I thought I’d pretty well settled on an AR configuration when I stumbled across something interesting on Sig Sauer’s website: the Sig 556 Patrol rifle.
The first version of the 556 had a ridiculous railfarm handguard straight out of a video game and, inexplicably, a CAR-type telestock. I had NO interest in that model. The revised 556 Classic replaced the failtastic handguard and stock of its predecessor with sensibly-designed parts and seriously caught my eye…
Until I picked one up. Not only was it a bit of a porker at 8 1/4 lbs, it was WAY muzzle-heavy. Which makes sense when you think about it: the stock is a simple polymer folder that contains no heavy components (like an AR buffer assembly), and the gas block/front sight assembly is waaaay down at the end of a long handguard, out near the muzzle. Result: the balance point is somewhere around the middle of the flash hider.
So I scratched the 556 off my list and started looking into ARs.
Meanwhile, Sig apparently smartened up and shortened the gas system and handguard to create the Patrol model, dropping the weight by 0.7 lbs and (hopefully) correcting the balance issue. Sight radius naturally suffers a bit, but I think I can live with that. If I can lay hands on one within the next three weeks (the duration of Sig’s $300 rebate offer) and find its handling satisfactory, I may very well drop the cash.
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