My opinion might be a little biased but I've ran thousands of rounds for 3 years now, in all conditions through F1 Firearms rifles without a single malfunction. Not only do I compete with them but throughout the year I hunt with them as well. They've been put through rain, mud, south TX dust storms and everything you can imagine getting carried around a ranch. From my experience they actually run cleaner. Carbon/debris is allowed to blow out instead of being trapped inside. Now as stated above concerning weight, no they are not the lightest. With all the skeletonizing on the 7075 t6 receivers F1 still wanted to retain strength and that's at the cost of thickness/weight. But as mentioned you will save more weight in the barrel and optics than anything else. With that said F1 is offering Proof Research barrels on complete builds for only $375! LMK if you have any questions and I can also send you a 15% discount code ?