I think I just didn’t give it enough heat. Wound up boiling it for twenty minutes and it came loose with ease. I have four bolts on the Scorpion I forgot I used Rocksett on ( ) that I need to remove to get the barrel off, so I’m about to try my way again a bit later tonight.

Tri lug is a trip. Doesn’t seem as solid as the other methods I’ve got experience with, but as long as it holds it concentric to the bore and doesn’t launch it down range, good enough is good enough. Looking forward to getting the SP9A3 to the range. A friend of mine is putting together a range trip for the 15th, so that should give me enough time to hopefully get the Scorpion barrel to my buddy’s machine shop, get it turned down and get the other tri lug on it, and then I can do a direct comparison between the two suppressed.

The trilug on my Wolfman/SP5K has a very tiny amount of wobble, but overall it's pretty solid. The accuracy is dead-on with it attached and the alignment rod looks good. I'm pretty happy with the attachment method so far. It's not too difficult to take off, though I've had to grab the can while holding the weapon vertically and give the butt a bit of a tap on a solid surface to disengage the trilug after quite a few rounds.

Yeah, I think it ought to work out fine. I’ve been attaching and removing a fair bit over the last few hours because of the sheer novelty of it all, and I’m both amused and impressed.

There is far too much barrel and suppressor sticking off the end of this for my liking, and now I’m wondering if a handguard extension is the way to go, or have my machinist friend chop the barrel and thread it to be flush with the receiver. Need to shoot it before I start deciding things.

Smudge, have you had it out to the range yet? How smooth shooting is it? Any reliability concerns?

I have not yet, no. About we week after I got it, I went out of town for two weeks and got back late this last Thursday night. I wanted to get the suppressor stuff sorted out before I did. Now I’m hoping to get the Scorpion sorted out with tri lug first as well so I can compare them both suppressed and unsuppressed so it’s more apples to apples. I may forego that, though. I’m itching to get out there, so it may be as soon as tomorrow or the next day, hot-swapping the can be damned.

In loading and feeding manually, it seems smooth and doesn’t bind anywhere. Supposedly these guns do not like feeding hollow points, but that’s with the factory straight magazines. About two years ago, they started shipping them with curved mags that mostly deal with this. Mine is a 2021 production date, so NOS and probably the reason it was cheaper than the current going rate. That’s ok, I had planned to do the Scorpion lower anyway, so it evened out. $15-18 per 35rd magazine sounds better to me than $40 for the new Global Ordnance 30rd magazines. As long as it’ll feed the truncated nose Aguila subsonic I’ve started building up a stockpile of, I’ll be a happy camper.

Well Smudge....I hope you're happy !! You've started an itch for me re: getting a Stribog !! Around here, I can't actually get my hands on one to see how it fits my small hands and short, fat fingers.
Any impressions on length of trigger pull and size of grip ?? (I'm good with AR grips.) Thanks !

Well, the factory lower has more or less the dimension of an AR lower with an A2 grip installed, but without the duck bill. In fact, grip cores and plugs meant to fit an A2 grip will fit the grip on the factory lower. Trigger reach isn’t bad, again, like an AR. Factory trigger also isn’t bad, honestly. It’s a shorter pull and crisper than the mystery trigger I have in my Lingle lower now. I thought it was the ALG I had, but if it is, I’m super unimpressed with it.

Replacement lowers of the various flavors change it straight over to AR grips, triggers, and safeties, so there’s always that if you find the factory lower is an issue. A3 Tactical makes the most affordable one at around $190. I think dimensionally speaking, you should be fine.

And yeah, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened a thread and wound up spending money off it.

Thanks for the info and your time !!

I love this one. It's an RRA with a Colt block installed, and takes 32 round Colt stick magazines.



As shown, it has a 16 inch barrel, since the lower left the factory as a rifle. This makes it very accurate at 50 yards and also ensures low noise and virtually no recoil. With a 10.5 upper, it would be perfect, but I would have to do that on a separate pistol build with a different lower.

Honestly, though. This is a fantastic home defense firearm. Accurate, hard hitting, low noise, zero flash, light, and agile.

quote:

and agile

and your kidding right? I get there are many reasons why one would not want an SBR (or a braced pistol while for the moment they are legal) for some purposes and in some States but if those don't apply to you there is simply no reason for a 16" barrel in 9mm for home defense when you can get all the benefits of 9mm in packages that are way way shorter even actually suppressed. And with that you actually get low noise, zero flash.

Well, I got the Scorpion apart and dropped the barrel and tri lug with my machinist friend. He said he'd have it back to me by the middle of next week. Gives me time to put it back together for a night shoot I'm planning for that weekend. I'll get to compare the Scorpion and the SP9A3 suppressed with subs on a silent range. Looking forward to that. I'll have a friend take video and see if we can't compare the amount of port pop/flash between the two. Got a case of 147gr subsonic coming, so I should be set for a little bit with that plus the half case or so I still have on hand.

