Suggestions - AR Barrel?

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Chris Rhines

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I'm feeling the bug - must be time to put together another AR-15 upper or two. I'm looking for suggestions on what barrel to use. The AR will be a dedicated defensive rifle, but I'd like it to be able to serve as a backup 3gun rifle as well. Reliability and accuracy are both issues.

I know I want a 16" barrel with a mid-length gas system. Stainless steel or chrome-lined 4150, no real preference there. Wylde or NATO chamber. I'd like the barrel to be as light as possible, but is has to be able to handle relatively intense strings of fire (100-200 rounds over 5-10 minutes.) I'd consider 1MOA accuracy out to 300 yards to be acceptable.

I'd prefer a fixed front sight tower. An interesting idea would be to have a shaved or micro gas block at the mid-length gas port, and a pinned-in front sight tower out towards the end of the barrel - CMMG does some barrels like this.

Modifications to an existing factory barrel are not out of the question - I have a lathe and crowning tools and such.

Some examples - I'm looking at the 16" SST MedCon barrel from CMMG, and the Recon and Operator barrels from Global Tactical. Any owners/users care to comment?

Thanks all,
Chris
 
i have the recon profile barrel from them (I think we're talking about the same barrel), which is actually made for them by white oak. i'm extremely pleased. it's exactly what i wanted. "match quality", wylde chamber, 1/7 twist, 16", mid-length, matching bolt (headspaced), threaded, not too light, not too heavy, nice bead blasted finish.

i've only put a couple thousand rounds through it so far, but no problems at all. i assembled the upper myself using a JP adjustable gas block. that's working well, but i prob wouldn't use that block for a strictly defensive gun. i bought it off the EE at arfcom
 
I've got a 1:7 midlength CMMG chrome-lined barrel. It is a decent barrel; but I don't think it will do 1MOA reliably. If you are looking for that type of accuracy, I think you need the Wylde chamber.

As for chrome-lined barrels that can meet that standard consistently, I know that some factory chrome-lined barrels will do it with match ammo (I've seen Armalite barrels shoot very well with match ammo). Generally though, I think your accuracy requirement knocks out a lot of chrome-lined barrels. Open it up to 1.5MOA though and the field gets much, much wider.

As to what stainless steel can handle, you should check out Zak Smith's ITRC reports here at THR. I believe one of the scenarios required 500+ rounds in less than 30 minutes and that barrel is still in service and doing well.
 
I'm doing basically the same thing right now. I've come down to:

16"
Midlength gas
fixed front sight tower
1:8
Wylde chamber
A semi-custom profile, Taliv's suggestion of the Recon profile has a lot of merit.

Still haven't pulled the trigger, so to speak, but that's my thoughts at the moment.

Mike
 
Generally though, I think your accuracy requirement knocks out a lot of chrome-lined barrels.
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Yeah, I know. And for truth, 1.5MOA consistantly at 300 yards would probably be okay (but I would really like to get in under 3" at 300.)

So what would you look at in the 1.5MOA range?

As to what stainless steel can handle, you should check out Zak Smith's ITRC reports here at THR.
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I'm actually less worried about the material and more worried about the barrel profile - I don't want to go too light.

I'm really leaning towards the Recon barrel at this time - maybe I'll call GTS and see if they can run me one with a 0.750" journal at the muzzle...

- Chris
 
Why do you need, or for that matter why would you want a Wylde chamber AND chrome lining on a 300 meter rifle???
Both on one would basically defeat the intention of both.
Why do you want a 1 in 8 twist?
Are you planning to shoot 60 grain and heavier bullets and nothing else with this upper?

A new NATO chamber chrome lined 1 in 7, 14.5" Mil-spec barrel will easily hold to 5 inch dispersion at 300 meters and do so for many thousands of rounds if you want a heavy bullet barrel.(Have a Phantom Comp/flashider blind pinned for legal 16" length requirement unless you live where short barrel AAW law applies.)

A good commercial 16", NATO chamber, 1 in 9 twist, chrome lined will almost always do better.

Two suggestions for one of these would be a Bushmaster or a Double Star Service barrel.

Personally I have been using two barrels, one a DPMS non chrome NATO chamber 1 in 9 16" and the other is a Bushmaster chrome lined 16" Dissapator,NATO chamber and both work out beautifully for me
 
So what would you look at in the 1.5MOA range?
Click to expand...

I think most of the names making midlength chrome-lined barrels (RRA, CMMG, Armalite, Sabre Defence, Bravo Co., etc.) can meet the 1.5 MOA standard with match ammo.

However if you need consistent 1MOA, you are basically looking at maybe an Armalite, an Operator barrel, or a SS match barrel. The guys listed above may produce the occasional 1MOA chrome-lined barrel; but I think it will be an anomaly (even with Armalite).

I'm actually less worried about the material and more worried about the barrel profile - I don't want to go too light.
Click to expand...

