LWRC IC-Di Review
So I have always wanted a “top shelf” AR since I was 16 years old looking at the gun shop walls. The LWRC rifles always caught my eye but with a $3,000 price tag for their piston driven guns they were always way out of my price range for an AR pattern rifle. In 2015 LWRC released their first direct impingement rifle the IC-Di with an MSRP of $1,600, they can now be found online for $1,200 or so making this a very affordable option for people in the AR market.
The Di has LWRC’s Individual Carbine totally ambidextrous lower receiver that was originally designed to fulfill an Army Solicitation Contract to improve and replace the aging M-4.
The Di features a spiral fluted cold hammer forged 16.1 inch, 1:7 twist chambered in 5.56. The barrel is also made using [FONT=&]41V45 steel that is the same stuff used in M240 machine guns in the military due to its toughness, it also has a A2 style flash hider. [/FONT]The handguard is free floated and proprietary to LWRC so it cannot be switched out to other brands of hand guards. The version I own uses LWRC’s own mounting system using a series of pre-tapped holes to mount rail sections (or LWRC’s own polymer angled foregrip and rail covers). Personally I think the reason the Di’s are currently so cheap is LWRC just released a new version featuring an MLOK capable rail.
Another interesting feature the Di has is a one-piece bolt carrier group so the gas key staking becomes a non-issue. The entirety of the BCG is Nickle Boron coated which is very very similar to Robar’s NP3 coating. This silver coating leaves the BCG very slick feeling even when totally dry and makes cleaning a breeze. The only real downside to the finish is it comes very shiny like a new nickel but as you shoot it the BCG begins to slowly darken losing its luster but still retaining its natural lubricity. A small detail I really liked about the BCG is that the retaining pin is kind of nestled making this easily lost part easy to keep track of and protected better than a standard BCG. The actual bolt itself is standard “mil-spec” and is nothing special, I am considering adding a bolt that has the Nickle Boron coating so the entire thing matches however.
(Showing the LWRC BCG compared to a Daniel Defense “Mil-Spec” BCG)