PSA SABRE-10

Welcome to our in-depth review of the PSA SABRE 10 rifle, a firearm that has been generating buzz in the shooting community.

In this review, we’ll closely examine the SABRE 10’s features, performance, and overall value.

Whether you’re a seasoned shooter or new to the world of rifles, our goal is to provide you with a detailed and unbiased analysis of this rifle, helping you understand what sets the PSA SABRE 10 apart in a crowded market.

So, let’s load up and dive into what makes this rifle a topic of interest for enthusiasts and professionals alike.

PSA SABRE 10

Caliber: 308 & 6.5 Creed
Length: 13.7″, 16″, 18″

Price Check

My Build

Sandman S

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Primary Arms SLx 1-10

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• Sandman S
• Primary Arms SLx 1-10

PSA Sabre-10 Features

The features on the Sabre 10 are pretty impressive, considering the price point at which these AR-10s come in. Palmetto does a great job getting people reasonably reliable firearms at a decent price, and the Sabre 10 is no exception to that rule.

First, I’m going to talk about the upper receiver.

Upper Receiver

The upper receiver is pretty chunky compared to an AR-15. If you’re unfamiliar with the AR-10 platform, it’s scaled up to shoot 30 caliber rounds, such as the .308 or the 6.5 Creedmoor.

In this case, this is a .308 gun, and as you can tell, the upper is quite large.

The milling on the upper is very basic. It doesn’t have rounded side walls like many AR’s do. This gun does have unique milling, which is nice.

Having not another generic rounded upper in the collection is always a plus.

Lower Receiver

Moving on to the lower receiver follows the same lines and design as the upper. It has a built-in trigger guard that swoops down, which anyone shooting with gloves will appreciate.

It’s an extremely defined cut lower with a fantastic finish. It has a lot of hard and defined lines, but it feels excellent in the hand.

The roll marks on the mag well include the model and the caliber as well as your serial number.

All of these are cleanly cut, and the little intricacies of the lower that we’ll get into in a little bit are extremely well done.

Barrel & Chamber

On this particular model, the Sabre line has a ton of different models available, so you can get nearly anything you want.

You can get forged uppers and lowers, or you can get billet uppers and lowers. It’s endless possibilities.

But as far as the chambering in the barrels, typically in an AR-10, you’ll think .308, but in recent years, the 6.5 Creedmoor has been featured in the AR-10 platform.

Because it’s just a barrel swap, bringing the 6.5 Creedmoor into the AR-10 platform is easy.

This SABRE 10 has a 308 NATO with the 416-R stainless steel barrel, so it kind of sets itself apart from the rest of the gun because it’s the only thing stainless other than the bolt.

It does look very good through the rail and features a mid-length gas system, which helps with the recoil mitigation and overall handling of the gun.

Remember that these rifles will have a little bit more thump and recoil than your 5.56 variance of the SABRE.

But all in all, they do function well. This model is the 13.7 pin and weld with the JMAC muzzle device.

Safety

One of the things that’s really nice about almost every configuration of the Sabre line is the safety, which is a Radian Talon safety.

This one is a 90-degree throw, which is not my favorite throw, but the smoothness and usability of the Radians are next to none.

I think they’re the industry standard now for safeties. If you’re not doing Radian or at least the quality of Radian, I don’t even know what you’re doing.

The Mil-Spec safeties are a thing of the past, and quite frankly, I don’t know why anybody would stick with that when these options are there.

They work swimmingly well. It’s ambidextrous, and the left side is the short side of the throw.

I’m right-handed, so this works well. The right side is shorter, of course, when it’s in the 90 and down. That way, it doesn’t interfere with your trigger finger.

Pistol Grip

This gun’s furniture is all B5 Systems. This B5’s grip is growing on me. I was a Magpul guy for the longest time, but the more I get my hands on these B5 grips, the more I like them.

They have more abrasion. To me, they look better, and their angle of attack is better than the Magpul’s and the Mil-Spec A2 grips, in my opinion.

