EssOne

The Smith and Wesson isn't in the Brand X category if one reads the reviews on it. Along with some other guns, It gets very good reviews in the entry level AR category and has for some time now. I doubt that you'd find a lot of really significant qualitative differences between it and the Ruger.  

John C, I don't mean to mind your business, but as a word of advice from someone who's been there done that, I would think twice about spending the Geisselle price for a trigger on an entry level rifle until you've scoped out the less expensive ALG triggers. I have found that unless you intend to do some serious target work, the Geisselle SSA trigger is sort of overkill on a recreational range rifle.  Take a look at the ALG ACT trigger in the $65 range - which by the way stands for "Amy Lynn Geisselle A Combat Trigger." T'were it me, (and it ain't,) I'd buy the less expensive trigger and invest the difference in mags, ammo, sights, and things like that. I have both triggers and the Geisselle unit is installed on a scoped rifle where the slightly better trigger pull makes a goodly difference - which I don't think you'll realize on a basic bangaway range rifle. The Geisselle trigger is a supurb piece of equipment, however you decide to use it. Suptayou. Best wishes. 

deleted by LMTFAN.

Found these in Wideners special section:  https://www.wideners.com/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=100001535

Yessir there is a lot to like in a carbine with a rifle lower. I also built two of these with the M4 upper and you're right, they're super nice. I just wanted to try one that didn't look like an M4 up front and I really am fond of it. The durn thang will easily nudge MOA from the bench with Federal XM193 hardball. Here are three such 100 yard groups, all fired with the rifle set up as pictured. (never could hit the #$%%^&*quarter. :pleased:)

Here are my last two builds. I favor the LMT or Rock River stand alone rear sights shown on these two rifles. They're the same good quality but the RRA unit is about 25% cheaper than the LMT. My AR's are set up for home defense and are zeroed at 25 yards with 55 grain Hornady TAP. I can still see well enough to score almost MOA groups at 100 yards from the bench with irons, so I don't see any reason to scope these guns just for 25 yard application. Suptayu, though. If you're using your AR for defensive purposes, heck with what anybody else thinks, go for what works best for you. This is a Palmetto State Armory build with added ALG ACT trigger and MagPul furniture. The rear sight is the LMT unit. This is a Spike's Tactical build of what I call my Short Rifle." I didn't want an ordinary carbine, so I merged a mid-length upper with the heavier government contour barrel and a standard A3 lower. MagPul furniture, RRA buttstock assembly and RRA rear sight, Geisselle SSA trigger. Testing the handling qualities of my "Short Rifle." It's a darn sweet handling rifle that I'm glad I built.

Turkeydad, if you'll shine a flashlight into the mag well, you'll probably find your blem. Usually the blem in PSA lowers is a minor discoloration in the finish inside the well. I've had two like that and a couple of friends had the same thing.

To add on to John 455's fine report, I'd like to add some range reports on two C100's I own. First, a couple of months ago I took possession of two TriStar C100's which I intend to use for carry purposes for my wife and I. The C100 is made in Turkey by the Canik55 firm, and marketed in this country by the TriStar concern. It is closely modeled after the CZ 75 Compact, the most profound deviation from the CZ design being the use of an aluminum frame. The C100 has already been the subject of a multitude of reviews like John 455's, so I won't reinvent the wheel here, except to comment on certain areas of note. We've been freezing our tails off around here, but it got back up into the 60's for a few hours and we were able to confirm zero and test out some groups before the 30 mph winds came in and blew us off the range. Here's what we did. I began by carefully lubing both pistols and firing three 15 yard bench rest groups out of each pistol with three different loads. The purpose was to check zero and see just how well the pistols fed and grouped with different loads. I was especially interested in seeing how the Federal 124 grain standard pressure HST load would perform. Unfortunately, I developed a bad case of "fifth-shot-itis" and threw away every fifth shot in 4 of the 6 groups after having fired a really nice 4 shot group. So since I knew it was me and not the gun, I did not count the wild 5th shot in the group measurements. Here's how my wife's pistol did: (Test results and notes are on the photos.) Here's how my pistol handled the same test: Based on these results, I would have to say in all honesty that these little guns group every bit as well at 15 yards as any of my full size 9mm service pistols have. Included in that statement are a Beretta Brigadier 92FS, a Browning Hi Power and a couple of its clones, a S&W M5906. a CZ 85, two 85B's, and a Bersa Thunder 9 Pro. The C100's, in my estimation, are darned accurate pistols, especially for their short barrels and sight radius. In the next test I wanted to test the pistols' ability to feed and group with the HST loads, to proof one mag per gun with that load, and I wanted to get familiar with their double action triggering characteristics. So here are two 15 shot DAO groups fired standing offhand with full sight alignment, two-hands, at 7 yards. I fired continuously slow fire without lowering either gun. Here's how my wife's gun did: And here's how my gun did - note the "ohpooshot." It was not entirely my best day. ;D Throughout these tests I found the two pistols to have remarkably similar triggering characteristics in both single and double action, but that the single action pull can get scratchy if the sear/hammer engagement surfaces are not lubricated. A drop of oil on the sear/hammer engagement surfaces produced a good, crisp, clean breaking single action pull I'd guesstimate at 4-5 pounds. Most of the reviews of these guns I have read cite a tendency for them to shoot 3" low at around 10 yards. I found that my pistol shoots around 2" low at 15 yards, and a "click" left, while my wife's gun shoots dead bang center at both 7 and 15 yards. I don't worry about a minor elevation deviation in a defensive pistol, but I really wanted to bump the rear sight a hair right to center up the windage. My wife's pistol shot all three loads to the same point of impact, while mine wants to be just a bit fussier. Later in the week, I managed to get up to an indoor range and retest my gun's zero after tapping the sight to the right. The target shows the result while the photo of the sight shows how little I had to bump it to the right to get it to center. These shots were fired at 10 yards bench rest, aimed slow fire. As to magazines, These two pistols were provided with MecGar-made Tristar 15 shot mags. The CZ75 Compact 14 round mags work great, as do the CZ factory 16 shot mags, the MecGar CZ75 17 shot mags, and the CZ 75 SP01 18 shot mags. You just have to live with the larger mags hanging out the bottom of the grip frame, but to me this was a non-issue. Total round count out of each pistol is now roughly 275 rounds each with only one FTF, which I attributed to a bad round. The ammo used throughout the majority of these tests was Blazer Brass 115 grain FMJ and Federal standard pressure HST 124 grain JHP's, along with a smattering of WW NATO 124 grain FMJ. This photo shows the pistol and the case it comes in, although I revised it to get it to carry more gear. I simply took a square of old mattress pad, covered it with fleece and held it to the back of the pad with double sided tape. I think John455 and I agree about the gun's worth. Given its obvious quality of manufacture, fit, and finish, as well as reliable functioning and excellent accuracy, I think the C100 definitely falls into the class of pistol in which a lot of guys will soon be saying: "Boy I sure wish I had bought one while they were cheap." I have a feeling they're going to be "discovered" right soon.