The Akdas Alcor PB223 is one of the most anticipated rifles to reach the Australian market in years, and the hype over the self-ejecting button-release rifle has been justified. It’s not the first of its kind, but it is the first affordable centrefire version to go sale here, if only by a slim margin.
The Alcor ejects spent cases all by itself, the instant after you fire a shot. The action stays locked open afterwards and all you have to do to chamber another round is press a button on the side of the action, which releases the spring-powered bolt carrier. You’re then ready to squeeze the trigger on the next shot.
We’ve seen a number of rimfire rifles that work essentially the same way. We can buy a range of shotguns that work on the same principle. We’ve even had a centrefire available in Australia for years that is just the same except that you thumb a lever instead of pressing a button: the French-made Verney-Carron, which was just a bit too expensive and unusual to make a big impression on Aussie hunters.
Now finally Akdas has put this $1600 .223 on the market and people are paying attention.
It lives up to the hype, if not the over-hyped aspects. The Alcor is a fairly quick, efficient rifle to shoot, well designed and nicely made, with decent accuracy and very good reliability. It ticks all the boxes of a practical, close- to medium-range rifle for anything you’d point a .223 at, and it is good enough that it should establish a pretty solid place for itself in the market.
It will also give competitors in certain disciplines such as three-gun a more appropriate rifle to use than the bolt-actions they’ve had to run with.
But it is not a semi-auto, and nor is it going to replace your sub-MOA bolt-action for long or precise shooting.
Let’s get into the details to explain all that. First thing to know about the Alcor is that it is a gas-operated self-ejector. In other words, a small portion of the propellent gasses are syphoned off from the barrel after you fire a shot, via a small hole about halfway down the bore. There’s a piston on a rod under the barrel, which is pushed backwards by the gas pressure. In turn, this throws the bolt-carrier mechanism backwards, too, opening the action and ejecting the spent case.
One of the crucial tests of the Alcor was whether it’d cycle reliably. One way to ensure this sort of rifle does is to dial up the pressure of the system. Some of the earliest PB223s were built a bit hot, creating pressure issues in the chamber which could result in stuck cases, but importer Hunt’s Shooting Supplies got the factory to reduce the pressure and my test rifle didn’t suffer a single stoppage in more than 200 rounds.
All I did was give it a bit of lubrication but, after the first few shots, I didn’t clean it except to run a bore rope through the barrel. There was no sign of the gas system fouling despite my neglect of it. If I owned one, I’d be inclined to clean it every few hundred shots or every few months, whichever came first.
Disassembling the Alcor for cleaning is simple enough, with a spanner supplied for removing the one crucial nut and a QR code that directs you to an instructional video.
The barrel slides into an alloy receiver, and the seven-lug rotating bolt head locks directly into matching lugs cut into the rear of the breech. The rearward movement of the breech block cocks a hammer mounted in the trigger assembly. All very familiar stuff in this kind of firearm.
“This kind of firearm” means predominantly semi-automatics, which of course are virtually banned in Australia. Not only does the bush-button release differentiate the Alcor from a semi-auto, but the trigger mechanism’s design precludes any chance of self-loading operation. Even if you sabotage the PB’s locking mechanism, the rifle will never stay cocked after firing.
The trigger itself is non-adjustable, releasing in the test rifle at an average 2.3kg (5lb) with noticeably long creep before it does. It’s no precision trigger, but it’s fine for a quick-pointing rifle where you’re shooting fast at fleeting targets. In the heat of the moment, too light a trigger can let off before you mean it. In the field, I hit a number of mobs of feral goats and didn’t have reason to complain about the trigger. The worst of it was noticing the long travel before release when I was lining up carefully aimed shots, but then again I didn’t miss them.
Naturally, the trigger’s feel is magnified on the bench when you’re sighting in — and getting your first impressions. If it’s something you don’t like, a gunsmith will easily take a bit of weight and travel out of it.
The Alcor takes copies of PMAG-style magazines that double-stack 10 rounds, and it is supplied with two of them. They’re lightweight polymer and simple to fill because you can click rounds in from the top. They have good spring pressure without it being excessive. The mags lock in securely, and the release is a button on the lower right of the receiver.
The Alcor incorporates a bolt-stop when the magazine is empty, so even when you push the action’s release button it won’t go forward, telling you it’s time to reload. A second bolt-release, operated by a lever mounted front-right of the trigger guard, releases the bold carrier again, whether on an empty mag, no mag or filled mag.
At this stage the Alcor comes only with a Turkish walnut stock, and some of them have pretty colour and pattern. Synthetic stocks are in the pipeline. There is medium-textured chequering machine-cut into the grip areas, and the wood is neatly finished with a good fit around the barrelled action.
