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Hey guys looking for a few rifle opinions for a new shooter in high power matches.
I was wondering, what should I start out with a match or service rifle? I know it's preference and I have shot the m16 pretty well at the range in my time as a Marine and obviously the m16/ar15 iron sight system is what I'm most familiar and comfortable with but I'm always willing to try a new type or style of rifle.
I don't own a cmp or nra legal ar 15 but I do own a scoped dpms lo pro classic. I bought this three years ago as a cheaper varmint rifle set up that I could upgrade as needed. I've added a free float tube and a super sniper 10x and it really is a sub moa shooter if I do my part but with short radius irons, the sixteen inch heavy barrel, and 1x9 twist rate I just don't feel like it would be competitive as a match rifle, especially at longer ranges.
So that's my first option, convert my lo pro upper into a match upper. What I had in mind was installing a WOA 26inch Wilson match barrel/bolt and free float tube. I could go with other barrels krieger, shilien, lilja etc, but the Wilson is cheaper, already fitted with a gas block and tube. It gets good reviews from what I have read and the front of the barrel is already machined for a match front sight. I don't know to much about match irons but I'm guessing that would probably add another few hundred dollars. So with this set up I'm guessing $600-$700 give or take.
Second I could buy a match upper from WOA or build the same set up but use a new upper and matching bolt for a few hundred more and keep my varmint rifle upper as is for plinking and varmint matches.
Next would be to build a service rifle upper myself. I do really like the WOA service uppers but I hear the wait time is a few months or more and I think I could build it myself a little cheaper anyway. Basically with this I would start from a stripped a2 upper, add NM sights, NRA legal free float tube, over a WOA Wilson barrel with matching bolt. I think I could do this set up for around $500-$600.
And the last option I also own a M1 Garand. It's in pretty good shape but not numbers matching. The barrel is in decent shape but it's not a one hole rifle by any means. My plan was to leave it stock and just have some fun shooting a few Garand matches with it as is. I could shoot this in service rifle but I feel to be competitive it would need to be re barreled and accurized. I'm guessing for good work it would cost about the same or probably more than building an ar upper.
I really like shooting the Garand but I'm kinda afraid I'm going to end up dumping a bunch of money into it expecting a sub moa shooter and ending up with just ok 1-2 moa rifle when I could have kept it stock and built a very accurate ar. Also the added cost of reloading 30 06 over .223 is a concern since unfortunately I am on a budget and I will need a lot of practice.
So any opinions? Sorry about the long post.
I was wondering, what should I start out with a match or service rifle? I know it's preference and I have shot the m16 pretty well at the range in my time as a Marine and obviously the m16/ar15 iron sight system is what I'm most familiar and comfortable with but I'm always willing to try a new type or style of rifle.
I don't own a cmp or nra legal ar 15 but I do own a scoped dpms lo pro classic. I bought this three years ago as a cheaper varmint rifle set up that I could upgrade as needed. I've added a free float tube and a super sniper 10x and it really is a sub moa shooter if I do my part but with short radius irons, the sixteen inch heavy barrel, and 1x9 twist rate I just don't feel like it would be competitive as a match rifle, especially at longer ranges.
So that's my first option, convert my lo pro upper into a match upper. What I had in mind was installing a WOA 26inch Wilson match barrel/bolt and free float tube. I could go with other barrels krieger, shilien, lilja etc, but the Wilson is cheaper, already fitted with a gas block and tube. It gets good reviews from what I have read and the front of the barrel is already machined for a match front sight. I don't know to much about match irons but I'm guessing that would probably add another few hundred dollars. So with this set up I'm guessing $600-$700 give or take.
Second I could buy a match upper from WOA or build the same set up but use a new upper and matching bolt for a few hundred more and keep my varmint rifle upper as is for plinking and varmint matches.
Next would be to build a service rifle upper myself. I do really like the WOA service uppers but I hear the wait time is a few months or more and I think I could build it myself a little cheaper anyway. Basically with this I would start from a stripped a2 upper, add NM sights, NRA legal free float tube, over a WOA Wilson barrel with matching bolt. I think I could do this set up for around $500-$600.
And the last option I also own a M1 Garand. It's in pretty good shape but not numbers matching. The barrel is in decent shape but it's not a one hole rifle by any means. My plan was to leave it stock and just have some fun shooting a few Garand matches with it as is. I could shoot this in service rifle but I feel to be competitive it would need to be re barreled and accurized. I'm guessing for good work it would cost about the same or probably more than building an ar upper.
I really like shooting the Garand but I'm kinda afraid I'm going to end up dumping a bunch of money into it expecting a sub moa shooter and ending up with just ok 1-2 moa rifle when I could have kept it stock and built a very accurate ar. Also the added cost of reloading 30 06 over .223 is a concern since unfortunately I am on a budget and I will need a lot of practice.
So any opinions? Sorry about the long post.