I have been looking for one of these for a few years-generally the ones that come up are either very expensive (to someone as frugal as me) or they have been modified a fair amount.-This example seems to be mostly original the only changes being the threaded barrel and bolted on charging handle upgrade which is almost a must as it is straight pull.
The gun is in essence an bullpup version of the AR-18 much like the SA80 series of rifles and is probably the closest you can get in the UK to an L85 as a civilian due to the similar weight and lengths. funnily enough mine came with a HK L85 mag to boot.
It comes apart very easily for cleaning. simply pop the rear two captive pins and the you can pivot the upper reciever and pull out the bolt.
The internals are faily simple. there is a trigger bar connecting the trigger to the sear that runs in a groove along the left side of the reciever.
Top tip that i learned-when the receiver is open it is possible for the sear springs to fall meaning when you close up the rifle you will have a dead trigger (ask me how I know) however i couldn't find much info on this happening to others on the web so i might be an isolated case-either way ensure the springs are on top when closing the rifle as per the below .
Sadly due to lockdown I am yet to shoot this but they seem to have a decent reputation for accuracy and seem to have been popular in CSR as a poor mans AUG.
people often ask why I like Bullpups so much and i think its pretty simple-up until this year i would either get the train or use my 125cc motorcycle to go shooting so having a shorter overall lenght has always been very beneficial to me. now i have a small car-so a bullpup is still easier to fit in the boot than a traditional rifle. As an example i lined up the M17s with my Mini-14 and you can see how much of a length saving there is (the mini-14 barrel is 3" shorter so i lined them up based on the bolt face).
The downside is that the mini only weighs 3kg whilst the M17s weights 4kg but this may change if i decide to make some modifications.
Id love to see what other M17s have done with their rifles. Personally i'm considering cutting slots in the receiver to lighten to package-but if i do i will likely try to cut slots to MLOK spec in case i want to make some sort of ridiculous "tacticool" build later down the line.
I also got a moderator with it that is unmarked other than proofing marks which is about 10" long-if things go well with the rifle I might look at getting a wildcat mod to keep the OAL down.
One question i still have about the rifle is where the "IBUS" bit comes from- I always thought these were imported from america from Bushmaster- is IBUS "international bushmaster united state" or something similar?