I picked up a JTAC extension for half the price new, from a guy who bought the wrong one. It evens up the receiver extension about flush with the shoulder on the barrel, so all that's sticking out is the tri lug. I also gain another MLOK slot and three more Picatinny slots on top and bottom, plus a QD pocket on each side. I was concerned it might feel a bit janky, but it is super solid. Also installed the HBI locking charging block and extended bolt catch/release. Big improvement in feel, overall.

Got my Form 1 draft totally filled out and ready to file. Money thinned out a bit in the last week, so I won't get to file it as soon as I'd hoped, but when I do, I have the B&T MP5 stock ready to go. I'm looking forward to finishing this one up. I think the only thing it actually still needs is a decent trigger. Anyone ever shaved down the hook off the back of a USGI hammer? I don't need it to catch an auto sear and I think it would drastically improve the lock time. The trigger feels kind of like a flintlock.

Oh, and I sent Global Ordnance an email asking about the 40 degree locking insert and got an email back this morning asking to confirm my shipping address and phone number so they could send it out. After reading up, a lot of guys report that it's the last little bit missing between where it is stock, and MP5-smooth when suppressed and shooting subs. It's designed for the heavier loads and handles it better than the 45 degree "US" locking insert it has shipped with since 2022, which was meant to deal with 115gr powder puff stuff, which I mostly won't be shooting anyway. The recoil impulse is apparently also less of a shuffling feel than an MP5. A friend of mine has a nice clone built up, I'm gonna see if he'll bring it to the night shoot so we can compare.

Yep, it's getting a stamp. Just got back from a night shoot out in the desert with the guys. Compared it with the Scorpion, the Stribog is a much better gun. It feels more solid, everything is tighter and smoother, and the recoil impulse is much softer. It's noticeably quieter suppressed. It really is a joy to shoot. A couple of the guys are looking for a 9mm PCC, and I let them take a turn with it. It made a very solid impression on the guys who tried it out.

It really didn't like the original smoke Scorpion mags, but then again, neither does the Scorpion. I had a lot of failures with those. The 35rd Pmags were flawless. Once a few of those were empty, I unloaded the 115gr stuff from some of the CZ mags and loaded it into the Pmags, and all that fed just fine in both guns. With quality magazines, the gun is reliable as currently set up.

I am very pleased with this conclusion to my search. The gun, the suppressor, the tri lug setup, the HBI parts, the lower with Scorpion magazine compatibility and improved AR trigger that'll eventually go in it: I feel like it handily hits all the points I was looking for. This is a sweet shooter. I overlooked the Stribog because Grand Power is relatively new to the game and had a rough start with these guns, but a little tweaking went a long way, and I really like this thing.

Brought it to another night shoot this past weekend. It performed really well. I had some failures to feed at the end, but I diagnosed it to the magazine. I haven't messed with it yet, but this one Pmag didn't want to feed rounds up and I got consistent stovepipes with it towards the end of the magazine. I'll take it apart and run it through the ultrasonic, then mark it and see. I need to buy more magazines. I'll get some more Pmags and probably also try out some PSA AKV mags as well. I'm easily north of 500 rounds with it, and only a handful of failures, all magazine related.

On a related note, I went to unload the factory mags I had loaded when I got it a few months ago, and the followers in all three were stuck in place. The first round slid out easily and all the rest of the rounds stayed in place. After pulling a few, the follower would start to move and shove all the rounds towards the feed lips ass up. These are the straight mags with the steel reinforced feeds lips, and they're total dogshit. No wonder this gun got a bad rep. I think if you were interested in the platform and didn't want to screw around with the factory mags or Scorpion or Colt mags, the Glock mag lower might be the ticket. I considered it, but there's something about the feed angle of those magazines in a gun like this that looks stupid to me. Curved mags or no thanks.

I also threw an optic on it. Given that my primary use for it is night shooting with night vision, I wanted something that would play well with it. The PA 1X Microprism I have on my SBR'ed PS90 is great, but I wanted to try something different. The Holosun AEMS is working out great in this role. With a little cheapy riser, it's sitting at (I think) 1.93" and is really fast and easy to pick up. I'm not sure it loses a hell of a lot to the EXPS3 in terms of light transmission. Shooting passive on the clock, it's very fast. I like it.

I also took advantage of a sale on the Rovyvon GL4 Pro. Without getting too deep in the weeds, I think this is the budget LAM to beat for a PCC. Very impressed with the features and performance for the price. It's better than the TLR VIR II in a lot of ways. My complaints would be the switch and how they have it set to a press for constant or holding for momentary. It's very floody, but that's fine on a subgun.

I also need to try a couple other types of ammo. I bought a case of Federal AE9FP, and while it's subsonic, it's noticeably louder than the Aguila 147gr that I still have some of. I'm gonna head to True Shot some time this week and pick up a box of every subsonic 9mm load they have and see which I like best. I keep reading that Syntech 150gr is king, but I want to see what's out there. Really, I need to finish up my workshop in the garage and get the Rock Chucker Supreme setup I inherited going and start learning to reload.

