Looking for an 18-20" complete upper. Rock river predator pursuit has caught my eye. Any other suggestions in that 650-800.00 price range? Will be used primarily for banging steel out to 4-500yds.

For about the same money, you can get one from White Oak Armory (WOA), which will probably be better than you are.

And for just a little more than that, you can get one from Compass Lake Engineering (CLE) or Craddock Precision..................both of which are as good as it gets.

All the above, IMHO, will be more consistently accurate than most Rock River's.............which is not bad, just not in the class of the others.

MM

White Oak for $610?
CLE with Criterion barrel for $870.00, or Krieger for $990.00?
Craddock with a Bartlien blank for $1100.00?

I'm going to have to stop hanging out with you. You're too much of a bad influence.

Buy them all and post results. Thanks..

It's only money..............besides, it's more fun than buying gold & putting it in the safe.

MM

That made me laugh..

I agree................most of my AR's I have built myself but the most accurate uppers I have bought have been WOA

Rock Rivers.........better than.............but nothing special

Rock River is a good, consistent barrel. Not as good as a smith's, but if you can't make P-100 at the Nationals with one, it's you, not the barrel.
A CLE Krieger is about as good as it gets, but you will have to pay attention to headspace on your loaded rounds. It's not as tight as some, but it's tighter than others.

Once you get to top notch barrels its about the smith. Whether they have a name or not.

Precision machine work takes time. Precision work equals accuracy almost every last time.

Speed it up some and it can start to suffer.

Let's get a little more perspective on what the OP really wants. An accurate complete upper in the $650-$800 price range. I'm sure a custom smithed "top notch" barrel is not what he's looking for. Also, show me a complete WOA upper in that price range. I'll be the bad guy and throw this one out, since it looks like he's wanting suggestions for what he can get with his hard earned money.

Windham Weaponry Varmint exterminator complete upper assembly

The one with the threaded muzzle is in stock. I use their barrels with matching bolts and they always shoot great. Or good enough for my needs. Here's an example of the accuracy I get with mine:

One of the first time's I took it to the range. Its always functioned 100% and still shoots great....

The next pictures show how it does with 69's, 73's and 77's:






That's been my experience with the Windham barrels.

They also shoot the 77's very well (different rifle with 20" WW Varmint Exterminator barrel)....


And then double checking that load with the 77TMK on a different day. Barrel only had about 100 rounds on it at that time:



From my experience with 3 of their barrels, they are pretty solid shooters. The last barrel I bought, about a year ago struggles to shoot moa:


When I first started looking for a rifle or upper, similar to what the OP describes, I ended up buying a used Noveske 20" varmint upper. That rifle upper wishes it was as consistent of a shooter as the Windham. It just doesn't compete though. The reason I turned it into my iron sight only rifle. It does well enough in that arena. I also looked into RRA. My buddy having had an 18" RRA, but it did not impress me in the accuracy department. He bought it based on his belief that it was an "all milspec" rifle. I guess that turned his crank. I could care less because of the chidt it was putting down range.


And yes, we tried all kinds of his factory match grade ammo and this is the best either of us could do^^ He doesn't like the rifle now and just shoots his Bushmaster A2. He's the kind of guy that thinks his rifle is worth $1,200.00 though, but wants to sell it. I politely told him he's not going to get that out of it and check what they are selling for now. So there's some of my experience and suggestions. Take it or not..

WOW that has never happened before

Actually, most of WOA's uppers fall into that or very near, that price range...............mainly the ones that don't have Bartlien barrels.

Most are a pretty good deal, IMHO.

WOA Complete Uppers

MM

BSA

Taking a less accurate rifle and turning it into an iron sights gun. Makes more sense to keep the least accurate with optics, the most with irons.... seeing as where the possible max errors might occur.

I'm wondering how many WOA rifles placed in the moa all day long event here or the black rifle challenge? I know they shoot well. I had one, but chambered in 6WOA. It was not my most consistently accurate rifle though. Twisted all wrong too, so I sent it down the road..

I seem to remember a nearly moa average in the black rifle challenge. Remind me what you shot. Thanks..

Most people who shoot WOA get off the bench.

Seems like a National Championship is pretty good street cred for WOA.

Thats what you get out of the comment? SMDH.

I have no clue the numbers but has to be more than one IIRC. John is a hell of a shooter. Hell of a smith too.

Barnes Precision was/is a less advertised build option from what I see. I’ve an unfired DMR custom with matching 300BLK upper I’ve still not fired. Lockup compared to Black Rain is very tight. Black Rain has some wiggle between upper and lower. From what I’m told Andrew is the machine shop for quite a few others branded parts. I’m told my 300 was one of his earliest and that upper a friend fired a few hundred times or less, suppresses and non-suppressed. I asked about an adjustable gas block and he had no idea what I meant. He said he’d just put suppressor on and no issues. I think he mentioned Andrew made a custom length gas tube for it so maybe he was sorting out suppressed 300’s early on. I’m guessing it’s a 10 year old setup now or more. I’ve had the set 7 years. Maybe one day I’ll get time to go a few miles to the range.

I don’t think wiggle necessarily affects accuracy but my experience with ARs is limited to an early ARP 6.8SPCII when they still built full rifles and a few buddies I’ve shot.

It does bother me when anything on a gun rattles a bit though. I’ll have to get some pics up. WarSports Ops Mang stripped both uppers and the lower then cerakoted 7-8 custom colored camo before reassembling. The two uppers can be swapped and the camo lines match. Put a Hyperfire 24 3Gun trigger in it when they were new. Even have an early LRA bipod under it.