Bolt or AR, which has better accuracy with .308?

[elmerfudd]

If you're talking $2000 AR's and bolt guns, both should provide exceptional accuracy, but bolt actions will have a slight edge. To me the real reasons to choose a bolt gun are things like handling, balance and versatility. You're not limited in your choice of cartridge. You want to go with a .338 Lapua or a .30-378? With a bolt gun you can do it. If you want a 1/2 pound single stage trigger with no pretravel, you can do that too. You can build a full size bolt action that weighs less than 6 pounds or one that weighs twenty. So long as you don't need that instant follow up shot you just have a lot more options with a bolt action. If you do need the rapid follow up shot however, then your choice is clearly the AR.

 

[SpeedAKL]

There are some exceptionally accurate ARs out there. DPMS's .308 SASS is a nice piece, as are their LR-308 models. Branches of the military have adopted th e Knights Armament SR-25, which is very similar to the DPMS and is apparently dead-on accurate. However, it retails for something like $7,500 so it sounds way above your price range. The DPMS will do the job just as well for most uses. Armalite's AR-10s are worth checking out as well. Lastly, Cobb Manufacturing makes some great precision AR guns as well, though they're a little pricey.

Technically speaking, a bolt gun will be more acccurate, and for precision shooting, I'd probably go that route. A semi-auto AR works great in a tactical situation where you may need to take down more than one target in a short amount of time or need a quick follow-up shot. The accuracy gap between bolt and semi-auto has closed significantly. However, for outright precision, rowing your own action still has a one-up. For $2000 not including scope and bipod, you can build a very nice Remington 700-based rifle. FN SPR is great too.

 

[Zak Smith]

From what I've seen, a $2000 "AR-10" pattern rifle will probably group 0.5 - 1.0 MOA with some ammo. Mine shot 0.75 MOA pretty consistently. On the other hand, a $2000 bolt rifle will probably shoot sub-half.

-z

 

[GunTech]

USSR, you are dead right. My point was only that a 1 MOA bolt and a 1 MOA auto both have the same environmental conditions to deal with. A 1 MOA bolt gun will not shoot any better at 1000 yards than a 1 MOA auto.

Looks like we're all saying the same thing, but coming at it from different directions.

Zak, no doubt you get more 'bang for the buck' with a turnbolt. I originally paid $1300 for my Remington 40x, and it would shoot 1/4 MOA with the right ammo right from the get go. You have to pay more like $2000 today to get the same rifle. FN's SPR is guaranteed 1 MOA for around $1500, and will definietly shoot much better than that, as will Remiongton's LTR for even less. Buy contrast, you have to spend $2000 plus for a AR-10 type rifle that will shoot as well, and more likely much more. To get my M1A to reliably shoot 1 MOA took about double that.

As far as falling blocks, I am a big fan, but have yet to see one that coulf come close to a good bolt gun. The Ruger number 1 and Dakota 10 seem to have intrinsic design problems. All of these rifles typically are hammer fired and have long lock times. I'm sure there are very accurate FB rifles, but I haven't seen any at bench rest matches.

 

[plevniak]

Wow, lots of good points here.

For some reason, I had it in my head that the AR action had some inherent accuracy advantages over a bolt gun. The general feeling I'm getting from this is that a bolt action is the better way to go, especially for the longer ranges where a .25 MOA to .5 MOA difference is going to show real dividends.

I wanted a comparision purely on accuracy potential and that's what you've given me.

Thanks.

 

[DnPRK]

A bolt gun that regularly shoots .25-.5 MOA isn't something you find on a store shelf. Most are 1.25-1.5 (or more) MOA guns until you spend a lot of time & money tweeking the trigger, ammo, bedding, Etc. An AR-10 or DPMS LR308 will also shoot 1.25-1.5 MOA (often better) out of the box.

 

[Zak Smith]

"Most" 700SS/700PSS's will shoot better than 1 MOA from the box with one or another kind of factory match ammunition.