For their version of the Designated Marksman Rifle, Wilson Combat didn’t try to clone any of the original versions, or copy any of the guns fielded by the US military. Staying true to the concept, Wilson made their own version of the DMR. A better one.
The Wilson Combat DMR is named for the squad Designated Marksman Rifle, a class of weapons designed for the Army and Marine Corps Squad Designated Marksman program during the global war on terror.
The SDM’s role is to provide effective fire beyond the normal capability of infantryman, out to 600 meters, with a minimally modified service rifle. The SDM course wasn’t intended to provide precision fire at long ranges. That’s what snipers are for. Their course is far more involved and the equipment much more specialized.
Another key difference between SDMs and snipers is that the SDM is intrinsic to the infantry squad level unit and deployed with the unit in combat patrols. Unlike snipers, the SDMs weren;t designed to be pre-deployed forward of infantry units on overwatch. Instead, they were with the unit to provide additional effective range to the squad, if such a need arose.
Throughout the years of the SDM program, a wide range of cadre was developed, though many of the original instructors were drawn from the US Army Marksmanship Unit President’s 100 and the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
As an Army reservist, I volunteered to be the medic for this course and in that role, was allowed to participate in the instruction and course of fire. That training would come in very handy during my deployments to Afghanistan where our average initial engagement distance was 400 meters and it often expanded from there.
The Designated Marksman Rifle itself changed depending on the year it was deployed, the branch, and sometimes even the unit. The initial DMR guns used by the Army were simply M16 service rifles modified by the Army Marksmanship Unit. These were originally Armalite rifles topped with the newly fielded 4X Advanced Combat Optic Gunsite made by Trijicon, with a 20-inch stainless barrel and a free-floating handguard. These were the types of guns I trained on and they still hold a place in my heart.
The DMR guns would vary widely over the course of the program, but those early rifles all had a few things in common. They were all chambered in 5.56 NATO, all had 20-inch barrels and had some type of additional accurizing. All had some kind of magnified optic.
Beyond that, they all were essentially the same guns the infantryman would be used to and, at a distance, would be difficult to distinguish between the other weapons most of a squad of light infantry would be carrying.
Wilson Combat’s rifle is similar to those guns, but it’s better in every way. First, the chambering is one never fielded by regular units.
Wilson Combat chambers this gun in .223 Wylde. For those unfamiliar with the nomenclature, .223 Wylde isn’t a type of ammunition. It’s a chamber specification. It has a freebore diameter of 0.2240″, a freebore length of 0.0619″, and throat angle of 1.25 degrees. It was designed by Bill Wylde and its use case was to wring more accuracy out of the 5.56 NATO cartridge for use in National Match-style competitions.
It fires both .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO rounds just fine, and really is the best of both worlds when it comes to those cartridges. If you’re buying an AR-15 pattern rifle, there’s no good reason not to buy a .223 Wylde chambered gun, other than they’re usually a bit more expensive.
The US military has never been picky about the triggers on their primary weapons. Not so for Wilson Combat. This DMR features Wilson Combat’s two-stage Tactical Trigger Unit. It’s what you’d expect from a company that prides itself on precision.
Wilson Combat bills (no pun intended) this trigger as having a 4 lb. pull. My Lyman digital trigger scale put every pull within 2 oz. of that target weight over 10 pulls. That’s exceptional consistency in a gas gun trigger.
Unlike most Wilson Combat guns — but in keeping with the DMR theme — this one isn’t particularly fancy. All black, not very shiny. It has an Armor-Tuff finish applied over the Mil-Spec hard anodized upper and lower receivers. In terms of pure durability, that’s going to be hard to beat.
The grip is their well-known starburst pattern with a hinged floor plate covering the hollow handle, a fine place to store some lube and foamies. The rifle has a large, well-textured bolt catch/release that’s pretty hard to miss on fast reloads.
The bolt carrier assembly is a thing of beauty. Nickel boron, machined ejector and extractor, and the gas key appears to be staked by the almighty himself. Wilson Combat is proud of them and they should be.
