A friend that I shoot with bought an Accuracy International AE MkII and a Premier Reticles Heritage 5-25x56mm scope recently. We shoot matches together so we'd discussed the PRH scopes and he knew that I have been very pleased with mine. We went to the range this past Sunday and he proceeded to zero the scope and "break in" the barrel (it's his rifle so he can do what he wants). After he'd shot 25 rounds or so, he asked me if I wanted to "have a go". He had ten rounds left so I shot the center target first assuming that he'd want to shoot the last five. I shot that group in less than 1-1/2 minutes. He told me to shoot the remaining five rounds, no arm twisting required, so I shot the left target in about the same amount of time. Had I shot on the same target, that'd be a 10-shot group into less than 3/4" in around 3 minutes.
The AE model is a bit different from the AW model and I'm no expert and hope that Zak chimes in to give a more educated analysis of the salient differences since some may not be obvious. Regardless, the owner of the rifle was shooting reloads that he uses in another .308 Win so these are not "optimized" for the AE but still performed very well at 100 yards. The load details are on the target below. I haven't run the groups through OnTarget but they're both around 0.6". Overall, I was very impressed with the rifle and given that it costs about the same as a custom rifle with similar features, I'd have no problem recommending it to anyone thinking of buying a high-end rifle. My perception is that AI wanted to offer a rifle suitable for virtually any kind of civilian use for half the cost of an AW rifle. My friend paid around $3,000 which is close to the cost of a decent action, barrel and stock plus gunsmith fees.
The AE model is a bit different from the AW model and I'm no expert and hope that Zak chimes in to give a more educated analysis of the salient differences since some may not be obvious. Regardless, the owner of the rifle was shooting reloads that he uses in another .308 Win so these are not "optimized" for the AE but still performed very well at 100 yards. The load details are on the target below. I haven't run the groups through OnTarget but they're both around 0.6". Overall, I was very impressed with the rifle and given that it costs about the same as a custom rifle with similar features, I'd have no problem recommending it to anyone thinking of buying a high-end rifle. My perception is that AI wanted to offer a rifle suitable for virtually any kind of civilian use for half the cost of an AW rifle. My friend paid around $3,000 which is close to the cost of a decent action, barrel and stock plus gunsmith fees.
