I finally got my hands on PSA’s JAKL to review. It’s not new anymore, but I just got my hands on one, and now that it’s been around a while it seems to be doing really well, it was time to do a comprehensive review Beyond Seclusion style. I’m going to test it for accuracy function, breakdown, suppressed versus unsuppressed, take it to the distance out four or five hundred yards, they’re over my shoulder top of the hill, if we can benched and standing. I also want to test out five different loads from AAC, showing the feet per second accuracy and energy for the 300 Blackout.
There are many things that caught my attention with this new design and I have been anxious, guys, I’ve been anxious to test this out for a long time. Let’s see if it meets all the hype and it’s worth the extra coin over the traditional AR design.
The one thing that caught my attention the most was the no buffer tube design, this makes a pistol version much easier to use and perfect to SBR if you desire.
Let’s find out just what the JAKL is all about and what it can do.
I’m Drew Case, welcome to Beyond Seclusion, where I only give you my honest opinion, and it is what it is. I remember when PSA started working on the JAKL it seemed like a long, long time ago, and it has been coming for some time. Honestly, I wanted to wait until it had been around for a while before trying it, to see if it had any bugs if anything needed fix it, it seems to be doing great. Time to put it to the test, let’s start with the specs and tech, check this out.
PSA JAKL 300BLK Specs & Tech
| CALIBER | 300 Blackout |
| CAPACITY | 30+1 |
| MAGAZINE | Magpul 30rd PMAG |
| BARREL | 8.5″ Chrome Moly Steel |
| OPERATION | Long Stroke Gas Piston |
| LOWER RECEIVER | Mil-Spec AR-15 |
| UPPER RECEIVER | 6105 Monolithic |
| THREAD PITCH | 5/8 x 24 |
| FEATURES | A2 Style Flash Hider, Picatinny Rail |
| UNIQUE PARTS | Gas Piston, Gas Block, Gas Adjustment Knob, Recoil Spring |
I got a call from a local supermarket that had a whole bunch of expired hams and was doing a separate review, you might want to check that out, it is the JAKL and the 300 Blackout versus a bunch of expired hams. I did that as a completely separate review because it’s kind of long with a slow-mo, anyway, you’re going to want to check that out, here’s just a teaser.
PSA JAKL Disassembling
To field strip this is really easy, we’re empty. Just like an AR we pop the pins, and here we just push this down, this comes out, the bolt comes out, and then from here, there’s this inside. And this is where we can take out the charging handle and we can flip sides. This, if it does slide out you have to have it upside down and it fits right in there like that and moves forward, might want a little lubrication on there, it’s pretty dry, and we’ve been shooting it here.
To switch sides all we do is we slide it right in here. You can actually kind of put it in too far and then it doesn’t want to go forward, so we just pull it out just a little bit, there we go, until it slides forward, slide that all the way forward, and then we simply reverse goes upside down, and there we go.
PSA JAKL Trigger System
Real quick, the trigger that comes with it is pretty much mil-spec. A little bit of travel, a little bit of creep, awesome reset. As far as mil-spec triggers, it’s not bad, I think uh if we had a custom trigger in there we could probably shrink groups I’m guessing. Let’s just see what we get for pounds here. Yeah, 5.5. That’s actually less than I thought it was going to be, I thought it was gonna be closer to 7. A little under 5.5, there you go.
Gas System
As far as the gas system goes, I love the tool list. I was shooting with a suppressor so I had it turned all the way clockwise, that’s where I was getting a solid consistent ejection with everything regardless of the weight. Before I had my suppressor, when I was shooting it as it came, I had it about in the middle and was having great success with that, then we can turn it all the way the other way and adjust that way.
I haven’t had a ton of piston an adjustable gas blocks, but when they say tool-less, this is the easiest, simplest that I have ever encountered, I absolutely love it. I have encountered some before that turned, but it didn’t take long and very many rounds and they were getting really hard to turn. I had put a lot of rounds through this thing and it’s just as effortless as the day that it arrived, I love it, and I’m gonna keep it all the way clockwise so that I can shoot it suppressed.
