Q: The Company
If you are unfamiliar with the ungoverned attitude of "the other" gun company from New Hampshire, you might be a little a bit surprised when you come upon Q’s marketing and products.
Q’s creativity is aggressively portrayed in its designs, and The Fix is certainly a result of that creativity. Like many of Q’s other offerings, The Fix goes well beyond conventional designs.
The Fix
At first glance, you might think The Fix was some kind of AR-10/bolt-action hybrid with some lightweight design thrown in for good measure. But The Fix is more than that. It was designed to fit a compact and lightweight niche in the market.
The Fix is made from a one-piece receiver, sort of like an AR upper and lower that have been molded as one piece. A lightweight free-floating handguard is attached to the front of the receiver, and a monolithic Picatinny rail runs across the top of the whole assembly.
A minimalist skeletonized folding buttstock brings up the rear. It is fully adjustable for length of pull, recoil pad height, and features an adjustable cheek riser. With a firm press downward, the buttstock is released and can be folded to the side of the rifle.
The two-stage trigger has a fairly light take-up. It breaks cleanly and is reset with each stroke of the bolt. The ambidextrous safety will feel familiar to those who shoot AR-type rifles. The Fix runs on PMags in the SR-25 pattern, making a lot of decisions easy for you. The magazine release button will also be familiar to those shooting AR-10-type rifles.
In addition to all this, The Fix uses Q's proprietary Q-Sert accessory system on the handguard. Think of something more robust and easier to install or move than M-LOK. The Fix also uses Q's tapered barrel shoulders for attaching the company’s muzzle devices like the included Cherry Bomb or one of many suppressor options Q offers. The tapered shoulders are to allow better alignment of suppressors and their assorted mounts. Preventing baffle strikes is a noble mission, and one I endorse fully.
Bolt Design
Perhaps the most cunning part of The Fix is the bolt. The round bolt body houses most of the mechanical parts of the trigger. The bolt head engages into the barrel to lock into battery, but it only requires 45 degrees to do so.
The bolt body and bolt handle are connected within the bolt shroud, which covers the whole back end of the action and moves with the bolt when operated. The shroud rides on a rail on either side of the receiver to keep it aligned and prevent it from rotating with the bolt assembly.
Out of the Box
As I lifted The Fix from its box, I was temporarily time-warped to SHOT Show a few years ago when I picked up The Fix for the first time. Just as back then, I was impressed by the light weight of the rifle, a mere 6.3 pounds, according to Q's website.
I folded out the buttstock and shouldered the rifle to get that first feel for it. The balance is amazing and so easy to maneuver. I reached for the bolt handle to run the unique bolt and check the chamber.
The incredibly short bolt lift is borderline distracting. The first few times, you feel like you only half-lifted the bolt, and there is more to go. The minimalist bolt handle is quite petite, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings if it were a bit bigger for better purchase and to avoid missing it entirely. After playing with The Fix for a bit, it was time to get it prepared for the range.
Outfitting the Fix
For my testing purposes, the rifle would need a scope and mount, probably a decent bipod, and a few boxes of ammo. I have several scopes lying around, but I chose to mount one of the newer ones on The Fix. A Riton Primal 2-12X44 would be a great companion to the little Fix. I mounted it using an Aadland Engineering 20 MOA one-piece mount.
I also installed the one Q-Sert Pic rail section that came with the rifle up front to use as a bipod mount for one of my Harris bipods. I took the time to break loose the Cherry Bomb from the muzzle, because I wasn't about to go shoot this rifle without a suppressor in my pocket.
To the Range
I gathered a few boxes of my favorite .308 Winchester ammunition on the way. I'm a big fan of 175 Sierra Match Kings when shooting .308s. I also shot some admittedly cheap ammo from The Fix, and it shot pretty good groups.
At 100 yards, the rifle was shooting sub-MOA groups with ease, which made it much more interesting. Getting used to the bolt took a minute, but it became very easy to shoot the rifle keeping my thumb resting on the bolt knob. This ended up making the process of running the bolt even easier and faster.
The rifle's light weight would surely increase the felt recoil, so I was ready for that going in. But even through the recoil it was easy to shoot The Fix well, and as you might imagine, packing the rifle around was fantastic.
Pros & Cons
