The Taipan has come of age. The third-generation Evo model puts the finishing touches on the Southern Cross Small Arms carbine and brings some flare that had been on the designers’ wish list since day one. This version is a better fit, nicer to use and more attractive than the Taipan X and Lite that came before it.
Early in my testing I had the feeling I was shooting more accurately than I had with the other Taipans, and subsequent drills seemed to confirm it. I had found the X pretty good for making solid hits on fleeting or moving targets, but I am sure I was able to do even better with this one.
It’s not that much has changed, but one of the new features is the polymer buttstock which has a pistol grip that sits more neatly in your grip. That alone has made quite a difference. The butt is slightly lighter than the previous aluminium one, too, which changes the balance a little, but the fact that I generally had a full 10-round magazine stored in its new slot under the butt had a bigger influence. This pulls the balance back into your shoulder, away from the muzzle, making the little rifle dance responsively as you swing it from target to target.
And it’s apt to describe it as a dance. This rifle is all about movement: quickly getting on target, rapidly pointing to the next one, working the pump action as you go and fluidly, rhythmically cycling through shots.
The Taipan Evo is built on exactly the same basic platform as the Taipan X, with the spring-assisted pump-action mechanism combined with a charging handle on the left side that makes it double as a straight-pull rifle when the situation calls for it. This double-action setup is a clever thing, not just because it’s such an easy addition to a pump-action rifle (as the original Taipan Lite was), but because it cures some pump-action limitations, such as shooting prone or over a rest; more on that in a tick.
The 6061 T6 aluminium upper receiver contains a floating steel bolt carrier, which in turn is controlled by a steel action bar that rides on top of it. The other end of the bar is attached to a ring surrounding the barrel and mated to a spring. As the bolt carrier is pulled backwards and forwards, the bolt head rotates in and out of its seven locking lugs. Simple and well proven.
It’s also very manual, with few things that can go wrong or jam up, a good argument in favour of this kind of rifle over a gas-operated or blowback self-ejecting firearm. There’s a lot to be said for cutting out complexity, especially in harsh conditions when reliability matters.
The action’s key strength is built into the bolt head and the barrel extension that it locks into, so the receiver can be made of aluminium to save weight and make manufacturing easier. The lower receiver needs even less structural integrity and so it is now made from glass-filled polymer, bringing a number of benefits.
Damir Lukic, who established Southern Cross and designed the Taipan, had long wanted to go this way but the costs of making moulds for polymer parts is at another level — hundreds of thousands of dollars in this case, and that’s not chicken feed for an Aussie gun maker. Even the American companies think hard before committing to new stocks. But the Taipan’s success tipped the balance and allowed Southern Cross to installed its own machinery and moulds to produce this more comfortable, more attractive and more practical buttstock and lower receiver.
The lower receiver has a nicely textured finish, with more detail than could be cut into the CNC-machined aluminium one. More importantly, it has a flared magazine well to make magazine changes that much easier and more natural. And it permits the inclusion of a hold-open catch on the left side which can be quickly pressed to close the spring-loaded action.
As a result, you can change mags swiftly. The bolt is automatically held back when you’ve emptied a magazine. That’s your cue to press the mag release with your trigger finger. Pocket it, let it fall to the ground, chuck it on the floor of the buggy; whatever you do, when the empty one is out of the way, you can reach under the butt, pull the spare mag from its new storage slot and slip it into the well. In virtually the same movement, nudge the bolt release with your left thumb and take hold of the fore-end again. You’re ready to shoot in short order.
You learn quickly to keep your thumb low so the charging handle doesn’t whack it on the way past.
The fore-end grip is a good handful that doesn’t slip in your grip, and the action is quite smooth. The advantage of a pump-action is, of course, that your hands never leave their rightful places on the rifle, the butt never leaves your shoulder and your eye never strays from the crosshairs. The only disruption to otherwise intuitive cycling is the movement of your supporting arm — and that’s a fairly minor thing.
The pistol grip, as I mentioned, is better on this Taipan. Unlike the straight AR-type grip of the X model, the new one is curved with a nice flare from top to bottom that fills your palm and gives you better control over the rifle, whether shooting or carrying it. Large, raised diamonds increase traction in your hand. Even the extension from the base of the grip to the back of the butt, when it contacts the heel of your hand, helps just that little bit more.
The squarish rubber butt pad sits well in your shoulder, and the adjustable cheek piece has a gentle curve to it for your head to rest against. My tall head didn’t need any extra height in the comb, and indeed I’d have been more comfortable with taller rings than the 32mm-high set I fitted. This is not a rifle for low rings.