PSA JAKL Lower Receiver
Guys, really quick note, if you’re checking out the JAKL and you’re reading the info on the web page it specifically says that it will fit any mil-spec AR lower, with that in mind it will fit a stripped lower, you can’t take the upper and just pop it onto your AR lower that has a buffer tube, you have to have this piece and then you also have to change out the bolt release.
I just want to make sure that that’s clear because some of you might be thinking the way it’s stated that you can just get the upper and then you can just throw that on your AR lower, you can but you’re going to have to take the buffer tube off and basically, you’re going to construct using any AR mil-spec stripped receiver, you can make a JAKL lower if that makes sense.
Testing the PSA JAKL with Optics
I was really interested in testing out the long stroke piston design as we all know how reliable that is in AKs, and that means a very short and compact overall length with everything contained in the lower receiver with the benefit of AR compatibility for things like triggers and all the other items.
Let’s just get the barrel seasoned with one of my favorite optics that is perfect for this gun, Primary Arms SLX 3x micro prism, specific to the 300 Blackout and 762. In other reviews, I have easily taken the gun out to three, four, and even 500 yards on steel with even short-barreled guns.
For close quarters and less than 50 yards, I have a 45-degree offset mount with a Holosun HS407C. Both of these optics are tough as nails and perfect for this gun. For my offset mount, for the Holosun, I have a Strike Industries, it’s the Ambush, it’s the 45-degree optic mount, I absolutely love this thing, guys, it’s a little more coin than some of the typical 45 offset mounts, but this one you absolutely get what you pay for, you can mount pretty much anything and everything to it, you might want to check it out. I gotta say I just love this optics setup.
Finally, Some Shooting with The JAKL
I’ve been working on seasoning the barrel and getting the optic zeroed in, I think we’re good to go and we’re pretty decent on the seasoning. Let’s see what we get for our final groups here.
I actually just used the Binox and we’re just a dash to the right so I made two clicks to the left, let’s see how that does.
I’m gonna go one more click to the left and call that good. Now I want a quick see if this is on and put some on the target using just the red dot. So, we’re just going to change the sideways here a little bit and use the red dot.
Those were some pretty decent groups using range ammo, let’s go check those out!
There we go, guys, that was the first, there’s five shots there. I was checking the zero, needed to come just a little bit left, there’s the next five shots. I did one more click left and then I called that good. Oh, nice that’s the five shots using the red dot! With it canted it does pose some challenges for zeroing because you’re going elevation and windage, but as far as a red dot and the distance that we would be using that, I’m going to call that good.
So, this is what I’m getting at 50 yards, I absolutely love this optic, guys! Let’s take a look at 200, 300, 400.
PSA JAKL Testing with Optics at up to 500 yards
So, this is the sight picture that we’re getting from the red dot at 50 yards! This is what we’re seeing at 200 yards with the red dot! And then this is what we’re seeing looking through the optic at 200 yards! So, that’s what we’re seeing at 300! That’s our sight picture at 400 yards! That’s what we’re seeing at 500 yards, guys!
Let’s just see what we can do at 20o yards. Zeroing at 50 yards gives us a battlefield zero, this does have a BDC compensator that will mess it up a little bit, but I usually make it work just fine, let’s give this a go.
Yeah, that was too easy, that’s what I expected!
Let’s reach out there to 300, we’re going to try just on the bullseye, or in this, the tip of the chevron, they’ll show you the field of view. Let’s give this a go and see if it’s on. Nice!
I was using the top of the line at 300, at 50 we’ve got the top of the chevron, and 100 we’d be using the top of the chevron. Let’s reach up to 400!
It’s getting pretty small up there at 400 with tree power, I’ll try the first line here, we’ve got just a faint cross breeze, so I might go to the right. There we go!
Let’s try aiming just a little bit higher! Nice!
I was taking the top of the first line and putting it at the head of the IDPA. Let’s try five, and that IDPA is getting really small at 500. Hey, there we got it!
Got four left out of that box, let’s jump back down to 400 and see how fast we can get these off. Nice!
I’m just curious if we can hit the steel using the red dot here at two. I have another one in the chamber yet. How many did I put in?