Magazine Release

The magazine release is not ambidextrous, but that doesn’t bother me much; since I’m right-handed, I understand the lefties, and that might be a bigger issue.

The magazine release itself is metal and pretty well textured. It seems to lock in well and easily drops the magazines free.

Overall fit function: it’s an AR-style platform, so you’ll get what you get there, but overall, the magazine release button is pretty good.

Magazine / Mag Well

The magazine this gun comes with is just the standard PMAG 20-round 7.62×51 magazine.

Many people refer to it as the Magpul 308 mag.

The magazine doesn’t get in the way when you bipod this up or put it on a rest like I did.

For example, the 20-rounder doesn’t provide any interference when you’re trying to shoot. The magazine well is massive.

Of course, you have to fit a 308 round in here instead of a 556, so it’s extremely long and pretty wide. It does have the same kind of flared magwell.

I don’t know anybody doing rapid magazine changes on a 308 AR.

It does funnel in well, and I don’t have any problems with it. But again, that’s less of a deal, in my opinion, on AR-10s than a 5.56 AR that you might be doing rapid magazine changes.

Bolt Release / Hold-Open

The bolt release and hold open is an ambidextrous control, it’s a standard AR-15 bolt release on the left-hand side, and I say standard, but this one is unique.

There are a couple of others that are very similar to it. I think the Battle Arms Development looks like this one.

Either way, as far as I know, this is proprietary to Palmetto State Armory’s SABRE line.

On the opposite side, you have the bolt release just above the magazine release, and I could see that being very useful, not having to move the gun to reload a mag and then drop the bolt and go back to shooting.

So either way, that seems very fitting. Does seem to work pretty well. I used it a handful of times, shooting this thing, and the form function works great.

Charging Handle

The charging handle in this bad boy is the Radian Raptor LT.

So, the one thing I will say about the Radian’s Raptor charging handles is they are the industry standard.

If you don’t have a Radian, you probably have something that has copied the Radian or is very similar to it.

This is a kind of scaled version if you will. They don’t have metal charging handles, so this is Palmetto’s version.

It’s marked for Palmetto and the only thing I can tell they changed as far as the design on the regular Radian Raptor is the fact that they put on polymer charging handles.

I don’t have a problem with that because I don’t see that as a failure point, so I don’t think that’ll ever be an issue.

The only thing I think it did was probably cut down on the cost because metal is expensive.

Rail System / Handguard

The rail system and handguard on the SABRE-10 is the PSA handguard.

Palmetto has this marked with their logo. I like how they’ve tastefully incorporated the Palmetto logo on much of their stuff.

It’s a seemingly light hand guard with a lot of milling on it, and I think that will allow the barrel to breathe and stay cool overall.

It does have 3, 6 and 9 o’clock M-LOK rails as you would expect.

The whole top is a picatinny and has two QD mounts at the rear where the barrel nut is, where it meets the upper receiver.

I’m not a big fan of that because that’s not where I would attach my sling. I like for it to run up the hand guard a little ways, but it does automatically give you sling attachments.

So if you don’t like it and that’s a personal preference, you can always change it. But with the B5 SOPMOD stock having a QD mount and the rail having a QD mount, it’s sling-ready out of the box, which is nice.

Optics

I went with the Primary Arms SLx 1-10 as an LPVO is the perfect optic for a 13.7″ pin and weld gun.

SLx 1-10×28

• Magnification: 1X – 10X
• Battery Type: CR2032 3V
• Tube Diameter: 34mm
• Weight: 19.1 oz.

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I think the 1-10 offers the right amount of magnification for this AR-10. It also has good eye relief and fast target acquisition when on 1x.

I’m a big fan of LPVO’s on any of the AR-10 platform guns because they allow you to shoot CQB and extend out when needed.

Shooting the PSA Sabre-10

The SABRE 10 is a hoss of a gun to shoot. The 308 round provides a good bit of felt recoil, but the action of the semi-auto rifle does dampen the recoil some.

I always say that talking about shooting a gun is great but it’s always better to just show you.

Uses for the SABRE 10

I will jump into the, what would you use the Sabre 10 for? Why would you buy it? What is its primary function? What hole does it potentially fill in your lineup?

