Why yes, explicitly designed for that!

Frozeniceman,

Thanks for the source of a conversion barrel/kit for my MDR. I'll go to work on it and see what their lead time is...

Wes

Anytime and good luck!

You may want to do some digging in the SE 5.56 if I remember correctly that kit is not compatible with the original MDR pattern bolt. You could call DT and get the part numbers from them that you need and order through extreme guns.

Gents,

Some good and bad news concerning the Desert Tech's MDR/MDRx. Desert Tech has no conversion kits available for the MDR and it appears that they have quite supporting the MDR with conversion kits. That's a big bummer for those of use that bought the MDR with the intention of converting it to .223.For those that want a MDRx in .223 I suggest buying the rifle in that caliber. It appears that Desert Tech is building the MDRx in .308, 6.5 CM, and .223, but is NOT doing a very good job of supporting the conversion kit market.
My advice is to buy the rifle you want and hope that the company will make the conversions available in the future. Xtreme guns and ammo didn't leave me with much hope for that in the next six months or so.

Right now I'm pissed at Desert Tech. Who do I have to be Ian Mcollum or Karl to get decent customer service and conversion kits...

Wes

That is unfortunate to hear, well in that case I suspect your only other option is to look for aftermarket conversion kits if DT can't provide it. But I suppose that gives me incentive to put orders in for the other conversion kits sooner rather than later.

ES-Tactical does make replacement barrels and conversion kits. I am not completely certain of the process but it sounds like they may be the best bet. I suspect they make the barrels and attach them to DT parts kit/chambers.

https://www.es-tactical.com/

I can't say enough bad things about the MDR.

I bought one last summer - was super excited.
I don't want to go into the long saga... but it's been back to the manufacturer about 4 times since then and the damn thing still doesn't work.
Failure to fire - failure to feed - failure to eject.
Basically failure to everything - both suppressed and unsuppressed.
I got so fed up with it I simply gave the damn thing away to a friend.

$2500 rifle - gave it away because it's an utter piece of shit.

The first bit of my pain:
https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...935/m/2990041544/p/1

Ya, I definitely heard the MDR had some serious problems. From what I understand it was super picky with ammo. In range TV and forbidden weapons did a special on it last year that came to the same conclusion. Apperently they talked directly to the president around December and force fed them the problems. Apperently they did a bunch of updates and shipped their gun back in February or so and they reran it and they love it now but they replaced them with a whole new 6 position gas system (as you see us talking about it above).

It also sounds like the MDR gen 2 uses a different gas and bolt system then the MDRx does which is why the MDRx conversion kits are bit reverse compatible, I think the new gas system is 3 position.

I will be trying my luck with a new MDRx in a couple days, finally made it through the wait list.

how can one use the phrase "battle rifle" and MDR?
Simply a non starter.

Battle rifles are chambered in 7.62 or larger caliber and is designed to be carried by regular infantry and the MDR in 7.62 does that? There are plenty of video reviews on them if you like, forgotten weapons, in range TV, and grande thumb all call it a battle rifle.

I’m pretty sure most would consider the term to include being carried into
battle or at least issued to some entity the could carry it. The mdr has none of that providence.

The M16/M4 are not considered battle rifles. They are considered assault rifles. The size of the cartridge definitely is the differentiator.

For comparison the M1 and M14 are battle rifles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_rifle

Desert Tech definitely is marketing the MDRx for military use either way. It is only a matter of time before they get picked up for military service (police are already using it) like their other rifle lineup. The MDRx is definitely the most modern battle rifle on the market and is certainly getting attention.

quote:

Originally posted by FrozenIceman:
Ya, I definitely heard the MDR had some serious problems. From what I understand it was super picky with ammo. In range TV and forbidden weapons did a special on it last year that came to the same conclusion. Apperently they talked directly to the president around December and force fed them the problems. Apperently they did a bunch of updates and shipped their gun back in February or so and they reran it and they love it now but they replaced them with a whole new 6 position gas system (as you see us talking about it above).

It also sounds like the MDR gen 2 uses a different gas and bolt system then the MDRx does which is why the MDRx conversion kits are bit reverse compatible, I think the new gas system is 3 position.

I will be trying my luck with a new MDRx in a couple days, finally made it through the wait list.

Yeah I got/installed the new gas parts - didn't help.
I even had an email chain going with the CEO for a while - didn't help.
I'm forever done with that piece of shit company.

That's disappointing about the MDR. I didn't know the rifle existed until I saw one on Youtube. I definitely want one but I'm not putting up with a bunch of problems in a $2,500.00 rifle.

You know, wouldn't it so much cheaper and easier for the company to buy 10 cases of ammo and work the problems out of these things before they sell them? It sure would beat dealing with angry customers.

Come one, $2,500.00 is a lot of money.

V.

quote:

The size of the cartridge definitely is the differentiator

I made no distinction about caliber. I'm happy to accept that it be a full size cartridge. My point was that it needs to be a " military service rifle" (quoting wikipedia as you do) to be considered one. And to the best of my knowledge the MDR is not currently. But maybe I'm not up to speed on that.

quote:

Originally posted by White Phosphorus:
That's disappointing about the MDR. I didn't know the rifle existed until I saw one on Youtube. I definitely want one but I'm not putting up with a bunch of problems in a $2,500.00 rifle.

You know, wouldn't it so much cheaper and easier for the company to buy 10 cases of ammo and work the problems out of these things before they sell them? It sure would beat dealing with angry customers.

Come one, $2,500.00 is a lot of money.

V.

Supposedly that is what they did with each set of gas system improvements but my guess is that some kind of tolerance problem resulted in variability in the systems. For example Forgotten Weapons and In Range TV after they got their upgrade kit reported that it ate everything thrown at it.

I am just hoping the MDRx variant which I suppose would be the Gen 3 MDR solves the problem better than the others.

quote:

I even had an email chain going with the CEO for a while - didn't help.

Ya, I agree, it took a serious deep dive by some youtube personalities for them to acknowledge the problems publicly and actually update/repair them under warranty.

quote:

I made no distinction about caliber. I'm happy to accept that it be a full size cartridge. My point was that it needs to be a " military service rifle" (quoting wikipedia as you do) to be considered one. And to the best of my knowledge the MDR is not currently.

True, but I think their goal is to sell it to a military as a battle rifle. Probably is a cart horse thing but it is designed to be used by infantry (at least the auto version is anyway) and their chances at least having it used in some special forces around the world as a DMR is probably pretty good assuming they solved the reliability problem with the MDRx.

Here hoping it eats M80 Ball...

Folks,

To date my MDR has eaten 500 flawless rounds of Isreali .308 ball ammo. Accuracy is very good. I'm happy about that, but I AM NOT happy about it's inability to convert to 5.56. Buying another guns is NOT a conversion in my opinion.

Wes

Another option might be to complain/ask around for options on the bullpup forum, bullpup subreddit, or even the DT forum. DT tends to bend over backwards with bad press. If you do it in the forums they look over you may find traction on them building an MDR kit for you.

I also read a post on the bullpup subreddit where it says the best place to get thr kits is directly from DT (but it will of course take time).

Wes

This guy is trying to sell a pair of 556 MDR conversion kits. If you are quick you might be able to nab it.

http://bullpupforum.com/index....pv8mr0&topic=14888.0

I bought a NIB Century Arms C308 from a member here earlier this year. The C308 is a build based off the Spanish CETME rifle which is the father of the H&K G3, roller-delay blowback and chambered in 7.62/.308

I still have not gotten a chance to fire it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

This thing is built like a tank!