Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles what would you chose for a longer range upper, and why?

Most of the cartridges mentioned here are pretty easy and straightforward to load for with no special considerations needed for any of them. 223/5.56 is probably the easiest for a beginner just because brass and load info is so plentiful, but there's no handicap with the other cartridges either. 6.5 Grendel cases can be formed from 7.62x39 pretty easily if you need to, and as far as wildcats go the 6mm Grendel-based wildcats are as easy as it gets - you can just run normal 6.5 Grendel brass through your sizing die and load it.

The only one I see that would present any challenge is the Valkyrie, just because the brass is less common. If you shoot a bunch of factory ammo though, just save your brass until you're ready to load your own.

Also - all of these are worth loading your own ammo if you're really interested in chasing long range accuracy. The ability to tune your load to your rifle can make a big difference in most guns.


On the topic of rifle weight - I'll agree that I prefer light weight ARs (and an AR can be very lightweight, even compared to a trim bolt action, if you want). A heavy AR on a bench or prone does shoot nicely though and is no handicap if you're not carrying it around much.

I recently built a 6.5 Creedmoor AR for a friend that was configured similarly to some of BSA's rifles above but slightly lighter - .750" straight profile 22" barrel, lightweight Leupold 4-12x, and a PRS stock. Final weight on that with an empty mag, no bipod: 13.6 lb.
My own 243 LBC has a 24" standard profile barrel, 10x SS, and Magpul ACS-L stock; it came in almost exactly 10 lb. I consider that one a bench gun; my preference for a walking around AR is more like 6-7 lb.

This is my .450 Bushmaster. Target was at 100yards, and the high shot hole is from my volenteer spotter. (After sighting in, I put up a fresh target, and first shot was dead on the money and decided it was good enough. My spotter was shooting a 45-70 lever next to me. He liked "Thumper" quite a bit.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/13769535/Searchpage/1/Main/931961/Words/%2Btag/Search/true/450bushmaster-ar#Post13769535

(Don't know what changed, but links are not working properly for me)

.223 and .308 are both very easy to reload for. Biggest problem with both is too many good load combinations to choose from.

Wouldn't I need a AR-10 lower for .308?

Ah, too many threads, but yes, .308 is a different lower.

Additionally your instinct about the 5.56 being a good place to start is a good one.

Build a 5.56, play tinker toys with it, figure them out a bit, then go from there....

Yes. Guys also need to keep in mind you are wanting a "long range" upper. To me this means you are going to be shooting it off a bench or bipods. Thats where, to me, weight is of little concern. Its actually wanted in a lot of instances. It helps to mitigate recoil and get back on target. Id weigh my ar's if i thought it would help, but i assure you my ar10 isnt as heavy as yonderings buddies 13.5 pound beast. From the factory it weighs 9 pounds. With a burris scope and mount, add another pound and a half. ALL of my ar's shoot sub moa and are in the black rifle challenge here. TWR's, not so much. Maybe he could learn from this thread and understand what it actually takes to produce a "long range" AR. A fly weight with a short pencil barrel would be my last choice for anything where accuracy and precision are concerned.

LOL, I've been down that road and it's a dead end. I easily tire of the bench and prefer all around, do it all guns. My Noveskies made sub MOA for 10, I just never could get a second group on the same paper. Blame that on me, not the guns.

But to be sure I'm taking notes...

Or was it the light barrel?

However, in the end, you could both be right. I have stuff at both ends of the spectrum and some in between as well.

Again no offense intended, but 9 lb in a large frame AR with a heavy barrel and a PRS stock? No way, not even if you removed the bolt carrier and magazine... Maybe with one of the Magpul carbine stocks like an ACS, but a PRS adds a full 2 lb on top of that. Those are heavy beasts and add a lot of weight to any AR. If your 9 lb weight was listed before adding the PRS it would make sense; my relatively lightweight 18" slim barrel 308 is 8 lb with an ACS-L stock, and you've probably got about 1 lb more barrel than my 308.

Like I said, nothing wrong with a heavy rifle for what you're doing, but I don't think your rifles can be as light as you're saying. The Creedmoor I built for a buddy has a lighter profile barrel than yours, and a lighter scope, but is pretty similar otherwise; I'm not sure how to imagine yours would be any lighter at all, much less 3-4 lb lighter. You may be under-estimating the weight of parts you've added.