So there are so many things that the Sabre 10 can be, but the three main things I think anybody considers firearms for is just a range gun, just something to have fun with and then there’s always hunting, and then there’s tactical or self-defense applications.

Let me review all three of these quickly and what I think each may relate to the SABRE 10.

Range Gun

This gun is undoubtedly a fantastic range gun. If you just want a gun that you take out and go plinking and shooting at the range, this is a good gun to do that with.

The biggest problem I see is .308 ammo is expensive. It will always be expensive, especially if you’re throwing a lot of it down range.

It’s not expensive compared to some other large caliber rounds, but if you are shooting this AR-10 like I would shoot an AR-15, it will get expensive very fast.

I don’t think most people use this for plinking, but I could easily see somebody saying, “Hey, I want to go do some precision shooting,” and using this for that reason.

That being said, this is the 13.7″ model and if I were looking for something more in line with accuracy-based shooting, I would probably go for the longer barrel.

Get a bit better ballistics out of it and, hopefully, a little more accuracy.

They make 16 and 18-inch models, so I would probably opt for those if that was my goal.

The 13.7″ Is fun to run. I already have a long AR-10, the SIG 716i, and it’s a great gun, but it has a different purpose than this 13.7″.

Hunting

If your state regulations allow hunting with AR’s, there’s nothing more capable than this.

Bolt guns might give you a little bit better accuracy, but to the point, when does it stop mattering if you can land it on a target and you’re one MOA?

Overall, if I was hunting, I probably wouldn’t go the 13.7″ unless space was an issue.

I’d probably go the 16 or the 18-inch barrel. I don’t think that will be an issue because most hunting rifles have longer barrels.

The 13.7″ absolutely will kill your game, but it’s not the one I would choose if this was my application for the gun.

Overall, if you want an AR-10 platform for hunting, the Sabre AR-10 would be a great option.

Tactical

And last but not least, tactical. The tactical application for a 13.7″ 308 gun is pretty endless.

I don’t know if I would use this for self-defense. I mean, I can see the tactical applications to where you need more precision, higher power, shooting from a further distance gun

However, I don’t see this as a CQB gun, even though it is a 13.7″-pin weld. I couldn’t imagine clearing a house with a 308.

Putting rounds through walls of any nature is not a good idea, but I could see it used in a different application space.

So yeah, it covers a base for tactical if you’re looking for a precision setup in the AR-10 platform.

I think if you’re going for more of a “sniper” role, you’d want to get a bulk gun and maximize your ballistics and accuracy there.

But this does have its place and it would be a good option. The reliability is there, and I think the feature set on this thing is good.

Adding a suppressor is easy because of the JMAC break and the keymo, and overall, it’s a good gun.

So, a tactical application would work. I probably wouldn’t use it for home defense or self-defense. It’s not the gun I would pick for that.

Price & Final Thoughts

So, all in all, this gun is fantastically priced. It’s right at the $1,300 mark.

But that depends on which one you get. Some are $1,100; you can even buy the uppers and lower split and build it as you want.

There are also some cool ones, like the moss green and burnt bronze rail. They also have one that resembles the KAC M110 and all of these are fantastic options.

I think the price for the value you get from these is fantastic. You’re getting upgraded safety selectors, and you’re getting upgraded charging handles, great stocks, whether that’s the Magpul or the B5 SOPMODs.

Overall, you’re getting a lot of value for your dollar. You don’t have to start changing parts as soon as you get the gun in because you probably bought them at the best price.

You can buy them because of the volume that PSA is buying these in; they’re passing that savings along to you.

The biggest thing, of course, is always going to be, is it quality. Is it the best bang for your buck?

The Sabre line is Palmetto State Armory’s dedication and commitment to building a quality, reliable gun.

No matter what, they’ll probably stand behind the Sabre line. This will be a good option for nearly anybody, and it will be reliable.

So far, all of the Sabre line guns I’ve handled, touched, and shot have been extremely reliable. So I would say this is going to be a buy for me.

FAQ