The gun that beat H&K at their own game: The Haenel Mr223/556 tabletop review

[jbrimlow]

Thanks for a great video. I've been curious about this rifle.

[HCM]

Function will dictate form to a large degree and I suppose there's only so many ways to design a short-stroke piston and make the gun still look like an M4 and use STANAG mags, etc. It's just that Haenel seems to have cribbed every line and even the trade dress. For all the world it looks like they're just building their own 416s and knocking a few bucks off. But I suppose sharper legal minds than mine are hashing it out in court. I don't much care what anyone else uses for rails but I loath mlok, it's just really finicky and hard to mount stuff IMO. Ultimately it's not that big a deal since most things get mounted once and then stay there. For my own use keymod is easier to use. If it looks like dicks, well, I'm not 14 so that's not all that relevant IMO.

Looks aside, Mlok has real advantages:

Stronger
Cheaper and simpler to produce
Install is equivalent but if improperly installed, Mlok attachments come off without damage and can be re-installed

Keymod is uni directional and if Hk is correct, U.S. Keymod is oriented improperly.

I have two dickmod rails - while I won’t get rid of them over esthetics I wouldn’t buy anymore of them.

The eurotrash are usually 10 years behind us in terms of TTPs so they will come around eventually.

[lordboogie]

I just signed up to say, thank you for the awesome video. I had been searching on Youtube since the BT-15 released for someone to show it off and talk about in on camera, and I was very happy to come across your video.

I noticed compared to the first 200 imports into the US of the CR223 that the BT-15 version has the ambi bolt catch, I was very happy when I saw that in your video, I was expecting to have the ambi safety and mag release, but not the ambi bolt catch.

I also notice the barrel profile of your BT-15 is different that the CR223 shown in the TFBTV Youtube coverage on the BT-15. I'm disappointed the BT-15s didn't maintain that barrel profile.

I should be picking mine up from the FFL tomorrow, so I'll let you know what I get.

[Greg Bell]

Glad you liked it. I have a lot of oddball guns I’m gonna start doing videos on them. My taste is typically towards weird guns so I’m never going to get more than a few hundred subscribers but I’m planning on making videos about stuff you don’t see everywhere else.

I just signed up to say, thank you for the awesome video. I had been searching on Youtube since the BT-15 released for someone to show it off and talk about in on camera, and I was very happy to come across your video.

I noticed compared to the first 200 imports into the US of the CR223 that the BT-15 version has the ambi bolt catch, I was very happy when I saw that in your video, I was expecting to have the ambi safety and mag release, but not the ambi bolt catch.

I also notice the barrel profile of your BT-15 is different that the CR223 shown in the TFBTV Youtube coverage on the BT-15. I'm disappointed the BT-15s didn't maintain that barrel profile.

I should be picking mine up from the FFL tomorrow, so I'll let you know what I get.

[LittleLebowski]

Wish I could find just a 10.5” Haenel upper.