[The Shaggy Sniper]

A few days late to the party, and I guess this can be filed under "Info for all owners of Striker Variants"... Check the outer barrel.

On my first AS01 striker, I had a problem with accuracy. Took a while to figure out why, and it turns out the inside of the outer barrel was milled at an angle - it was off-center. This was apparent because when using barrel spacers, the inner barrel would stick to one side without the end cap, which would lead to an S-Curved Inner Barrel.

Now. All 3 of those links are of the same problem, from 3 different people. It's a known issue. It's not present on all Strikers, but just be aware of it, and you might want to check for that.

Possible "fixes"? Either trying to get in touch with Ares, or buying another outer barrel, but you risk running into the same issue again. Third option... EdGI. EdGI makes aftermarket barrels for the Striker. They're made to order, you can either get in touch with him directly on Facebook or go with ELR's website. I've got two on order (one for my AS01 parts rifle that I'm planning on eventually rebuilding and giving it away or something), and one for my AS02 to see if it offers any accuracy improvements over the stock outer barrel, and because.. well, come on. Both the Tribal and Diamond patterns look pretty cool and unique.

 

[The Shaggy Sniper]

I really thought it was just me, that I had some rare lemon. Whatever the case is that caused it, it's not very reassuring to find others who are still posting about it, as this was posted just a few days ago in one of the Striker facebook groups.

Why not make one myself? Eh.. Don't really have the means to do it. I live in a tiny apartment and don't have access to a garage so hardware jobs are pretty limiting form e. Using a drill to create a hole in the stock for a line? No problem. Using a dremel to cut out a new route on a cylinder guide pin? Eh, it'll take a while as I'll be using the dremel at a low speed and it won't be the cleanest, but it's doable. Carbon fiber work? Not so much.

That and I'm not too hardware inclined, my skills lie with the technical aspects of things. I'm also looking forward to having a more "unique" Striker as well, if the new outer barrel proves to be worth the upgrade. I'll have to look into it later, but I think the AS02 outer barrels didn't suffer from the same issue, not that I've been able to tell at least.