Akdas supplies shims to fit between butt and action to adjust cast and drop, usually more of a shotgun thing. However, setting the cast slightly off (or on for left-handers) makes a difference even to a rifle — especially one where snap-shooting is going to be a common thing. By shimming in some cast off, I found the Alcor came to my shoulder noticeably more naturally, with my eye lined up perfectly with the scope every time. This is a small detail, perhaps, but a worthwhile one.
Length of pull is 36.5cm, which will fit most people. The pistol grip curves gently at first away from the receiver, then ever steeper, and fits you well in any shooting position. Your other hand grips a round-bottomed fore-end which is tapered above the chequering, giving your finger tips extra purchase.
Not that the .223 is likely to kick out of your hand. The self-ejecting action reduces some of the recoil, a soft butt pad alleviates some of the felt recoil, and a comb that angles downwards towards the front ensures you feel even less of it. The rear of the comb arcs down to the rear, giving the butt a hint of hog’s-back style, but that portion is behind your cheek so provides no upwards impact to your face.
There’s a bit of extra weight up front in this rifle because of the gas system but by the time I mounted a lightweight scope the rifle’s weight balanced under the magazine. The short 47cm (18.5”) barrel has a sporty profile, tapering steadily from the receiver to the gas port and then with a diameter of 16mm from there to the muzzle.
As such, the Alcor comes onto target rapidly. It’s very much a point-and-shoot rifle.
If you like open sights, the Alcor’s ones are good, with a mid-size U-shaped rear notch and red hi-viz front post, with plenty of adjustment. I opted to run a scope on the pic rail that comes with the Akdas, and liked the way my Leupold VX-Freedom 3-9×40 sat hunkered down in low rings (there’s a lot to be said for 1” tubes). A red-dot or 1-4x would also be good options.
To fit the Leupold, I had to slide the rear sight forward on its base, which is simple. Other scopes may dictate that you remove it altogether, which is also easy, and you could even unscrew the whole base. All of it will go back on if you ever want open sights again.
Set up like this, I tried half a dozen types of factory .223 ammo on the bench. I got fairly similar results with three 55gn loads that ran an average of 1.4-1.5 MOA, which is about what you’d expect of a rifle like this, with ADI showing the most consistent groups. Akdas only claims 2 MOA accuracy, but you can clearly do better.
I shot three-shot groups but fired plenty of five-shots groups or more, and they didn’t open up all that much as the barrel got hot; only the odd shot went outside that 2 MOA measure, with most well within.
The rifle didn’t like Fiocchi’s 60gn loads, so much so that I didn’t bother shooting more than six shots or recording the results. It was a surprise, given the barrel has a fast 1:7 twist rate, but I put it down to a clash of barrel and load rather than bullet weight.
Hunting with ADI ammunition, the Alcor’s accuracy was devastating against feral goats. The longest shot I took was about 150m and the stationary, broadside billy dropped on the spot. On running targets, my hit rate was as good as I can be with any similar rifle: rarely a miss if I don’t try to pull off silly shots, but with a few animals needing follow-ups. With the Alcor, those follow-ups could be mercifully quick.
It doesn’t take long to adapt to the push-button way of doing things, although at first you make a few fumbles before muscle memory sets in.
Ear muffs are highly recommended. That short barrel results in a loud report.
Akdas ships the Alcor in a solid rifle case, with hard foam cutouts to cradle the rifle with its barrel removed — a tool-less job of less than a minute. As well as the two magazines and disassembly spanner, you get a lightweight sling, a chamber flag, butt adjustment shims and a handbook.
It’s a lot for a $1599 RRP. The Alcor appears to be a well-made rifle and it certainly cycles reliably, shoots accurately enough, handles beautifully and, most of all, its push-button design is quick and natural in use. It’s a great little carbine for fast, close shooting and a good rifle for hunting anything a .223 will tackle.
Thanks to Mudgee Firearms for help with transfers and logistics for this test.
SPECIFICATIONS
- Manufacturer: Akdas Silah, Turkiye
- Type: Gas-operated self-ejecting manual repeater with button reset
- Receiver: 7075 T6 aluminium alloy
- Calibre: .223 Rem
- Barrel: 47cm (18.5”), 1:7” twist
- Finish: Matte black; Melonite coated barrel
- Stock: Turkish walnut
- Trigger: 2.4kg let-off, non-adjustable
- Safety: Cross-trigger block
- Sights: U-notch with hi-viz front bead, adjustable; Picatinny rail for optic mounting
- Length of pull: 36.5cm
- Length: 1010mm (40”)
- Weight: 2.9kg bare
- RRP: $1599
- Distributor: Hunt’s Shooting Supplies
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