Steel Core Cyclone MSR: If You Think .308 Is Expensive, Wait Till You Try .338 LM

In the world of sniper rifles, few calibers can boast the long-range effectiveness of .338 Lapua. From record-setting (and breaking) ultra-long-range confirmed kills to excellent anti-materiel capabilities, few rounds can compete. Because sometimes you need to hit a man-sized target at a mile with the same energy as a .44 Magnum at the muzzle. 

One of the newest precision rifles chambered in this hard-hitting caliber is the new Steel Core Cyclone MSR. Designed and built in Great Britain, the Cyclone MSR (and Steel Core as a whole) has its roots in long-range precision competition shooting. 

The company’s heritage and design shine through on the Cyclone MSR because it’s clearly built with two things in mind: precision and ruggedness. 

But the market for these sorts of rifles is relatively limited, and there’s already a good amount of competition. So, can the new Steel Core MSR hold its own? Let’s take a closer look and find out.

SPECS: Steel Core Cyclone MSR

• Caliber: .338 LM
• Capacity: 10 rounds
• Barrel Length: 27 inches
• Overall Length: 50 inches
• Weight: 15.9 pounds
• MSRP: $11,000

STEEL CORE MSR

The Steel Core MSR is a magazine-fed, push-feed, bolt-action rifle chambered in .338 Lapua. It feeds from proprietary, 10-round steel magazines and ships with two included in the protective case. 

The entire action is enclosed in an incredibly robust, overbuilt aluminum chassis that’s ultra-rigid for increased precision and accuracy. But before we get into it, let’s jump back to the rear of the gun and work our way forward to cover all the components of this rifle.

Starting from the rear, the Cyclone MSR includes a folding solid aluminum stock, which is adjustable for both length and comb height. The bottom of the stock features an integral monopod for stabilizing ultra-long-range shots, but the design doesn’t restrict you to it. Because just forward of the monopod is a small segment of Picatinny rail that shooters can use to attach their own monopod if they have a particular favorite style or brand.

Another noteworthy feature of the stock is that the comb is partially hollow, which facilitates the bolt’s rearward travel, given its massive size. This is great, as it brings the receiver closer to the shooter’s face, which is ideal since the gun is meant to be exclusively shot from the prone position.  

Forward from the stock, at the back of the receiver, the Cyclone MSR utilizes a Hogue-style rubberized pistol grip. The interface is compatible with any AR-15 pistol grip so shooters who want a PSG-1 style grip or (for some unfathomable reason) a retro M16A1 Bakelite grip can install one if they so choose.

Just ahead of the grip, the Cyclone’s trigger guard is so overbuilt that it looks like you could hammer nails with it. But despite the overbuilt appearance, the edges are appropriately chamfered, so it’s still comfortable and doesn’t bang up your trigger or index fingers during recoil.

TRIGGERED!

As for the trigger, it’s perfect: No perceivable creep, short, crisp, and according to a digital Lyman trigger scale, breaks at 2 pounds even. If you miss a shot with the MSR, you can’t blame it on the trigger. But odds are, you didn’t miss at all, given its performance during testing — but more on that in a bit.

Above the trigger is a favorite aspect of the Cyclone: the bolt handle. If you’ve ever fired either an old crusty Mosin-Nagant or an anti-materiel rifle, you know that some bolts are sticky and a pain in the ass to open after firing. This is a primarily unavoidable aspect of specific designs, once they become fouled up enough from repeated shooting. 

With the Cyclone MSR, the bolt handle is enormous. It feels like a shrunken-down emergency brake handle. It nearly fills your hand when operating and gives the shooter so much leverage that even if there were glue in the chamber, you’d be able to effortlessly open the breech. This might seem like needless overkill, but it’s actually a brilliant addition to the gun’s ergonomics. 

If you’re shooting either quickly, under pressure, or in a very hot environment where you’re sweating profusely, you want positive control over the gun’s action.

Speaking of controls, the safety lever is located between the bolt handle and the trigger and consists of an aluminum oversized lever that rotates roughly 45 degrees between safe and fire. The design is simple and unobtrusive, and in testing, it never toggled on during firing or stuck, though it does feature an excellent audible click. 

MAGAZINE

The Cyclone MSR’s magazines are virtually bombproof and, in testing, fed flawlessly. They’re constructed of stamped steel with reinforcement ribs and, despite looking comically large compared to AR-15 magazines, are easy to load into the gun even when in the prone position. They’re also very easy to load, as the spring tension on them isn’t terribly high. This makes sense; no shooter can manually cycle an action that’s large enough, fast enough to warrant powerful magazine springs.

