Desert Tech MDRX | Master Class…

Do the WLVRN

i bought a tavor and before i even fired it i ordered a timney trigger replacement. no regrets. only thing ive changed on that gun. its not as accurate as your mdr ill say that for sure. stupid crome lined barrels.

Whats the suppressor on the thumbnail?

The heavy trigger is what was deterring me from buying a bullpup. However, with less than a 5-pound trigger, I could go for this! I would love the 11.5" barrel with an integral suppressor (making it a full rifle, not an SBR). Now, the only thing stopping me is the $2500+ price tag (not including suppressor)!

Just Tell us is this the one to get in your opinion,. Definitely better than the hellion correct. I watched your hellion video, but she did not mention the desert TEC.

just got one second hand in a 20" 223 with the bipod handguard. Wanted to hate it but it just performs and honestly other than being a heavy setup with 5-25 up top, it's pretty great.

How much were you guys paid for this review?

6:08 Wanna see a magic trick? haha nice

Hey A.A., how are you diggin that primary arms prism optic? Worth the money?

i just wish i could put the p90 or hera arms cqr foregrip on the micron. That's Pretty much the only Problem I have with it

Would love to see a 6.5 Grendel mdrx. With an LPVO of some kind I think it would be able to move between cqb and distance engagements like nothing before.
Edit: Made my comment too early. 6 Arc would be awesome too

Hawaii is more important than China

Something that is glossed over a bit in the MDR/bullpup circles;
tl;dr poor gas system design on larger calibers (namely 308)

..

A major issue with the reliability of the MDR family is the fixed position of the gas block. It's why you have seen so many re-designs (even as recently as Q1 2023) of the gas block in particular. I think DT should work on a longer gas system for .308 and the other cartridges similar to it. A long stroke piston variant maybe? Call it the MDR-L for Large-Caliber and Long-Stroke

With .308 MDRs in particular the issue is that the gas system is imparting movement to the barrel (barrel 'whip') well before the projectile has exited the muzzle and that does affect accuracy a fair bit as the movement can be inconsistent. There is also a lot of energy transferred into parts of the gun that are not really built to handle it on the .308 such as the trunnion/barrel block, carrier rails and all of their bolts. A higher dwell time/longer gas system would alleviate a lot of this, as well as some of the rarer issues with extraction. Simply cutting down the gas on such a short system doesn't really solve these issues either. Additionally some MDRs have had bolts shear inside of 1000 rounds particularly on the 308 models. Some of these cases are due to bad fasteners and others are due to an improper or unclear torque spec at assembly or during manufacture of the fasteners that are produced out of house. There has been some miscommunication of torque spec directly from Desert Tech Support to customers that has lead to broken fasteners on the barrel block in particular as there are known to walk such as with a FN SCAR.

Couple this with out-of-house machining on a lot of those parts, inconsistent supply of small parts from quality vendors (fasteners mostly) and high demand and you get some pretty rough samples out in the wild. Arguably a lot of these issues are mainly present in the longer barrel lengths and higher pressure cartridges. If you only got it for the Micron or a standard 16in model then you'll likely never have a problem. There have also been some issues with metallurgy on the in-house pieces as well and we have seen egging of the holes on the actual receiver or shearing of the linkages for things like the pistol grip mag release. Desert Tech seems to take these problems very seriously but I suspect it will still be a few years before they 'get it right' in the QC department.

Personally the MDR in 6.5 is my favorite rifle but as somebody up to their ears in .308 it's really disappointing they didn't do a better job from the jump on the larger calibers because they are otherwise very intelligent people and they do stand by their product. I can imagine this has lead to a lot of headaches internally as they are continually chasing these issues. I fully expect them to work to improve this and communicate clearly the actions they are taking to resolve these concerns but there really has not been enough coverage of the intricacies of this rifle to date from third parties so we can better educate ourselves as the end-users. It seems that the 6.5CM rifles tend to be the better samples but the 308 seems to be way more popular, which is sad because it can be so issue-prone.

I agree that 6ARC would be amazing in the MDR (and it has been done by Cold Bore Miracle if memory serves) but before we get into wildcat cartridges I really think DT should focus down more on quality control and perhaps even make more radical changes than they have already done. For example, certain 223 models are no longer offered in forward eject or all MDRs made after Q4 22 are now moving to the 300BO white gas bleed off blocks and pressed on gas blocks to improve reliability. DT has shown they are willing to make some fundamental changes to the rifle but I think they are looking to the wrong solutions. If they could move to a 'rifle length' gas system or even something closer to a 'mid length' they wouldn't need to have made some of the changes they already did.

History has shown that playing with gas systems can sometimes be a never ending battle but I think they are equipped to handle the task, personally. All this being said, if you have an issue go to them first. Don't even torque your own screws to the spec provided because their customer service is given a number for dry torque not wet torque for some reason and it's 50/50 what answer you get. Just one example. Just go to DT first, make them aware, send out the rifle and they'll make it right.

Love DT and love their stuff but the MDR is still growing and still being changed so look before you leap

Great video. Wanna watch the caliber change video.

I want the micron part to be made of metal and on the front flat parts have screw holes to put a 2 inch and 4 inch mlok rail that you could hook too it that way you could have the micron handstop and the accessories you may put on your longer barrel set up then take it off and swap the barrel for micron set up

Definitely speaks to me!

Thanks for showing us the MDRX goose! 😂Jk, great video!