Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Light Weight Accurate barrel or upper

considering deconstructing a marginal wilson combat barreled 6.8 SPC to build a LW accurate 5.56, thinking 18 inch, I have a Noveske "LW" 18 inch which is not light weight. Something that would shoot at least MOA with 77 grain match king loads. Thinking a criterion barrel if I could find one or who makes an 18 inch LW accurate upper if such a thing exits! Thoughts? The Noveske shoots ok its just a bit on the heavy side for what I want, and done with the 6.8.

I’m in a similar boat right now, wanting a 16” pencil barrel. I’ve had 2 Sionics pencil barrels that shot great, still have one but they have not made another one in quite some time.

The 18” Criterion CORE I have is a tad heavier than a pencil barrel but shoots very well and I’d rifle gas. All the weight is back at the chamber area and it tapers down so it has a .625 gas block.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/17250600/1

I am using this as my nighttime pig gun now, I never did shoot any other bullet but the more I shoot it, the better it seems to get. I might just order another one.

Light weight and accurate can be done. It will lighten your wallet correspondingly.

Keep the weight in the barrel (spr profile barrel, fluting would be a plus) and in the optic. Everything else feasible goes on a carbon fiber / titanium diet, and a low mass bcg also saves ounces.

My two cents.

TWR the Sionics 16 inch mid length is a bit lighter 1 pound 13 ounces and cheaper than the Criterion CORE 16 (or 18). I was aiming for an 18 to keep the blast down, the Noveske is 2 lbs 3 ounces the Core 18 is 1.9 pounds or 1 pound 14 ounces, quite a bit lighter! Wonder if Sionics will anymore pencil barrels?

I went ahead and ordered a 16" CORE from Rooftop defense for $309 this morning. 1.7 lbs isn't too bad and I'm tired of waiting on Sionics. Plus I will be using my suppressor so the weight towards the chamber should help the balance. I really like Sionics but the 18" Criterion just gets better as I shoot it, I'm hoping the 16" will be as good.

We have a few CORE barrels in our office. They all seem to shoot tighter after 300-500 rounds.

If the Sionics barrel is light enough for you, we've had very good luck with them. I've tested 7 of them and they've never shot a 10 round group larger than 2". It's not uncommon to shoot 1.5" 10 round groups with Speer Gold Dots. That's really good for a chrome lined barrel.

Criterion has lightweight 14.5 and 20" barrels in stock.

BRT 16" barrel that only weighs 26.7oz... https://www.rooftopdefense.com/prod...mum-6r-rifled-barrel-ext-gas-tube-combo/

Nice

What do ya'all consider lightweight for a 16 & an 18" barrel?

What accuracy do you expect?

MM

Colt pencil barrels weigh 1lb 6 oz stripped, Faxon has one that goes 1lb 3 oz if I remember right. BCM’s ELW is close to this. Bushmaster Superlight was another that was really light and most shot better than they should have.

I’ve had 2 Noveske “lightweight” barrels that were exceptionally accurate but not really lightweight.

It’s just a few oz but I think it’s the balance that matters more to me. Especially now that I’m sticking a can on the end.

Accuracy wise, I’m looking for 1.5 moa. Odd but I’m changing out an FN double chrome lined govt profile barrel tomorrow night that probably weighs not much more than the Criterion I’m gonna use.

My 18 inch Noveske LW barrel is 2 pounds and a few ounces. I can shoot 10 (or more) or more of the Hornady 75 grain match bullets into an elongated 2 inch group, don't know why but it strings vertically as it heats up, 3/4 inches wide though. With that and a reasonable scope and mount your getting into garand rifle territory. You know when this gun first came out you had a light, handy 20 inch pencil barreled rifle that did a lot of things well, now we have made it into something quite different. Forgive my misplaced nostalgia.

I don't know what I'd consider "light" in ounces. I consider what I want to accomplish, consider a few manufacturers that can do that, and then look at weight and cost. Seems like everything I build now is "heavy".

If I can get 1.5" for 10 shots with a duty type rig I'm real happy. My Sionics will do that and is nearly always 1.75". One time it did 1.25" and one time it did 2". All that accomplishes everything I'd ever want it to do. If I'm honest with myself, a 3MOA gun will do everything I want it to except impress strangers on the internet.

Anymore, I've started tracking not only group size, but group location. I want to know where every shot fired will potentially land in relation to the POA, rather than how tightly they're clustered together. I've started shooting very large round count groups to get more statistical relevance. What I've found is that my Sionics will often fire 1.5"ish groups that are not always consistent in relation to the POA. But every shot from every group will be within 1.5" of the POA. That information is much more important to me that how tight some of the clusters are, since the clusters are random anyway.

The thing we used to joke about is "my lightweight carbine has 15 lbs of lightweight gear attached to it".

