FIRST LOOK – Troy Pump Action Rifle

Pump action rifles – they're often given a dubious eye below the 49th parallel north, but here in the Great White North (obligatory head bang to Rush) shooters are less skeptical. I'm no stranger to pump action rifles, having owned, and of course shot, several myself. My wife actually owns a Remington 7615 and it's been enormously entertaining. When I received the offer to test drive the Troy Pump Action Rifle (PAR) in .308 Win I jumped at the opportunity.  It's not a new design, but it's new to me and has received excellent reviews.

Send it! said I.

FIRST LOOK – TROY PAR

Ryan Houtekamer

Pump rifles are certainly not for everyone.  The act of pumping can ruin your sight picture, they're necessarily much slower than a semi-auto, and anyway – why would you choose a PAR over a bolt gun? There are actually several answers to that question. In my wife's case she picked that weapon because she enjoys shooting my 870 and wanted a rifle that operated the same way and felt familiar. In some cases it could be legal restrictions; for instance, you can't hunt with an AR15 in Canada. In this world TROY's rifle is an excellent fit. It calls to mind the weapon handling of an AR15, but with the ability to hunt. In other cases it's an answer to fatuous cosmetic gun laws, which is moronic and unnecessary but the reality nonetheless.

The TROY PAR felt like an old friend from the moment I picked it up, albeit a heavier friend since it wasn't chambered in  5.56mm or 7.62x39mm.  A cursory look to become familiar with the controls was more than sufficient. The pump release is a button at the bottom of the trigger guard and the safety is a normal AR safety/selector with markings on both sides. The only significant difference (and granted it's a big difference) was the manual action built into the handguard.

There was a vfg attached to review model's pump, which actually made shooting the weapon substantially better.  We went through several evolutions both with and without the vfg and found it improved our speed of operation, particularly when putting it back into battery after ejecting the spent round. It was a simple matter of slamming it forward and reacquiring a sight picture.

Without a suitable rail-mounted bipod on hand we were forced to run everything off a rest. The ability to obtain a tight group would have necessitated slowing down substantially, but even with the need to work the action, obtain a sight picture, shoot-and-repeat we found it printed fairly well at 100m.

As you can see, other than the one flier it delivered a pretty solid animal soul stealing group.

Our version of the rifle was optic ready, capable of taking standard muzzle devices. In this case that was the Medieval Muzzle Brake.  It can also take standard stocks and grips, so it arrived equipped with the BattleAx CQB Stock and Control Grip.  The only non-standard parts in this particular weapon were the handguard and receivers.

An aftermarket trigger is no problem at all.

The .308 Win model doesn't appear to have a fluted barrel as the 5.56mm does, meaning brass is reloadable.  Speaking of brass, the official production description advises it will only fire brass ammo, but in our experience it digested nickel plated ammo without issue.

As an aside, the ammunition that accompanied our PAR was Swiss P Styx, a hollowpoint bullet from RUAG. Having some hefty pumpkins and extra water jugs around, we went full potato and just spent some time blasting. One of those Swiss P Styx rounds went through a pumpkin, then two water jugs, and then into the berm at 100m. When I dug the round out I was surprised to find it had expanded well and was still in great shape. Were we to do this gain, we'd fill the pumpkin with water or gelatin to see what the round would have done to the back side. It did leave a larger exit hole, but likely didn't finish expanding until it hit the water.

TROY's bigger bore PARs are available in .308 Win, 7.62mm NATO, .243 Win, 7mm-08 Rem, and .338 Fed. It purports to be legal in all 50 states and ships with a 10 round magazine. The barrel is 16 in. Melonited, with a 1/11.25 right hand twist rifling. Overall weight is 8.5 lbs; it's 36.75 in. long with the stock open, 34 in. with it collapsed. MSRP is $899.

Do  you need a PAR in your life?  Like most guns, that depends on who you are, where you are, and what you like.  If you like pump-, bolt-, and lever-actions, the PAR might just hold a special spot in your life.  If you're constrained by uninformed, draconian gun laws (looking at you, Canada) and you like to hunt, this might be the solution you need. If you are in Canada, visit Rampart International. They're the Canadian importer.

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