The only thing I don’t love on this gun is the Magpul MOE collapsible 6-position stock. It has a great textured butt pad and really does a great job staying still on your shoulder or chest. The flat angled portion on the bottom is a good platform to mount over a rear bag. But if it were my gun I’d replace it with a fixed A4 style stock, or even one of Wilson Combat’s fixed carbon fiber stocks.
The DMR performs well on the bench, as expected. For this review I averaged four sets of five round groups at 100 yards with 3 types of common military ammunition with the rifle mounted in a Caldwell Stinger shooting rest and topped with an appropriate US Optics 1.5-6X LPVO.
The worst-shooting round was surplus M855 that printed 1-inch groups. The best-printing group was IMI’s 77gr SMK which printed .7-inch groups. Surplus M193 scored right there alongside the M855, technically, scoring an average of .9-inch.
These are, by weight and composition, fairly different rounds. The fact that their 100-yard group sizes were so close together tells me the group sizes were more about the shooter and his old eyes than the gun or the ammo.
Paper at 100 yards is valuable data, but the whole point of the Designated Markman Rifle is to push it farther. That’s exactly where this rifle shines. Out at The Ranch TX private shooting club, I put the DMR and 6X optic through a good session of shooting, about 300 rounds that day. A fun standard of mine is how far out I can get shooting one round per second on a 19-inch silhouette. For the Wilson Combat DMR, that was 400 yards.
At that range, 20 rounds hitting the target in 20 seconds off a high front bag from the kneel was giggly fun. Pushing it farther, I could still get 20 rounds into the silhouette in 30 seconds at 600 yards. That said, starting at 600 yards, I was starting to drop some hits from windage, despite the fact the wind was fairly steady. At the 700-yard mark, my hit percentage dropped to about 50 percent. As the kids would say, sounds like a skill issue.
On another trip I spent a good amount of time transitioning between targets at different ranges as well as horizontally across the range from both prone and kneel, as well as standing unsupported. One of the great things about a Wilson Combat build is the fitment and transition drills like this really show it off. Get a solid grip on the forend, pull the stock back into your shoulder, and it stays right there.
There’s no wobble in the gun, no fighting it at all. The barrel and forend length add enough weight and grip to start and stop the muzzle quickly. The trigger allows for not just a crisp break, but a fast one, and fast follow-up shots as well.
The whole point of a DMR is to take stable position and put lead on target, but if you’re walking and talking, the gun runs great there just the same.
I ran well over 500 rounds through this gun over the course of a month of shooting. Closer to 1,000 rounds. I lubed it using the supplied Wilson Combat lubricant. Most of that was run suppressed. At no point did I experience a failure of any kind. No failures to fire, failures to feed, of the supplied Lancer magazine (nice!) or a simple 30-round Magpul mag to catch or drop, nothing. The gun ran perfectly, suppressed or not, with every round of ammo I put through it.
Wilson Combat absolutely nailed the concept of a DMR, a standard(ish) gas gun that shoots better than the enemy would bet on. It’s a fun, fast, precise gun to shoot and it brought back some memories. The Wilson Combat DMR also reminded me of a concept of guns that I liked…infantry rifles, only better. I would have certainly loved to have had one in combat, and there’s no higher praise.
Specifications: Wilson Combat DRM in .223 Wydle
Caliber: .223 Wylde – WC-15 platform
Barrel length: 18″ fluted threaded (1:8 twist)
Overall length: 38.25″
Weight empty: 6 lbs 14.6 oz
Billet upper (flat-top) and lower receiver
Wilson Combat Recon Tactical profile fluted match grade barrel
Rifle-length gas system with lo-profile gas block
1/2″ x 28 threaded muzzle with Q-Comp
Wilson Combat M-LOK rail (suitable for gas block coverage) with Wilson Combat M-LOK 4-slot rail covers
Wilson Combat/BCM Starburst Gunfighter grip, Black
Magpul MOE Stock
Wilson Combat TTU (Tactical Trigger Unit) M2, 4# pull
Premium bolt carrier assembly
Armor-Tuff finish applied over Mil-Spec Hard Anodized Upper/Lower receivers
One Lancer L5 10-Round Advanced Warfighter Magazine
Base price: $2,575