That said, in the field we virtually never used the magazines to reload, instead opting to single-load each shot. When your ammo costs north of 3 dollars a pop, you tend to take your time and make each shot count. As for the magazine release, it’s a small lever located at the back of the magazine well that’s the perfect distance from the firing controls to ensure a shooter isn’t blindly feeling around for it when needed.

Continuing forward, the receiver is rock-solid and includes an integral monolithic Picatinny mount for installing optics. This is something you’ll definitely need, as the gun obviously doesn’t ship with iron sights. If you’re new to guns of this caliber, nothing you would want to engage can be easily seen with the naked eye. Shooting steel targets closer than 750 yards all but ensures a neat little hole due to the round’s incredible velocity.

Part of what aids the gun in achieving this velocity is its massive 27-inch barrel. Featuring a 1:10-inch twist rate, the Cyclone’s match-grade barrel is impressively girthy. The engineers at Steel Core chose this heavy profile barrel to ensure accuracy, as the barrel heats up from repeated shots. 

In testing, after rapidly blasting through 10 rounds of .338 Lapua and then checking zero at 500 yards, there was no perceivable change in either zero or accuracy. 

In a nutshell, even if you’re in a target-rich environment like a PRS match or the mountains of Afghanistan, the Cyclone MSR will be just as accurate on the 15th shot as it was on the first. And for military or law enforcement use, this is crucial. 

RELIABILITY

One common misconception among shooters is that firearms that are simple to operate must be simple in their construction and design. Ask anyone familiar with Paul Mauser’s work if they believe designing a bolt-action rifle is easy, and they’ll roll their eyes so hard they might faint. After decades of refinements to his Model 98, Paul discovered that there are countless unforeseen issues that can pop up as a military rifle is fielded.

The same can be said — albeit over a shorter duration — of the engineers at Steel Core. Their rifles have been around for decades and have seen combat for most of that time. While the core design of their actions has remained the same, the guns have become more and more rugged with each iteration. This is immediately evident with the Cyclone MSR.

During testing, we fired 160 rounds of .338 Lapua Magnum through the Cyclone, and despite massive damage to the bank account, the gun never malfunctioned. It fed perfectly reliably, and the bolt never felt stiff or clunky. 

ACCURACY

But this is where the Cyclone really needs to separate itself from other offerings of this caliber. Yes, it’s relentlessly reliable and incredibly hard-hitting, but if the gun isn’t accurate, then it has failed in its primary purpose.

So, how did it fair? In a word, remarkably. During testing, we fired several five-round groups with a few minutes between each string to allow the barrel to fully cool. On average, the Cyclone MSR achieved groups as small as 0.35 inch at 100 yards. When I stretched the gun’s legs out to 500, these groups opened up to around 2 inches. For those of you keeping score at home, this means that Cyclone MSR is a sub-half-MOA rifle with proper ammunition. 

By proper ammunition, we mean Barnes Precision Match 300-grain open-tip match boat tail (OTM BT) ammo. These rounds proved unbelievably consistent throughout testing. Better yet, although they’re expensive compared to more common centerfire rounds like .308 Win or 5.56mm, they aren’t the most expensive .338 Lapua Magnum rounds, by far. 

As far as how the gun performed with other ammo, I honestly don’t know. Barnes provided me with 40 rounds of the ammo, and I purchased the remaining 120 on my own dime. I bought the same load because I wanted to really test the gun with a round that I had already zeroed it with. It sounds a bit cheesy, but when you’re lobbing 5-dollar bills downrange, you don’t really want to burn up an extra 50 bucks getting a precise zero for a new load.

OVERALL

If you’re looking for a super affordable precision rifle capable of serving in an anti-material role, this Cyclone MSR isn’t the gun for you. It’s a true precision instrument — one that its designers spared no money designing and constructing. 

With an MSRP of $10,973, the price tag reflects this. But given that each gun costs more than $7,000 to build and that they’re imported from the UK (with all the taxes and tariffs that ensues), this isn’t an example of a company trying to price gouge — the government probably makes more money on each sale than the importer. 

Although that price tag might seem high, it affords shooters a nearly flawless platform to long .338 Lapua rounds at absurd distances with incredible accuracy. There might be several examples of not getting what you pay for in the gun world, the Cyclone MSR most certainly isn’t one of them.