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I know... who'd of thunk it?

(That's what I get for answering jimmyp's post on page 3 without seeing there was a page 4.)

Yes I can. Jeff

A standard M4 barrel is 0.640 under the handguards and is pretty sensitive to pressure even with the short carbine handguards.

A factory HBAR Colt might be 0.900 under the handguard.

While a FF handguard is great idea it benefits the lighter barrel contours more than the heavies. Yea I know, in other news water is wet.

Good point John. Never had a light barrel like that. Of course I'm of the opinion that even on run of hte mill bolt guns you are better off not to rest towards the tip of the stock if possible, but towards the mag well if possible... I have no clue if my thinking is off or on, but its done everything I ask of it.

Of course bedded and floated in an Mc means nothing much really matters...

And even then, floated and bedded, impacts are different slung, not slung, bipod, no bipod, free recoil so to speak or not free recoil. And the lighter the gun the more obvious it is.

Jeff,

While Service Rifle, High Power, etc., is a part of rifle marksmanship- it is a specialized form of rifle shooting that lacks a couple of significant factors in regards to practical field shooting. Namely: odd uncomfortable and generally unknown positions, tight time standards and relativley small targets that are all or nothing. Do not misunderstand me. Positional shooting is a part of basic rifle marksmanship and it combined with gun handling and gun manipulations are the foundation that (true) shooters are built on. However some things that work on a manicured rifle range do not acquit themselves so well under mental, physical and emotional stress with tight time constraints, variable lighting and small fleeting targets.

In a world where targets are not controlled by a person in the pits or calm deer feeding in a greenfield, adjusting my irons for differances in position doesn't really work. Neither does 6 o'clock holds or slinging up.

I am specifically addressing the duty use of a rifle or self protection, however it applies the same to hunting except maybe when in a stand over a greenfield.

The organization that conducted the test has shooting Standards that are based upon realistic target sizes (8in) from 7 yards to 300. Each portion is go/no-go and there is no reshoots. A single miss or string fired over time and the whole test is a failure. Time standards are tight and the positions are varried.

Mag mono podded is the fastest most stable way to make a shot from prone and induces no measurable variance in POI given proper body position and trigger control nor causes any reliability problems like so oft touted.


I'm sure you know this, but just wanted to clarify my thoughts a bit and for those reading provide a bit of perspective.



This target shows all the benched shots in pink and all the alternate position shots in white.




Pretty easy to see why in comparison to the Non-FF handguard that a FF results in more hits. Or I should say- fewer misses due to variability.

Can you say what the course of fire was? Distances and times?

Form,

Not trying to be a dick but I just don't understand the picture.

According to note written on the the targets the target with the FF handguard was shot from a bench and the standard handguard was shot from something other than a bench.

The standard handguard/other than bench is much worse than the free float handguard/benched but what is the point? Pretty sure benched is going to trump other than benched no matter what the handguard.

What am I missing?

John,

No, it's laid out wrong. Ignore what's on the white paper for the picture with two targets. It was just used to more easily track all the targets. The actual info is written on the head of each target. In the case of the picture with two targets the one on the left has-

Shooter #2
NF= non free float
Alt.= Alternate position target.



The target on the right has-

Shooter #2
FF= Freefloat
Alt.= Alternate Position target.





Both were from alternate positions.

I am with you that FF is better than non FF but the picts were not really jiving.

Now I might choose a optic first but FF is still a cheap and good (great) idea but we need to keep things in perspective.

Just keeping things real. Get a FF hanguard but also optics and a trigger. It all matters.

I get that a FF rail could help regards shooting the gun off the side of a pine tree etc.

I think AR15 type Irons are just as accurate as a red dot maybe even better, but in low light a red dot and a good flashlight seems to be better to me.

I don't see anything wrong with a good 1-X power scope on a self defense rifle but you could hunt with it as well.

Finally and here is what I want to know, could anyone shoot good enough to get those hits on that silhouette at those distances with an AK47, and iron sights or a red dot????

Form, thanks for that info. We used to shoot a couple of side matches that were much the same.

They were very fun. Would love to be able to do those again too.

Ran into somewhat similar in IDPA stuff, and still would not rest on a mag or put a hard part of the gun directly on a hard rest. Best I could anyway. That gun was the one thats not floated that I have. Never saw anything weird there but granted it was a LOT closer range shooting. And the large target.

PS regardless all the alt positions with non trained shooters so to speak is a really good test of the complete platform and glad to see some agency doing it that way.

Yeah, because only kids use optics......

You'd be the first.



Travis

I am glad I am a kid again, all my guns have optics...

No problem. Jeff

The advice about buffers earlier in this thread is helpful, thanks.

re. the ejection at 4:00 - I've got a 308 AR that ejects slightly forward, about 2:00. What does that indicate about gas and buffer weights? I haven't tried tuning anything yet.

You'll probably hear plenty of theories, but no. Not in my experience. I have a lot of time on AK's including custom Krebs, etc. and none of them will do it. No way to free float, optic mounting is always compromised with regards to zero retention and consistently, triggers (though Geissele is working that), ammo, etc.

I'm sure that is one in existence that somewhere sometime had its rounds land near each other, but multiple examples doing it is equivalent to a Rugar Mini 14 doing it.

I will ask, but right now I can not. I can say that if you take world class times (IPSC GM, Etc.) for common drills and double them, you'll be close if just a bit over.

It's over gassed and needs a heavier buffer.