You gotta love that!
I didn’t really think about it but I really can’t use this standing, I only can use this if I’m benching and I can basically control the recoil. What I’m going to do now is we’ll try standing at 50 yards with the offset red dot, I think we’ll be pretty good here.
Yeah, I figured that would be easy! Let’s reload and try a hundred. Guys, I’m gonna be honest, my number one plan idea for the JAKL was to SBR it, and that is off. Hopefully, I’ll get my text stamped soon, and then I can put a stock on this and really have some fun. Let’s see what we can do here at 100.
Yeah, that’s not bad! We’ll have to try two. Let’s give this a go at 200, this is going to be a lot more challenging. We did hit it resting it so we know it was on.
Here we got it, just got a push forward enough.
100, yeah, we could do to really hold that steady enough, for 200 it just really wasn’t working all that great.
Testing the JAKL with different ammo, optics, and a suppressor
What I want to do now is I’m still using this to season the barrel, let’s chronograph AAC’s different ammo out of this so you know what you’re going to get out of this, that will kind of further along the seasoning, and then I want to put an optic on this like a scope so that we can see what is the best case scenario for accuracy.
I’m also going to take off the Birdcage flash suppressor, put an adapter on there, and put my can on it because 300 Blackout, and especially the JAKL, is really kind of designed for a suppressor. As you have seen it works just fine if you don’t have one, but it really was sort of intended to have a suppressor, so let’s get that on.
Real quick, this is the order that I’m going to go in, left to right, top to bottom. We’re just going to go to make it easy when I’m down there, heaviest to lightest. Nice!
Guys, I can’t wait for you to see that group! The 125-grain Full Metal Jacket the range ammo, all touching.
Guys, I am super impressed! So, the middle one, this was getting zeroed with a scope, and worked our way over and we stopped there. Then what I did was I went from heaviest to lightest, so this is the 220 Sierra Matchking, that’s five rounds, there’s two in there, two in there, and one in there, that’s awesome. Then we go to the 208 grain, and that’s good, I’m gonna call that a flinch. There we go, and then this is what’s crazy, we go with the AAC 150 grain Full Metal Jacket ammo, and that’s five shots, even better we go to the 125 grain, basically the cheapest, the range ammo, check that out, man, that’s five shots. And then we go the A-MAX, I want to redo, actually, what I’m gonna do, let’s go back and cycle all the way through and do another five rounds and see what happens, but I wanted to stop here so that we could see what we got with the first five round groups.
Guys, I am so happy with those groups, you gotta check these out!
So, we showed you the zero-in, we did the five-shot groups, and then we went back and we did another. There’s our 220 grain so there’s 10 shots, two groups of five, that’s pretty good. The 208 was solid, it’s slower, and we had two flyers, otherwise, that’s really nice. Remember, we zeroed in on the 125 that’s why it’s down and for some reason with the heavier ones it kind of comes left. There’s our 150 grain, that’s AAC’s Full Metal Jacket, I mean basically a heavy range ammo, that’s nice. That is awesome! That is 10 rounds of their range ammo, they’re 125-grain Full Metal Jacket ACC’s bullet, and that rocks! And then this is the 110-grain A-Max, we had a flyer here, and that’s a great group, but what I just think is hilarious is you take the range ammo from AAC and it blows away everybody!
Anyway, there you go, guys! As I always say, it is what it is, let’s reach out and bang on some steel while we’ve got the scope with some of our range ammo at 500 yards. Let’s see what we can do with that 125 up there at 500.
Nice! Man, you gotta love that, guys! That says a lot about the ammo and the gun.
There you have it, guys, it is what it is, you decide what you think. I hope you enjoyed the review, found it helpful. If so, help support the channel, be sure and hit that subscribe button, guys, hit that button, it really helps the most. Like and comment.
Until next time, happy shooting, remember to educate our young people about shooting and gun safety, and every time we’re on the range, every time we’re shooting, hunting, or doing anything with a firearm, everybody’s watching us these days. That makes us ambassadors for the Second Amendment, so be a good Ambassador, and be a safe and responsible gun owner.
