DoubleStar Midnight Dragon 24" .223
Manufacturer: Double Star Rifles
Model: Midnight Dragon
Chamber: 5.56 Nato
Barrel: 24" 1:8 Stainless Steel Bull Barrel with Spiral Fluting; Black Nitride Coating.
MSRP: $1249.99
Model: Midnight Dragon
Chamber: 5.56 Nato
Barrel: 24" 1:8 Stainless Steel Bull Barrel with Spiral Fluting; Black Nitride Coating.
MSRP: $1249.99
In the ever-changing AR15 market, DoubleStar continues to be innovative with their release of the new Midnight Dragon. This rifle is geared toward the target and varmint hunting crowd with its 24” spiral fluted, nitride coated stainless barrel. The barrel’s 1x8 twist allows for a wide range of ammunition from 55 grain up to the heavier match rounds. The handguard is a knurled aluminum free float tube fitted with a Harris bipod adapter with sling swivel. DoubleStar chose the durable and comfortable ARFX skeleton stock from Ace Limited (www.riflestocks.com) a subsidiary of J&T Distributing. It includes a soft foam pad on the cheekrest as well as a half inch pad on the rear of the stock. To complete the weapon, DSC went with Ergo’s Tactical grip with palm rest and a two stage trigger.
The first thing that you will notice on this rifle is the unique fluting that is on the barrel and on the hand guard. We are not going to get into the whole "does fluting work" argument, but when the rifle is compared to say the RRA 24" Varmint, there is a noticeable reduction in weight. The spiral fluting that is on the hand guards actually gives you a good feel on the hand guard, and helps in the overall weight reduction of the rifle. It also adds an overall "neat" look to the total rifle.
The first thing that you will notice on this rifle is the unique fluting that is on the barrel and on the hand guard. We are not going to get into the whole "does fluting work" argument, but when the rifle is compared to say the RRA 24" Varmint, there is a noticeable reduction in weight. The spiral fluting that is on the hand guards actually gives you a good feel on the hand guard, and helps in the overall weight reduction of the rifle. It also adds an overall "neat" look to the total rifle.
Overall ergonomics were well designed, comfortable and easy to shoot!
The spiral fluting on the hand guard and the barrel did accomplish removing a lot of weight when compared to some of the other 24' AR styled rifles. It also looks really neat!
Like the military versions of the rifle, the 'Midnight Dragon' comes with a forward assist, and dust cover for the bolt and chamber.
This rifle comes standard with an oversized charging handle which really comes in handy when using a full sized scope. Getting under the scope to chamber the weapon gets a little tough sometimes!
The rifle has a 2 stage trigger that we were pretty impressed with. The trigger broke clean, was light, and had no creep. The oversized trigger guard is nice because it means that you can shoot the rifle comfortably when wearing gloves.
The ACE ARFX stock fit really well, and we did not need to worry about having an adjustable cheek piece. The length of pull was perfect, and everything about the rifle was just out right comfortable. The ERGO palm rest and fat grip allowed for us to get a consistent grip every time.
To start the evaluation, we used a few different bullets including the Federal 77gr SMK, the Partisan 75gr Match, Hornady Match 75 gr, and of course a hand load for the rifle.
The 75 grain Partisan came in just over MOA at 200 yards.
The federal 77gr SMK came in first at just barely over 1/2 MOA @ 200 yards with this group measuring 1.201'
Now for the hand load of the rifle. The 24" 1 in 8" twist in the rifle seems to like the heavier 77gr bullets over any of the others, so that's what we decided to use for the hand load. For the overall cartridge length we pushed the bullet to magazine capacity (we like the ability to use a semi auto rifle like you are suppose to). For charge weight we stuck 23.4 grains of powder in the cases and worked them up to about 23.9 before we started having slight pressure signs and decided to back the rifle off to 23.5 just to stay on the safe side. We did not think that the reduction in charge weight was going to hurt down range ballistics.
Here is the load that we developed for this rifle using the 77grain SMK bullets at 100 yards. This 3 shot group came in well below 1/2MOA @ 100 yards
Using the same load now at 200 yards. This group came in at .787', which fits in with the .3' group to the left at 100!
Now that we have an established load for the rifle, we decided to see what it is able to do at longer ranges. We have a general starting range of 500 meters at the ranch, and when we got out there, the weather was just perfect.
Click here to see the DSC 24" Midnight Dragon" Ringing Steel at 550 Meters!
To conclude this review of this rifle. It was dependable, very accurate, and all around an excellent rifle. We appreciate DSC for letting us review the rifle, and play with it the way that we like to. If you are hand loading, this load should prove to be very useful and produced a speed of a little over 2700 fps and should give you excellent results to 650 yards, which is absolutely perfect for prairie dogs, coyotes, and not to mention steel! If you are looking at pre-loaded ammunition, then I would recommend using the 69 grain hornady rounds, or the federal 77gr SMK. Both of these loads came in under well under 1 MOA.