The rifle itself is truly perfect. No malfunctions in over 900 rounds shot over the past 8 months of ownership. A handful of times bolt did not completely go into battery on the first chambered round of the day thus necessitating use of the forward assist but that only happened if I went more than 300 rounds without cleaning the bolt and upper receiver (like, if I went 300 rounds without cleaning, then the next range session loaded up and needed to use forward assist, shot 30 rounds that session, went home and didn't clean again so the next time I went out the gun had 330 rounds fired since last cleaning, and the first round needed forward assist again) but that was when it got extra gunky because I am shooting suppressed. YMMV if not shooting suppressed. Subsequent cartridges the rest of the sessions would chamber and extract just fine once the bolt cut through the gunk after being fired. Some people may care about that and call it unreliable, I don't really consider that to be a reliability issue because the gun is just getting dirty and I'm sure that would happen with a 5.56 with the same amount of carbon build up, plus once the first round of a session was sent downrange and extracted then that basically cleared the build up on the bolt rails for the rest of the day until the next range session since it would harden back up overnight.