The cheap psa ar-15's aren't even close to being in the same class accuracy wise as the majority of the budget bolt action 223's.
Interesting to see how many people think a ar mag hanging out of a bolt action rifle is a good thing. I could case less about how it looks, getting in the way/performance with carry & position shooting is more important to me than having 10/20/30 shots to cycle thru a bolt action.
A couple of years back I was looking at the cheap bolt action 223 market. Was interested in doing an experiment using the cheapest components I could make/find and run them thru a cheap bolt action 223. Ended up with a cheap heavy bbl'd savage axis for $318 out the door. Had a $50 mail in rebate and I sold the cheap scope that came with it for another $50. Ended up with $218 bolt action rifle. Never did anything to it, heck even left the accru-trigger as it was out of the box. No adjusting anything, doing anything to the stock, nada. The only thing I did was tested the torque's on the action screws as I zeroed the 24x scope I put on it that I've used for silhouettes.
Anyway to make a short story long I got free lead from the berm to use as bullet cores, 22lr cases to use as bullet jackets and used free range pickup brass to shoot those home swaged bullets out of. I did sort the brass into 2 piles commercial & nato. The bullets I made out of free lead/free 22lr cases
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I ran around 40 rounds down the tube zeroing the scope in and playing with the action screw torques. Cleaned the bbl and then shot this target/5-shot groups @ 100yds.
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25.5gr to 26.5gr of bl-c2 has always produced moa or better accuracy for me in several firearms chambered in 223. The savage axis was no different. That 25.5gr load put 3 in 1 hole and 2 out 5/8" to 5/8" outside to outside. Those are real world results from savage axis using mixed nato range brass that were full length sized and trimmed only (no fire forming/neck turning/primer pocket uniforming/ect). The bullets are nothing more than home swaged.
That 25.5gr load/accuracy pictured above is repeatable along with finding excellent loads using h335.
That's what a box stock $218 savage axis does for me using free brass/free bullets, $20 per 1000 s&b primers and ball powder.