I think I'm honing in on exactly what I was looking for. It's fast, it's quiet, it's reliable (with good magazines), and very importantly: it's a lot of fun to shoot set up this way. The recoil impulse is light and fast, not clunky and jumpy like with the Scorpion. I think it's safe to say I'm going to leave that one in the safe. Need to eventually buy a nice trigger for it to really come together. I also pulled the AGR43 grip off in favor of a Magpul K2XL, and it was the right move. Feels much better. I'll post a pic tomorrow, it's time to get some sleep.

Form 1 came through, finally. Haven’t gotten to shoot it with the stock yet, but I’m really liking the B&T stock so far. Whole setup feels great, really cohesive. Kind of a modern MP5 concept in a lot of ways.

Well, I made an important discovery. Some (or even most) Stribogs don't like to feed some flat point ammo, and many hollow points. This is a known issue in the community, and mine is apparently one of them. Over the last several range trips, I've run into some serious problems. I shot a match last month and out of thirty rounds on the first stage, I think I managed to get two to feed in a row, otherwise it stovepiped every round. I think the par time was something around 40 seconds and I was over four minutes on it. In the daylight, it would've been faster and easier to clear, but on a moonless night under NODs, I had to do it all by feel. I thought it was the magazines because they were the original OEM CZ Scorpion magazines from 2015, but then I started having problems with my Pmags as well. I started marking mags that gave me trouble with painters tape and when it was more of them than not, I decided I needed to do some troubleshooting. Yesterday over several hours at the range, I isolated it down to the Federal American Eagle AE9FP. Every combination of magazine and locking insert worked with every other combination of round nose bullet I brought, but any combination of the above involving the AE9FP had failures to feed. I could not induce a failure that didn't involve that ammo.

I didn't have these failures with CCI Blazer flat nose, I didn't have these failures with the Aguila flat nose, both in 147gr. It's just been the American Eagle. I've shot up all the CCI, but I think I may still have some of the Aguila loaded up, and if so, I'm going to take a caliper to ten of them and get an average OAL and compare that to the AE9FP and see if there's enough of a difference there that's possibly contributing. Whatever it is, I'm not going to bother trying any more of the AE in this gun. I'm also going to look into polishing the feed ramp, because that probably can't hurt. Interestingly enough, it liked 147gr HST's, and they remained subsonic as well. I think if I can get another 500 rounds through it without a problem, I'll call it fine for a defensive option.

Worth passing along to anyone else reading this, I think. I'm shooting an NVG match tomorrow night, and I'm going to load up some Pmags with some round nose 147gr PMC Bronze that it likes and see how it does. Later tonight, I'm going to detail strip it and throw it in the ultrasonic, because it's absolutely caked in filth. I wish I had kept close track, but I'm easily north of 2k, probably close to 3k rounds through it. I shot at least another 600 in the last two weeks. Quite pleased with how it shoots, and after swapping out the locking insert and back again, I can confirm that the original 45 degree non-"US" marked locking insert has noticeably less recoil suppressed, which has less noticeably less recoil than shooting it without a can in the first place. It's doing exactly what I was looking for: a quiet, smooth-shooting "subgun" that feeds from the ubiquitous Scorpion magazine.

Very interesting update. You’d think issues with feeding like that would have been noticeable during design and testing phases at the manufacturer. I’m curious to see how any modifications, like the ramp polish, will affect it.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
You’d think issues with feeding like that would have been noticeable during design and testing phases at the manufacturer.

Yeah, you'd think so. Apparently, the gun was designed around hotter European and NATO spec 9mm. Concessions and iterative changes have been made to work around the varieties of 9mm we like and use in the US. They changed the export version to use a 40 degree locking block instead of the original 45 degree, for example. These are marked "US" on the left side. This makes for more vigorous cycling with all loads, and is more reliable with powder puff 115gr stuff. Since I pretty much shoot it exclusively suppressed and with heavier subsonic ammo, I asked the importer if they had any 45 degree locking blocks kicking around, and they sent me one for free. It is noticeably smoother recoiling in my setup.

I shot another match last night, and this time, I brought Pmags loaded only with PMC Bronze 147gr round nose. It ran flawlessly, and was easily the quietest setup of anyone in our squad, and there were several other suppressed 9mm PCC's. One stage had three steel targets at 50 yards that had to be engaged with one round each from three different positions for a total of nine rounds. A buddy got a video of my run, and you can hear a sidebar conversation of a guy exclaiming "Jesus!" three shots in a row, followed by another guy telling him "yeah, suppressed PCC's, man."

I never did get to clean it before the match, but that's the plan for later this evening. Everything is going in a fresh, heated bath of Simple Green Aircraft grade in the ultrasonic, and then reassembled and greased. I need to pick up some Mother's Mag and a rouge cloth and see what I can do with the feed ramp working it manually.

Apparently if you stone the hammer on a Franklin Armory AR binary down by .083" in width, it'll reliably work in a Stribog with a converted lower. I just happen to have everything I need to try this, so that will be my next stunt after the feed ramp. I'm waiting on the courts to fully settle all this stuff with forced reset triggers before messing with any of that, but I would eventually like to try one of those out. I think this exact setup would be a hoot with an FRT.