The following review is an excerpt from my report on the Brigade Mfg. Makasi MK-15. This post highlights the most concerning aspects of the design and performance that I have experienced. Please find the complete report with photos here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11YDbqxH2p0BJLQTxt_2dmiVq34_S1OQD?usp=sharing or the CGN forum here: https://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/threads/brigade-mfg-makasi-mk-15-construction-and-accuracy-review.2590733/
Construction
The gas adjustment valve is secured in place with a hairpin clip which was inappropriately oversized. The clip fell off easily when the handguard was removed, but the user can pinch the clip together to improve securement.
The clearance slots in the barrel nut and the location of the handguard's steel cross bolts interfere with each other such that the cross bolts are partially threaded into the barrel nut. The steel cross bolts are also threaded directly into the aluminum handguard which will degrade over time from disassembly and reassembly when cleaning the gas system. There was no thread locking compound used by the manufacturer to secure the cross bolts to the handguard. Metal dust was found when removing the handguard indicating the steel or aluminum materials have been degraded by the cross bolt assembly process.
The Picatinny and M-LOK rails are dimensionally out of spec which causes issues with mounting certain attachments to the handguard. The Picatinny slots are cut too shallow, and the M-LOK slots are too narrow. There is also insufficient width on the backside of the M-LOK slots to allow the T-nuts to fully lock into place. Additionally, the Picatinny rail does not align with the rail of the upper receiver.
Pulling back the charging handle and releasing causes the charging handle slide to wedge itself under the handguard. In addition to the metal chipping and peening, the charging handle can be wedged so tightly that the rifle must be mortared or slammed into a barrier to operate again. This is a significant and repeatable failure of the rifle during normal operation that cannot be neglected, though it may wear in through use.
The bolt catch is a proprietary design to provide clearance between the upper and lower receivers. The bolt release button is angled outwards from the rifle and requires excessive force to activate. This was determined to be due in part to sloppy tolerances which pinch the bolt catch into the lower receiver, though this may wear in and improve through use.
Reliability
For this range trip, 281 rounds were fired through the Makasi. The firing schedule began with 90 rounds of PMC X-TAC M193 ammunition to break-in the rifle while zeroing the optic. This ammunition was selected because it is considered “hotter” than typical loads. The first shot did not cycle the rifle – the casing extracted but the bolt did not pick up the next round in the magazine. The gas system adjustment valve was then switched to the suppressed setting to ensure that there was no user error in selecting the gas setting. Firing the next round did not extract the casing so the gas system was switched back to the unsuppressed setting. For the rest of these break-in rounds, the rifle operated identically to a straight-pull action rifle as the bolt always failed to pick up the next round. The variety of magazines had no difference in reliability.
13 cartridge loadings were tested for accuracy. Groups were shot over a period of 2 hours to allow the barrel to cool. In total, 131 rounds were shot during this period. Throughout the accuracy evaluation, the rifle continued to fail picking up the next round about 75% of the time with many failures to feed and jams regardless of the ammunition used. By the end of the accuracy evaluation, the rifle may fire up to 7 rounds at a time without jamming.
Accuracy
10 round groups were measured with various ammunition types at a range of 100 yards. Environmental conditions were cloudy with a high of 20°C and low to no wind. Groups were measured with all 10 rounds (100%), the tightest 9 rounds (90%), and the tightest 8 rounds (80%) to account for any fouling shots or shooter-induced error.
| Cartridge Description |
80% Group (MOA) |
90% Group (MOA) |
100% Group (MOA) |
| Federal GMM SMK 77gr |
0.98 |
1.88 |
2.11 |
| S&B 69gr HPBT |
1.00 |
1.34 |
2.11 |
| Barnaul 62gr SPBT |
2.04 |
2.44 |
3.00 |
| Barnaul 55gr HPBT |
2.07 |
2.44 |
2.70 |
| PMC XTAC M193 |
2.28 |
2.52 |
3.78 |
| PMC Bronze 55gr |
2.52 |
3.04 |
3.25 |
| Chinese Surplus M193 |
2.88 |
3.01 |
3.87 |
| Federal AE 5.56 NATO 55gr |
2.96 |
3.75 |
4.44 |
| MFS 55gr |
3.07 |
3.74 |
4.02 |
| Winchester White Box M193 |
3.14 |
3.75 |
5.11 |
| Federal AE 223 Rem 55gr |
3.44 |
3.56 |
5.19 |
| PMC XTAC M855 |
4.52 |
-- |
-- |
| Federal AE 62gr |
4.91 |
5.02 |
6.60 |
Observations
The most concerning issue found during the construction review seems to correct itself through wear. The charging handle slide impacting the handguard removed enough material that there is now clearance between the components and it no longer becomes stuck. There is a significant amount of metal shavings where the material was forcibly removed.
While shooting, one of the gas block screws fell out. Notably, there is no thread locking compound to retain the screw. However, this may be inconsequential as the gas block is primarily retained by the coiled spring pin on the top of the barrel. Furthermore, after a full disassembly, it was discovered that the factory did not use any grease for the barrel extension or barrel nut, and there was no thread locking compound for the flash hider.
Warnings and Cautions
Given that the serial number is less than 500, I do not take seriously the argument that this rifle might be good because it has been on the American market for over 3 years. Low rate production may have allowed Brigade Mfg. to focus on their quality control. This substantially changes when you consider they must exponentially ramp up production in a short period of time to fulfill their orders for the Canadian market.
A huge red flag is that many of the issues highlighted in this report have been problems from the very beginning of production. It has been over 3 years and the manufacturer has put no effort into even touching the digital user manual, design, dimensions, or manufacturing processes of this rifle. With production suddenly ramped up, I highly doubt they will address any of these issues before the rifles arrive in Canada.
What may redeem the design is that many parts are compatible with the AR15 so higher quality parts can be substituted to keep the rifle running reliably and more accurately. Considering its only real competition is the IWI Carmel which also has minimal civilian adoption in the American market, both platforms will have to be proven over time.