Don't go by bathroom scale weights or manufacturer listed weights, neither are accurate most of the time. It doesn't really matter for actual shooting or comparing your own rifles to each other, but it does matter when you're telling other people what they weigh. It's kinda like catching an 8" long fish and saying it was a foot long.

Given what he's said through the thread, I agree, largely because of ammo availability and price. Anybody getting started in shooting long range should plan to shoot a lot, and that's hard to do if your ammo costs too much. 5.56 isn't the best long range round by a large margin, but a decent rifle with a bucket of 75gr or 77gr ammo and plenty of range time will do a lot more good than chasing the best and shiniest long range cartridge.

Of course it's pretty easy to swap a barrel later or just build another rifle or upper when he's ready for the next step.

Kellory - for clarification, both the 308 and 6.5 Creedmoor require a large frame AR, which is a different beast entirely from the AR15. It's more than just a different lower; it's a whole different gun, although some small parts interchange and they work the same way.

Kellory,
reading what your basic wants are there’s no way I couldn’t recommend a stag 15 upper. It is the cheapest way to get into an upper that will shoot all the better quality factory ammo very well and should you decide to start handloading like you said it’s the cheapest route there as well.
You want to shoot a bunch you need to think about cost.

Nothing is cheaper and easier starting off than a 223 case and a hornady 75 bthp.
If you’ve never reloaded before you don’t need to get bogged down with resizing this or that. You also don’t need to get distracted with weight issue as you said “long range” and that frankly doesn’t lean towards light.

Yes that upper is heavy. You’ll note that most long range rifles tend to have some meat to them. But mine and all 5 others that I have seen and shot are very impressive for the money.

Many of those guys^^^ know their stuff and shoot more than I..but With your parameters I think you should stick with that upper and the best ammo you can buy. Then shoot..

Mine is a simple stag with a 16x SWFA and can assure you that setup has smoked many combos costing 5x as much

As ‘Stick would say in this situation, “there is no substitute for trigger time.”

Whatever you get, get lots of ammo and shoot it.

I am listening gentlemen. Thank you for your input.
The .450 Bushmaster is designed for 300yds accuracy. By "longer range", I do not really mean targets shooting at 1k yards, I simply don't want to be limited to 300yards should the opportunity for an out of state hunt with different requirements arise.
At some point, I will also have an upper for small game, such as prairie dogs as well. (I have been paid to shoot rats, at one time).
My aim here, is the Lego Rifle. Different hunts, different uppers.

may I suggest the 25-223...

Another interesting flavor, and some light reading...

https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/25_223/121-499109/

(I have not read all the way through this yet, but it does look interesting. But unless I'm missing something, it seems to be another short range rifle choice, by the way they speak about it's use. (150yrds or so) I have that covered with the .450 Bushmaster.

Yeah, but how many pushups can you eat?

300 BO ...thank me later

Good suggestion and we know they shoot. I like the idea of the 556 chamber and heavy bullets too. Damn, if he's looking for a good 556 upper, I have a good upper that I may consider letting go. It shoots damn near as good as my Stag, but is a Noveske and it's lighter. It has a 20" barrel, instead of the 6h stag 24" heavy barrel. But, if the op already has a 223/556 upper, he may be in search of something with a little more charm. He'd probably have to hand load for a cartridge like that, because it won't be cheap or available. There are a lot of wildcat cartridges out there and some new fast 22 cals that he could look at. Kelory, have you considered the 6x45? That is an interesting cartridge and will run with your lower and you can use the same BCG. With something like my 6WOA, you have to use a different bolt (6.8 SPC). I wanted a slicker BCG, so I went with a nickle boron carrier with a 6.8 spc bolt. If you went to the hot valkyrie, you'd have to use a 6.8 SPC bolt as well...

It would be a hard hitter (like my .450) and quiet (comparably) but still only a short range hunting round. (I looked hard at it before building my .450 Bushmaster. The .300BO has it's following, but since I'm not building a short barrelled suppressed rifle, I do not see much advance in building a second upper in .300BO. Thanks anyways.

Sir, at present I have one .450 Bushmaster upper, and am looking at options for longer range hunting. If the price is right, and the range is a significant increase over the .450 Bushmaster, I may indeed be interested in a used 5.56 upper. My OP was to see if there were better choices.
Perhaps a few pics and info in a PM would be in order?