Length of pull is adjustable with 5mm spacers, five of which are supplied. This gives leeway between about 345mm and 370mm, a generous range that will fit almost everyone.
The Taipan’s trigger is heavy but so crisp that I would have sworn it was lighter than the 2.9kg this one averaged, and better than I remember from earlier Taipans. I asked Damir, who said Southern Cross is now polishing the sears before finishing the rifles. This is one of the better triggers of this hammer-release type that I’ve used.
And if you decide you want something better, the new lower receiver now permits the installation of any AR-compatible trigger group.
The stock trigger was fine for quick shooting, even at moving targets, and didn’t impinge at all on the overall smoothness of operation and accuracy.
When it comes to accuracy, the Taipan is among the best of the quick-action rifles on the market, this one shooting very consistently into 1-1½ MOA five-shot groups with factory ammunition that suited it. It might have done better with a bigger scope than the neat 1-6x Nikko Stirling I used exclusively for the test, but the important thing is that you will have no trouble putting every bullet into the vital zone of ferals with a combo like this at the typical ranges it’d be used over.
That Nikko scope is a perfect match for the Taipan, its wide field of view promoting quick target acquisition and the large central dot in the crosshair being just what you need for speed, yet not so big I couldn’t easily hit fox-size targets at about 100m.
Any linear action like this lacks the camming effect of a turn-bolt rifle when extracting a spent case and this can lead to sticky extraction. Assuming you haven’t let the chamber get rusty or filthy, the only thing that should cause this is using ammo of high enough pressure that it causes the brass to bind a bit on the chamber walls. None of the four loads I tried (see the table above) were a problem.
I used the Taipan Evo from a vehicle a fair bit. Its stubby size was a boon and the confined space proved the worth of the charging handle that screws directly into the bolt carrier. For a while I ran the rifle strapped into a Racken Rest, for which I unscrewed the scales of the pump handle and relied purely on the straight-pull action. It was perfect.
If you shoot on a bipod, the handle is also going to be the one you use. The handle protrudes about 35mm, though, so sometimes you may wish to remove it if you find it gets in the way of what you’re doing — maybe if you carry the rifle slung over your shoulder a lot, for example.
The new butt includes cups for QD sling swivels. Up front, you’ll have to source an M-Lok swivel to match; a number of M-Lok slots are included ahead of the pump handle. The full-length Picatinny rail on top of the rifle gives enormous latitude for mounting optics and other accessories.
The muzzle is threaded, too, allowing fitment of brakes, suppressors and compensators to the short 42cm (16.5”) Lothar-Walther stainless-steel barrel — which certainly has a bark at that length. Ear protection is a good idea, and I often used a Grizzly compensator to take the edge off the muzzle blast (I’ll write a separate test on it).
One thing that hasn’t changed with the Evo is the excellent AR-type safety catch, which is by far the best style for a rifle with a pistol grip like this. Fitted to the left side (the Taipan’s controls are all basically for right-handers), it flips through 90 degrees with a swipe of the thumb. It’s fast and quiet. The safety securely blocks the trigger, can only be activated when the rifle is cocked and does not stop you opening the action to clear the chamber of live ammunition.
Pulling the Taipan apart for cleaning and maintenance remains a straightforward process. There are a dozen or more bolts to undo but it’s not hard and you don’t have to deal with a gas system.
There’s a lot to admire in the Taipan Evo. It’s a well-built carbine that performs exactly as promised and comes with a swag of great features such as the spare mag in the butt, the dual-action pump and straight-pull setup, and the new hold-open catch. Its enhanced ergonomics shouldn’t be understated, and its potential for above-average accuracy for this kind of rifle speaks volumes for its quality and structural integrity.
It must be one of the most useful rifles on the Australian market, and it’s now in the best form it has ever been.
Thanks for Mudgee Firearms for assistance with transfers and other logistics of this test. They boss liked the Taipan Evo so much he bought it for himself instead of sending it back afterwards!
SPECIFICATIONS
- Manufacturer: Southern Cross Small Arms, NSW, Australia
- Type: Pump-action and straight-pull with spring return
- Calibre: .223 Rem/5.56; .300 BLK
- Barrel: 42cm (16.5”), 1:8” twist, stainless steel, threaded muzzle
- Chassis/receiver: Aluminium alloy upper, finished in Cerakote (black, bronze, grey). Polymer lower
- Trigger: Single-stage, non-adjustable, 2.5kg release
- Safety: 2-position
- Magazine: 2 x 10-round detachable Magpul PMAG
- Length: 875mm
- Weight: 3.3kg
- Length of pull: Adjustable 345-270mm with 5mm spacers
- Comb: Adjustable
- Price: Around $2000
- Distributor: OSA Australia
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