SRU Kits Worth It?

In todays market, there is a wide variety of kits and conversion kits that are available for, what seems like all, pistol and rifle platforms. The one company that is under the microscope on this write up is going to be the 3D printing company, SRU Precision. SRU is a relatively large manufacture that makes only 3D printed kits for some popular guns like the Sig Saur M17 and the WE-TECH Scar-L.

There is very little information on the origin story of SRU so it is hard to determine when and where the kits started to appear but from some Reddit posts, we do know that it hit the market in 2017. I believe the first kits were for the We-Tech platforms like the Scar. Since there is little info on the company, lets just break right into the kits themselves.

Before I get into the review, I am not sponsored by SRU or Evike, this is solely based on my experience. For the purpose of this article, I am going to be mostly focusing on the SRU kit for the M17 since I purchased that for a future video on the assembly of the gun into the kit. I purchased the kit from Evike.com when it was under the “Epic Deals” for $62. As I write this article, it is currently still on sale for $62 (https://www.evike.com/products/17984/).

When I received the item and opened the mailing box, it arrived in the standard SRU boxing with the logo front and center. Upon opening the box, there is some literature that is first to be seen. One of the pages being a pamphlet for other kits that are offered and one page warning the user to not leave the kits in a hot environment due to issues with the print melting. That also applies to transporting the gun in hot weather as well.

When it came to taking the kit out of the box, it was very straightforward on what is included. My kit included the following:

• Body and rear top section on the body
• Trigger Bar
• Hand Backstrap
• Front locking piece for trigger
• Pin for Front Locking Piece

Now with all that included, there was no actual instructions for installation. You sorta need to just reference images to piece it together. So now lets talk about the quality. For being completely 3D printed, the quality of the print is actually decent. It has even and solid layers to make a strong core. It looks to be 100% infill for the fill and there is hardly any signs of warping. Although the quality is decent and seems sturdy, I did still face some issues. With the body of the kit having a spring loaded extending stock, I pressed the release button and it immediately snapped in half. Really big bummer since there is no real repair other than gluing it back together.

Installing the M17 into the kit is straightforward. You first remove the slide from the lower frame of the gun. Remove the slide locking lever and pull the internal hammer and frame out of the lower body of the pistol. Then with that removed, you are going to want to use a small pick and remove the locking tab on the magazine release. That is going to allow for the release to be removed. For the installation in the kit, you are going to want to slide the lower internal frame and hammer into the body of the kit. I use the slide locking lever hole as a alignment tool to make sure the holes are going to be even. From there you can slide the locking lever in the kit and lock the lower frame in place. Next step would be installing the magazine release. You are essentially going to reverse the removal of the release for the installation.

Final step would be installing the pieces that came with the kit. I started by sliding the trigger into the channel of the body, then snapping the back strap on the trigger guard area, and finally putting the front end piece with the through pin. That pretty much sums up my experience with the install of the gun into the kit.

Overall these kits are a decent alternative to change up the style of whatever gun you choose to install into one. My experience with the M17 kit was just okay in my eyes, biggest flaws were the no instructions and the brittle parts. I believe if they relied less on 3D printing and swapped over to injection molding, that would up the level of SRU to a more competitive status comparing them to some other kits on the market. I will be releasing a video of the install as well very soon. It is currently in the editing phase.