It is a knob that rotates forward and back to place the rifle on safe or fire. On top of the thumb depression and integrated into the rear tang is a very different safety than is found on most rifles. It does have a wider palm area with a moderately deep thumb depression behind it so it fills the hand nicely and is comfortable. The pistol grip on the stock is canted back toward the rear of the rifle so it is not a vertical pistol grip style. The cheekpiece shape is fairly comfortable though it is shorter than most and we felt a bit of a ‘zing’ in our cheek when we would fire, but no soreness or bruising came from it and it was quickly forgotten once we were into the shooting process. It is somewhat unique, but it does work well. You then press it down to your desired height and hold it there while tightening the knob. Something that is interesting is that the cheekpiece is spring loaded so when you loosen the knob, the cheekpiece springs up to its highest setting. The SSG-04 resolves this issues by the use of an adjustable cheepiece that uses a single knob to tighten down the cheekpiece at its desired height. The cheekpiece on the old SSG-69 was not adjustable and as such it would require the use of some sort of addon cheekpiece when utilizing a scope with a larger objective that caused it to be raised a good amount. While changing of the Length Of Pull (LOP) is not something that is often changed, it is a nice feature to have to adjust the rifle for the perfect fit. This screw is how you remove or add spacers to the stock. This is also how you get access to the screw that keeps the spacer system itself locked in place. By loosening the knob the pad itself slides up or down to set it up to fit just right in the socket of the shooters shoulder. The spacer design is also improved with a system that also can adjust the buttpad up or down, which is what the rear locking knob is for located on the right hand side. The SSG-04 continues with the Steyr tradition of adjusting the length of pull via a spacer system, but the recoil pad is now a real recoil pad with about. A lot has changed in the 35 years between the two rifle designs and it shows. The stock design does not share anything in common with its elder brother and is a completely new design and shape versus the -69. The newer SSG-04, of which the 04 indicates introduction in 2004, uses a more modern synthetic stock that uses a more traditional for our day, polymer synthetic. It was still very functional, but it had an interesting feel to it. The old SSG-69 used a hollow fiberglass stock that literally felt like a hollow fiberglass stock. Since the 69 is no longer a standard offering, we thought it might be good to take a look at the SSG-04 to see if is a suitable replacement for the original.
#Steyr mannlicher ssg carbon full
A few years back we spent some time with the classic SSG-69 PI performing a full review and while it had some shortcomings, we liked the overall usability of the rifle. The SSG-04 took the place of the -69 model as their entry model into the tactical sniper rifle category and the SSG-08 is their higher end offering. Unfortunately Steyr no longer produces the SSG-69, but they do have their SSG-04 and SSG-08 sniper rifles. It also included other innovative features such as a rotary magazine and unique scope ring mounting system. When it was introduced in 1969 is had one of the first, if not the first, synthetic stock on a production sniper rifle. Steyr of Austria has a long history of being one of the innovators of sniper rifle development and their original SSG-69 is considered one of the first truly modern sniper rifles. Stock: Reinforced Polymer, Adjustable Cheekpiece and Spacer System.Magazine: Detachable Box Magazine, Double Stack (10 rounds - 308, 8 round - 300 Win Mag).Barrel: Cold Hammer Forged Heavy Barrel.