rounds downrange. Two failures to extract on the second trip out. I picked up two used genuine HK magazines, and two new Magpul G36 mags. The Magpul mags insert easily and will more or less drop free when empty. The HK mags take a bit more force to insert, and I frequently need to give them an extra slap.





The other major downside is specific to the cheap US made parts kit, as the iron sights suck pretty bad. I'm a big irons fan, and was planning on just keeping the gun basic. However, the rear sight is loose, and doesn't securely flip to one of the two positions. Under recoil, it will bounce up and down. Furthermore, the design of the aperture was just very poorly sized, and it was very, very hard to keep the front sight centered. I'm not kidding, the first range session I struggled to keep hits plus or minus one foot at 50 yards because of these two issues. In order to keep the overall looks of the gun, I threw on a cheap, low profile pistol sight I had laying around, and I'm pretty happy with it now. When zeroing the sight, I was doing sub-2" groups at 50 yards. Good enough for a fun range gun like this.

Overall, the gun is very light weight, sub-six lbs., and comfortable to shoot. The built in grip is overly slick, but some hockey tape fixed that right up. Finally, the trigger is downright horrific. There is a small amount of take up, and then a hard 10 1/2 pound break, with a ton of overtravel afterward with a corresponding long reset. I'm not sure if there are any good options for improving it, but it could really use a trigger job.



All in all, it is a fun gun, the short-short barrel yields a massive fireball. It looks cool, and has an interesting set of design ideas. As a range gun, it could use some improvements, but as a fun oddity, it delivers.

Great write up. Building one of these has been on my short list for some time now

That’s awesome. I’ve wanted one for years now.

At the risk of being tacky, how much did it set you back? Despite the cracking issues, I think it’s a sweet rifle.

The G36C kits were $1400-ish on HK Parts. They’re listed as $1499 but out of stock at the moment. Receiver was around $500, plus a $100 for the stock. You can get complete K length (12.5” barrel, versus my 8” C model) without a stock for $1900 direct from S5 Tactical. To build it yourself you need about $150 in G36 special tools, but it’s easy enough to flip those for minimal loss if you want.

Thanks for sharing the pics and info. I’ve always wanted one. Every time I see them, I start daydreaming about being a GSG9 operator.

Shackelford, send me a mailing address (email in my profile) and I will send you several MagPul and OE mags. Used to have an FA G36C when we had an SOT, so I have no use for them anymore.

Rkemtm, I appreciate the generosity! How controllable was the FA G36? Considering the light weight, I could imagine it being a handful. Which irons and sights did your gun have? There are quite a few options, if I could adjust one thing I would fix that, I think.

I ran it with whatever version it came with (looked exactly like yours) and I just emailed a pic. It was very controllable!