DPMS hunter Gen II 243 review

wheel10

New member
I bought this gun about 3 months ago. It took me 4 or 5 weeks before I finally got a chance to shoot it. While breaking it in, it would not lock back on an empty factory mag and was not cycling properly. Furthermore as a left handed shooter, brass was ejecting right into my face. Brass was in rough shape too. Thats the bad news. I had to send it back to DPMS. At this point I was pretty disappointed with the rifle and it had left a bad taste in my mouth already. I'm glad I waited until I got it back to write a review.

Took about a month to get back. Got it out today and I'm glad to say the cycling is perfect and ejects where it should. Brass is also much cleaner.

Of course the most important question is how does it shoot. I had some 58 grain vmax and varget already loaded up for another gun. they shot a .75 clover. I also had 58 vmax superformance factory loads that I wanted to chew up. 5 of the 6 bullets where touching. The bullet I bought the gun for and planned on reloading was the Hornady 87 BTHP. loaded IMR4350 at 42, 42.5 and 43 to about .015 of the lands. The first 2 loads where under .5 and the load of 43 had the bullets overlapping. No Chrony numbers.
Don't think I ever had a gun that I found my go to load after 9 rounds. It seems like it will shoot whatever I feed it so that has me pretty fired up.

I put a seekins comp on it, which I like for barrel jump. The trigger pretty much sucks. Has a ton of travel in it and I feel it breaks at different spots. That will probably get replaced. This is going to be my day hunting gun so it won't get much more use until we head out west later this winter. I will mention also, that I am using a 10 round magpul mag without any issues or modifications.
 
Dang that's great, glad they're getting these out there. They should be a game-changer. What length barrel?
 
Its too bad this was introduced by a freedom group company. Those guns seem like they have so much potential but they are very very difficult to find. and I hear problems from the gun a lot. I am glad you are happy. I would love to see the parts for these available to builders and they become perfected. but then again its the remington/freedom group we are talking about.
 
Did they tell what was done to repair the issue? I would assume they changed the weight of the the buffer...unless it had a gas leak. Wanted the rifle you have but went a cheaper route. I bought a 243, 22" threaded heavy barreled AR stoner complete upper from midway for $449 and a complete M5 lower (minus the stock) direct from Aero prescion on Black Friday for $212. I have a timney trigger on the way I grabbed from optics planet for $167 and a r25 stock for $53. Saved me a few bucks and got a longer barrel in the process. Hope it shoots like yours. I'm waiting on the butt pad screws and trigger. Hopefully mid week I can get out and put some rounds through it.

Did some research when buying mine on what you experienced. Sounds like under gassed. It could have had a leak, the gas port needed to be drilled out, an adjustable gas block is needed...or go the other route and switch out diffent weight buffers till it cycles properly.

You can't ever find your rifle for sale accept on line it seems and then in 5 minutes later they're out of stock. It's been like that since the early 00's with the old models as well. Must be a limited or extremely low run in this caliber. To get Remington/bushmaster to sell me a black 450 bushmaster/R25 stock was like pulling teeth.

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They never advertised it threaded. Doesn't shock me though. Over the years ive seen so many different variations with DPMS changing the stock or forend vs their posted pic they have advertised. The last time I talked with DPMS I right when they were bought out and closed the facility in Minnesota which was only a couple hours from me. The new owners said they were going to eventually get around to producing 243 ARs again. Glad to see they finally got around to it again last winter. New company reinventing the wheel so I'm sure there will be some bugs to work out like you had. Glad it's running good for you now.
 
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Any updates on these rifles? I want one in a bad way, although I really don't need it with how my 243 wssm shoots.
 
The G-2 is what all Big AR's should be based on. I sold both my large frame DPMS and replaced them with G-2's in .308 and .243.

My experience with the .243 were the same I changed out the buffer spring and the gun is solid .75" shooter. All guns need a new trigger.

The .308 was closer to 2"s so it received a new barrel.

I recommend both they feel like a AR in your hands.
 
Originally Posted By: 204 ARAny updates on these rifles? I want one in a bad way, although I really don't need it with how my 243 wssm shoots.

Pretty sure they discontinued the GII’s a year or two ago, and certainly have discontinued them now, since DPMS has been closed.
 
Interesting that this was brought back up. I bought one last winter and am using it as my calling rifle this year. It's accounted for 6 coyotes so far, and is deadly with 87 gr bthp Hornadys, ironically like the op of this thread. I use 42 gr of h4350.
 
Originally Posted By: devildoggHow could any ar15 manufacturers go out of business these days??

threaten to sue them into the dark ages and the private equity holding company that owns them loads them with debt, files for bankruptcy and dumps them before the court case can get into the courtroom in front of a jury.


at least thats what happened to freedom group (remington, dpms, bushmaster, etc)
 
Originally Posted By: devildoggHow could any ar15 manufacturers go out of business these days??

the problem is dpms didn't make it to "these" days. before covid the entire market was flooded with black rifles. we were flooded with ammo as well.

the story of dmps is they got swallowed up by the private equity that owned remington. they basically bought the company. trimmed the fat, eliminated expanses such as advertising etc. showed a profit. then took out loans to pay themselves back for the purchase price. Then they vampired all the cash out of the business they could after that. this all happened before the rush of black rifles and guns could happen because of covid.

it really sucks it would have been nice for DPMS to sell parts to builders for the gen 2. heck remington had some cool cartridges with the 30 rar etc. but why care about that stuff when the goal is steal the company blind, then bankrupt it.
 
I wouldnt go crying in my beer too much just yet on DPMS being sold out of bankruptcy. Palmetto State Armory bought them. That gives PSA another legit AR-15 brand, drawings, patents, etc., and the most popular AR-10 format on Earth, and all the GII stuff. They WILL be back........fwiw, AIM has Rem r-25 GII upper/lower stripped camo sets for $250, and CDNN has GII DPMS barrels yet for $80.....may invest myself. There are some custom GII barrel makers too, but they're prob busy with other stuff right now?
 
Hopefully the new owners of DPMS bring the g2 back. I wish I could have got one. Or better yet some of the g2 recievers for a build. One of the companies I work with did some really nice prototype work for DPMS and Rem ar's that never made it to the public at all or for very long, if it got there.
 
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