Debating on buying myself a Christmas present (AR 15) and seeing how i know absolutely nothing about them i am seeking your advice. I went to a reputable shop today and spoke to their AR guy who shoots lots of competition with them and his suggestions was stay away from the M&P sport II due to loose tolerance, the next step up would be Ruger MPR or Springfield Saint. Was he just pushing more $$?
M&P sport ii comes with a vortex strikefire II for about $750. He says trigger is trash and needs upgraded and red dot is also not that great.
Springfield comes with a Vortex or Hex red dot, magpul flip sights, case and sling with one mag. The trigger on the Saint is also flat and breaks very light. I have read a lot of reviews saying stay away from the Springfield.
Ruger MPR just has a magpul forened and 2 stage trigger but i heard any parts are proprietary to that rifle. It does have a 20” barrel which could be better for bench shooting and hunting.
If i was going with a store bought package just for random plinking and coyote hunting what would be your pick? They can also order anything i want.
Shots max at 200-300yards. Of course i would scope it.
What scope rings would you suggest for a coyote hunting setup?
How about the triggers on both higher end rifles?
Most of the big gun makers are going to put together a decent rifle, and the price of quality ARs has really come down from where it was a few years ago. PSA has a reputation for being a good entry point for new AR owners, and I can somewhat agree with that, though they sometimes skimp on minor things like staking gas keys or have issues with tolerance stacking that can cause some issues. The Youtube channel School of the American Rifle has a good breakdown on a number of PSA rifles if you really want to get super nerdy about the engineering. That said, I've bought and used PSA rifles and found them to be generally just fine.
When it comes to ARs, there's a million different models made at different price points and for different uses. If you can swing the extra cost, I'd suggest looking at one of the rifles from
Aero Precision, who are considered to be at the higher end of mid-tier ARs.
I wouldn't recommend the M&P Sport 2.
I'm not a coyote hunter, so I don't have any experience there, but here's what I've found works great for AR15s in over 20 years of shooting a lot of rounds through a lot of ARs, some of which I've built myself.
Practically a Requirement:
If you're going to get an AR and care at all about accuracy, get one that has a free-floated handguard. These handguards generally look like a hollow tube of metal or carbon fiber. If you are looking at an AR15, and look where the gas block is, a free-floated handguard won't make contact with the gas block, or anywhere besides where it attaches to the upper receiver. Free-floated handguards are one of the dead simple things that will make an AR15 shoot more consistently/accurately. The M&P Sport 2 doesn't have a free-floated handguard, and what this means is that if you rest the front of the rifle on a surface for shooting, the amount of pressure you put on that handguard can be enough to flex the barrel and cause the rifle to miss by a surprisingly wide margin. So if you're shooting off of a vehicle, rock, bench, rest, bipod, etc., the amount of flex imparted can be the difference between a hit or a miss, even at fairly close ranges (120 yards or more.)
The other thing that you should consider is a rifle that has a decent trigger. If you can't find a rifle with a good one out of the box, you can always buy one later and swap them out, it's an easy process. You don't have to go all out and drop $300 on a Geissele, there are plenty of good triggers available at reasonable costs. I've had good luck with the Rock River Arms two stage triggers which will give a consistent trigger pull of 4.5lbs and they cost around $100. Triggers from LaRue Tactical are not much more than that, as well as companies like Rise Armament, AR Stoner, etc.
Between a decent free-float handguard and a decent trigger, that will go a long way towards making consistent and accurate hits, and rifles with those features already built in to them are available.
Nice to Have:
The other feature you might care about would be bullet weight. If you reload or are very picky about what bullets you intend to use, you may want to look for a rifle with a twist rate that will do the best job of stabilizing your chosen bullet. You may also want to go with a rifle that has a heavy barrel (commonly called an HBar) as these will hold zero better, especially as the barrel heats up. The only downside is it makes the gun slightly heavier.
Barrel length is up to you, but for shooting at 300 yards, you should be fine with anything from 16" or longer. I've made hits on targets out of 16" guns out to about 500 yards. Longer barrels will give a little more velocity depending on the ammo, and will generally shoot flatter at longer ranges, but at 300 yards and under, we're talking a difference of a couple of inches of elevation.
A bipod would probably be helpful as well. There are a number of different choices out there, and if it's something you would use on a regular hunting rifle, you might consider it for coyotes.
A sound suppressor (silencer) is something you may also consider down the road, assuming they are legal to use for hunting where you live. One of these will make life easier for you, and will make your gunshots less likely to spook game.