[Spooner1867]

Hello everyone,

A week or so back, I saw a post by another user asking questions about the M10X rifle by M+M. I had recalled a few Youtube reviews a few years ago, specifically by MAC (Military Arms Channel). I posted that review to his thread and my curiosity was piqued, so I started watching several reviews....then I ended up doing what might end up being a really stupid thing....I got on GB and picked one up!

I got in contact with the seller and had a very pleasant conversation where I explained to him that I'm really hoping to get a piece of shit rifle, so I can study it and figure out what's wrong with it. He laughed and said, "You're the first person I've talked to that actually wants to be sold a piece of shit gun. Unfortunately, I only ever put around 100 rounds through it, so it worked well as far as I can tell." Well I sealed the deal and it arrived today.

For those unfamiliar with this rifle, Here's a brief rundown: It takes very apparent inspiration from the AKM and Sig 550 rifles. Basically you can think of this rifle as a Sig 550 upper slapped onto an AKM lower. It's chambered in 7.62 x 39mm and accepts all standard AK mags. It's a long-stroke piston system with a captive recoil spring around the piston, which is detached from the carrier at the charging handle, along with an adjustable gas regulator, all ripped directly from the Sig 550.

Here's what I've observed in my teardown (Captions at bottom of each image):

This is what it looks like right out of the box. It's definitely brand new with basically no blemishes on it. It came with one Magpul PMAG. One annoying thing is that the earlier models shipped with proprietary flip-up sights and this ships with nothing. This means it requires an optic right out of the box.

FCG is proprietary M+M parts, but they're a direct copy of AK parts, with the exception of a cheaper single-wire spring.

Here's where I notice my first red flag. The upper receiver on this rifle is a cast steel insert, comprising the bolt and carrier rails and barrel trunnion, pressed into an extruded aluminum cover (which you see from the outside).

There's no noticeable wear at all, confirming that the seller barely fired the rifle.

Here's a shot looking at the bottom face of the upper receiver. Note the 6 recoil lugs that lock into the lower receiver when closed up. It's my opinion that these are a redundancy since the "inner" upper receiver already has solid lockup with the lower at the front pivot joint and rear stock trunnion.

Here's another look showing the sand casting texture on the "inner" upper. The casting is definitely high quality as far as precision goes but still a poor choice, considering what we know happens to cast AKM trunnions. I haven't seen any reviews with catastrophic failure of the locking lugs (on the trunnion), but there are also only a few reviews out there who've taken the time to get this thing past 1000 rounds.

Here's a look down the upper from the rear. Note the feed ramp just in front of the chamber. In my opinion this is a little more restrictive than an AK. The reason I suggest this is that this rifle is notorious for feeding issues as illustrated in several different reviews. (Again, I have not fired this personally yet, so I cannot confirm on this one.)

Aside from removing the FCG, this is all the rifle strips down to. I actually really admire this aspect of the design. The company's efforts to build an incredibly simple rifle should be praised.

The carrier is in pristine condition, and again, an almost direct copy from the Sig 550.

I've run out of attachment space, so this concludes part one...

 

[Spooner1867]

This is the last shot of the carrier. One noteworthy thing on the carrier is that there are no dimples from spot checking hardness. This is concerning to me because they are allowing these to pass with maybe a batch test (one part out of a series) at best, if they are checking at all...

The bolt is also in pristine condition but something here should be noted. This is Gen 1 of the bolt. There is a Gen 2 bolt that is "hardened" because of sheared locking lugs. On the last picture in the series, I circled an area where they added a relief cut around the shank of the bolt. I'm not quite sure what the reasoning is for this, as there shouldn't be any stress riser in that area with a conventional 90 degree corner. Again, there are no dimples from spot checking hardness.

Pictured here is the piston tube. Note that the front has labels for the gas positions, 1, 0, and 2. I consider this kind of sloppy since the 1 position is clipped off by the relief cut to plug the gas regulator in.

The gas regulator has an arrow engraved on the front to indicate position (sorry my picture is shitty). Along with this is a hole to plug a cartridge into for quick adjustment (just like a Sig 550).

This concludes part two.

 

[Spooner1867]

One last look at the gas regulator.

Here's a look at the gas piston. Note the captive recoil spring. I'm not convinced that this is an issue, but I find it curious that the front face is flat instead of concave.

This is the charging handle. In my opinion, this is the worst part of the rifle, ergonomically speaking. The groves dig into your fingers very aggressively while cycling the action. The take-down cap also has a little play while your finger(s) squeeze against it, which doesn't feel good. I'm also not totally in love with the locking mechanism, but it is effective. The way it works is by depressing the end cap and rotating it 90 degrees to lock and unlock from the carrier. It can be removed and swapped to either side of the carrier. It also serves as a retaining pin, locking the tail of the gas piston to the bolt carrier (just like a Sig 550).

This particular rifle came with a Magpul PMAG instead of M+M's proprietary magazine that earlier models shipped with. I assume this was a result of customer issues that were experienced early on with their cheaply produced magazines.

In summary, I really do appreciate the simplicity of the design. As a mechanical engineer and rifle designer, the intent of this purchase was to discover and study its' failure points and figure out how this design can be improved upon. I've been developing a rifle slowly over the last 10 years that is very similar in concept to this one, especially the Sig 550 inspired components, so I hope to take some important lessons from this rifle at the expense of M+M.

Once I scrounge up enough ammo to take this thing to the range, I'll start performing an endurance test and see what I find. My goal would be to put at least 500 rounds of various ammo brands through it, but that could take a while.

If anyone else has any questions, personal experience, or anything else to add, I'd love the contributions. I hope this was useful and informative!

 

[G-off]

Thanks for the info, I believe I was the one asking about them, seems like a good design just not quite executed. I’m trying to get away from buying one as a problem child but they are intriguing.

 

[Spooner1867]

Thanks for the info, I believe I was the one asking about them, seems like a good design just not quite executed. I’m trying to get away from buying one as a problem child but they are intriguing.

Honestly, if I wasn't in the process of designing something very similar, I would've avoided this entirely. However, I feel like there is a lot to learn here, if you know what to look for from a design/engineering standpoint. Who knows, maybe I end up making aftermarket parts that fix this thing up to be a proper rifle. At this point, only range time will tell if I ended up getting a good one or not. But for my purposes, I'm hoping it's a bad one...lol