Ever thought to yourself that you’d love to have both a 5.56 and 300BLK but just don’t want to have to buy two rifles? Well, Sig solved that for you with the Sig MCX Virtus. Recently, Jake over at 1911 Syndicate got his hands on one from a viewer and gave his honest two cents
about the setup. Overall, he liked the rifle and had many good things to say about it.
Things he liked about the SIG MCX Virtus:
•MLOK handrail and folding stock
•Different stock options including folding
•Adjustable Piston settings
•Different barrel length options (11.5” or 16” for 5.56, 5.5” or 9” for 300BLK)
The Sig MCX Virtus is a modular rifle platform with many options, similar to the Sig 320 of the pistol world. Jake went on to say that while it may look like an AR15, it is not direct impingement and is actually a piston-driven system. Where this would come in handy is when running the rifle suppressed, you’ll get a better running rig thanks to the pushback of the gasses.
He also stated that it would run cleaner with less wear and tear and can be used in more adverse conditions thanks to the setting on the rifle itself. With an exposed two-setting piston system you can switch between normal/suppressed shooting and shooting in adverse conditions (like extreme weather or deserts with fouling) with a simple flip of a switch under the muzzle end of the handguard.
The rifle has available options for both 5.56 or 300BLK calibers. Each has cold hammer forged barrels in different length choices. With the 5.56 barrels, you can have either 16” or 11.5” and with the 300BLK barrels you can have either 5.5” or 9”. The rifle also comes with the standard Sig muzzle break but can be swapped out for most any other break you’d want and they include tapering accessories for those breaks that need it.
He went on to discuss the handguard being the MLOK system. The guard has MLOK positionings at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock with a Picatinny rail on the top. He pointed out that there are no offset MLOK positions on the 45 for the rail but one could use an offset mount to achieve
it. But beware, most options don’t go flush with the rail and can make it bulky.
While the shape of the rail is a bit larger than expected, it gives the rifle an interesting look. Another perk is that it can be easily removed after pulling the front retention pin on the receiver, which makes it much easier to swap between barrels.
His one bad thing was that it wasn’t a fully-ambidextrous gun. It is mostly ambi-friendly but it doesn’t have an ambi-bolt release. Not a deal-breaker, but mildly annoying given what else they had ambidextrously set up.
Price is around $2000 and he thinks it’s pretty fair given the perks and the ease of switching between 5.56 and 300BLK. So it’s worth taking a look at the Sig MCX VIRTUS for sure.
Hat tip to 1911 Syndicate for making this review.
