Kelbly’s knows how to make rifles and they’ve been doing it for over 40 years with many precision shooting records to their credit. The NYX is a straight-forward, competition ready out of the box type of rifle.
Coming off of a solid run in Ballistic Precision magazine and a few days at the Max Ordinate academy, the Black Bear action is buttery smooth and fast, with a light disposition. This action is right and you can tell there is lots of experience behind it. A Bartlein barrel doesn’t hurt things either, adding more credibility to this build.
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I’ve personally run the rifle quite a bit, shooting it out to a mile earlier in the spring, and watching other shooters do the same with it. It’s a super easy platform to live with. On top of that I shot one of my best groups of all the rifles with it, affirming previous sub-MOA outings. But that’s my opinion.
Aesthetically, Kendl couldn’t come to any positive words “It’s just a black rifle,” she said. I explained that’s just a color, but aesthetics are what they are to the individual. I thought it looked good until others pointed out the back end of the XLR Envy J.V. chassis. When compared to the front, it is a little anticlimactic. I’d seen past that due to its awesome comfort and adjustability, which others agreed with.
The Bix N Andy trigger is a showstopper no matter who is around. We spent more time talking about it than the fact that it was a left-handed action in the company of all of these wrong-handed evaluators. That trigger is amazing—“telepathic” as I like to refer to it. This brought a significant amount of laughter from Wong. But in my opinion she just doesn’t get it.
The Kelbly’s is sort of a sleeper because it’s rather unassuming but fully capable of world-class performance and comes in right under $4,000. That’s a custom build hotspot if you can get there.
The NYX is just a solid rifle all the way around, but at this price point it needs to flip your skirt and quicken your pulse. In this crowd it didn’t do that, which could serve to hurt its score. When performance is high like this, good looks are a necessity.