I like a 16" barrel that is accurate enough to get the job done, as Blue said, 3 MOA would likely be good enough for most things. But I've managed to keep my guns under 2 MOA and that works for what I do. My barrels are all chrome lined and lighter than normal, that lets me add things that matter to me like a light, BUIS's, a solid rail and a can. You start with counting ounces and ability and you can end up with a very capable carbine.

But I have had heavier guns and they worked well for their intended roles. I've also went as light as I dared to go and after bending a high dollar light weight rail, I started rethinking things.

So the rifle I just took apart would fire multiple types of ammunition into a nice 5 inch group centered on the POA, now it would never produce a 3 inch group consistently however any and all you fired would fall not more than 2.5 inches from your POA. I did find one problem that I verified before I took it apart, the muzzle brake had come loose and it was shooting high, my last test was with no muzzle device, 20 110 V max, 20 95 grain Barnes bullets, 5 120 grain fusions, a pie plate sized group was easily attained at 100, while the Noveske shot an inch to the left with 75 match, it’s group ridiculed the 6.8 to be he point of embarrassment. 3 shot groups are indeed bogus.

Might as well be shooting an iron sighted 20" AR, if you are getting that kind of accuracy. It would probably come in lighter too. I like Noveske, but have never been real happy with my stainless varmint heavy barrel model that sports a 20" tube. It hovers right around 1 moa, or slightly over for 10 shots.

My Colt has a lighter contour barrel, and could possibly shoot better than my heavier Noveske. Both rifles just wearing irons, and that's how they are going to stay set up. You mention 20" pencil barrel. Would you consider that, over the 18" barrel? I actually prefer my 20" barreled rifles over 18". Even though the 18" I had was a rifle length gas system, it rattled my teeth when I shot it. Hated the damn thing. The 20" rifles are much smoother. With that being said, if I were forced to pick between the 16" and 18", I'd pick a 16"..

I buy or build uppers & lowers to fit specific goals or tasks, all of which are not the same.

I do not build heavy barreled, PRS type stocked rifles for any use..............just not my thing.

Barrels, stocks & rails are the 3 items that make up most of the weight in a gun so choosing light for those 3 has a huge impact on the weight of the gun.

For 18" barreled uppers, I've used mid-gas & rifle gas barrels that weigh from 27 oz on the light side to 31 oz on the heavy side. I have no desire to go heavier.
For 16" barreled uppers, I've used barrels use mid-gas & intermediate gas barrels that weight from 25 oz to around 32 oz, but I have a pencil barrel from WC that goes 19 oz that I have not built yet. 32 oz on a 16" barrel is pretty heavy, IMO & I don't like to go there unless there's a reason.

I use rails that go from 12.6 - 13.7" as a rule, but I do have a couple or 3 of that are longer, but no longer use that length unless there's a compelling reason (like a great price).

I use lighter weight stocks, preferring a general SOPMOD style of some sort, & have used very light MFT stocks on a couple of builds.

Most of my barrels are stainless, but several are CL...............stainless barrels tend to have more options available for weight & configuration than CL does.

I expect performance of around MOA for 5 shots from all of my barrels / uppers, & with what I have, I get that with pretty much everything..............a couple of purchased guns / upper from highly reputable sources, struggle to make that grade, sometimes yes, sometimes not quite, but those also do not have 24x optics, so precision is more difficult to come but at range with lower magnification, at least for me.

I don't worry much about 10 shot groups anymore, just doing that once or twice to validate a new gun.................past 5 shots, I'm testing myself more than the gun, so it really doesn't mean as much as several 5 shot groups, IMHO, these days.

And I'm in Blue's camp of the fact that nice round groups that maintain POI, day in, day out are more valuable that 1/2 MOA groups that move or are very ammo sensitive; see linked article below that I have posted before by Jack Leuba of Knights Armament on this subject. (I ahve 3 KAC rifles & all 3 perform exactly as Leuba describes a rifle should perform)

My serious ammo is fixed, & while I shoot various other ammo, i have an ammo standard, with sufficient supply.

Light weight barrels can shoot verry well & since I've had good luck with a slightly heavier WC barrel, I'm interested to see what the new pencil barrel will be capable of as I got it at a go-to-hell price, so good I had to give it a whirl.....................just haven't taken time to put it together yet are the weather is still not warm enough to do a lot of shooting on any given day.

YMMV

MM

Let's Talk Accuracy by Jack Leuba, Knights Armament

Guys over at Arfcom swear by those Colt Socom bbls for 16" accurate builds.

MontanaMan, you mention that you stick with one ammo, are you using the 77 grain loads? I have found the speer 64 grain GD load to shoot well, but in thinking about shooting pigs at night I am considering the 77 grain loads. In my case I sometimes don't know if its the rifle or just my poor shooting.

Not surprising. The only chrome-lined AR barrels I know of that shoot better than Colt are Criterion, but they don't make a light one.