SS doesn't handle heat as well as 4150 from what I've heard; but the .750 profile I'm running seems to handle it well enough. I'm not babying it at all. It is getting used in the same fashion as the earlier Bushmaster HBAR I had and the accuracy is still better than the initial accuracy from the HBAR. It is also consistent with a wider range of ammo, where the HBAR would only perform well with a few loads.

If you check Coronach's earlier thread discussing the same issue, I think Zak Smith (who has a few stainless barrels that get shot quite a bit) suggested a bottom line of .70 on a stainless barrel profile.
 
Mine shoots great

I've got a AR set up with GT's 16" mid lenght Stainless "recon" barrel....it shoots great. Nice quality......mine easily does 1 moa @ 100 yards[haven't shoot past 100 with it]...with good ammo. With lake city ball....its about 1.6". The gun handles great,....if anything its a bit light to shoot good groups with.
 
i don't know about you guys, but i could read about AR barrels all day long. :)
 
Gary G23,

This year I'm shooting the USPSA Multigun Nationals, the CMMG Midwest 3-Gun Championships, and 4-5 other big matches that will have 300+ yard rifle shots. Last year at the Fort Benning 3-Gun, there was a flash target out at 375 yards.

The local MD/VA multigun matches top out at 1-200 yards, but make up for it with very small targets. :D

Bart,

Paul at MSTN and Mike Rock seem to be of the same mind about stainless barrel profiles. More to consider...

Zak,

That's not a bad idea, I'll have to see what kind of dealer rates I can get from RRA (and how backlogged they are.) How has your RRA held up thus far?

Thanks all.

- Chris
 
The 16" RRA I have is probably the highest round count upper I still own, and it runs GREAT. I shot it at the 2005 TR Carbine class, 2000 rounds without cleaning.

If you have money to throw at the problem, just buy a complete upper from MSTN or Noveske. Mine run excellent accuracy and reliability.
 
Before you bother with Randall...

FWIW: I emailed Randall, re: my barrel. He never emailed me back. That was on March 19th.

From the little blurb on his website, I take it that my email was too long for him (I selected my twist, chamber, bbl length, and asked him a question about profile). If he cannot be bothered to read an emailed request with one question and reply, I cannot be bothered to give him several hundred dollars of my money.

Of course, he could be on vacation and will email when he gets back (perfectly understandable). We'll see.

Mike
 
There are now a few folks building 6.5 Grendels to use in 3-gun. Factory AA ammo is shooting 1/2 MOA. Black hills ammo with Les Baer 6.5 Grendel rifles are shooting 1/4 MOA. Wolf ammo is doing 1.5 MOA but is the cheapest at 50 cents a pop. Recoil is still light and you can go to MPF in competitions that require 320 PF. 340 PF is tough for the 6.5 G.

Satern Barrels does 6.5 Grendel barrels to your spec and are suppliers for manufacturers. Lothar Walther also does barrels for the manufacturers but doesn't sell retail.
 
I know I want a 16" barrel with a mid-length gas system. Stainless steel or chrome-lined 4150, no real preference there. Wylde or NATO chamber. I'd like the barrel to be as light as possible, but is has to be able to handle relatively intense strings of fire (100-200 rounds over 5-10 minutes.) I'd consider 1MOA accuracy out to 300 yards to be acceptable.
Click to expand...
I don't think that the Armalite 16" chome-lined middie will do sub-MOA out to 300 yards, but if not it's pretty darn close. I have two, and both are very accurate.

FWIW: I emailed Randall, re: my barrel. He never emailed me back. That was on March 19th.

From the little blurb on his website, I take it that my email was too long for him (I selected my twist, chamber, bbl length, and asked him a question about profile). If he cannot be bothered to read an emailed request with one question and reply, I cannot be bothered to give him several hundred dollars of my money.

Of course, he could be on vacation and will email when he gets back (perfectly understandable). We'll see.
Click to expand...
I emailed him three times in October/November of '06 about 260 barrels for an AR-10 and I'm still waiting for a response. I'm guessing that his email provider or spam blocker is misfiring, rather than presuming he's being rude.

Nevertheless, since November '06 I've bought one Armalite middie 5.56 barrel, one DPMS 308 24" barrel, one Armalite 308 20" gov't profile barrel, one DPMS 20" 6.8 barrel, one DPMS 24" 204 Ruger barrel, one K-Tonics 16" middie 6.8SPC barrel, and one K-Tonics 18" middie 6.8SPC barrel - and I've bought none from Randall.

I hear he does good work, but that doesn't help me when I can't buy it.
 
Guess he is busy

FWIW: I emailed Randall, re: my barrel. He never emailed me back. That was on March 19th.
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I send Randall an email on 3/6 and never received a reply.
Bought a DPMS barrel assembly.
Max
 
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