Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles I built another upper using this barrel

I received the free float hand guard from jiveturkey yesterday and mounted it ladt night. I got to the range today shooting the same 60 grain soft points over 25 grains of IMR 4895. My groups shrunk by 50%. I'm short of time tonight but I'll go into detail tomorrow . There is something to these free float hand guards. This is the first time I have used them.

kwg

Couple yrs back BCA was having a Veterans Day deal enter and get free barrel. My buddy entered and sure chit they sent him a 5.56/223 Wylde barrel. He says that thing shoots bug holes. Fast forward he bought a complete upper from them he said that rifle won’t even shoot 2 inch groups he says it’s pretty bad lol.

Let's sum it all up:
After shooting the rifle yesterday with the 60 grain reloads I put together in 2014 I am convinced that free floating the barrel has some real benefits. I want to thank jiveturkey for sending the hand guard to me for this "experiment". The brand of hand guard is from unbrandedar.com. This is the hand guard that jiveturkey sent. https://unbrandedar.com/product/v4-mlok-rail-12/

As we all know we get what we pay for. I bought this barrel because I had some parts laying around and all I needed was a mid length barrel to make another complete upper. It took some work but the barrel was "getting better" with some use and several cleanings to eliminate the copper and smooth it up internally.

I was very much surprised at the quality and size of the groups I fired yesterday. With my second load of 4 rounds (I like 4 shot groups) I got 3 into the center of the bullseye all over lapping forming a nice little triangle with one flyer 1/2" to the right. I don't know if the flyer was me, the barrel or the reload but I was happy with the group otherwise. This was all at 50 yards again as the 100 yard range was busy and it was 96 degrees on the range yesterday. As the barrel (and I) heated up the groups got a bit wider as well, but otherwise the groups were at least 50% better than with the traditional hand guard just a few days ago.

The bottom line is this is a good barrel. But, it is not a great barrel. I have some other rifles that could use a floating hand guard and that is where I plan on spending some money next and on a later day revisit the 18" barrel with something better. I have a 16" Armalite upper I bought 15 years ago that shoots well but I think I can get it to shoot better if I free float the barrel. I can think of a few more AR's in my gun locker that could stand to be free floated if I choose to keep them.

Thanks for the participation.

kwg

Not to reiterate what others have said, but shoot that dang thing at 100 yards.

It's coming. I have more reloads.

kwg

Maybe try working up a load with a different bullet too. If you can get your hands on some 69gr SMK's, those usually fly pretty straight. I think we were talking to 79s in a different thread about those. I've been seeing them on places like midsouth.
69gr SMK in stock

Sportman's has some 68 grain Hornady BTHP's I thought would be a good choice. Suggest a good load using Winchester 748. It's the only powder I have a lot of.

kwg

Get the 69 smk and save yourself the trouble..

OK.

kwg

John is kind of hard on that bullet, along with the noslers. I actually had pretty good luck with them, but can't find them around here. So, I stick with the 69 and 77SMK's. If the Hornadys are less than $24.00/box, id buy them. When I get home ill post up some targets with load data.

Since I'm going to dial this in for 100 yards and no further at this time I'm looking for a flat based bullet. I get it that John shoots much further than 100 yards and a flat based bullet just won't cut it for the distances he shoots. I have the Hornady book and it does have a listing for the 68 with Winchester 748.

I went to the range today and was able to get on the 100 yard range. I shot some 55 grain Hornady soft points into 2 inches with that Midway 18" barrel. I want to try the Hornady 68's but it's going to be some time next week. We are going camping this week coming up and there is no range where we are going. It's going to be a long hot week.
kwg

The 68gr hornady is a match bullet and is a boat tail, if I remember right. They shoot very well in my bolt gun. Longer OAL than what I run my AR's though...:

Impressive. Your overall length is 100 thousands longer than we can stuff into an AR magazine but it appears to pay off.

kwg

Yeah, it was for a bolt action savage. You can load them to ar mag length. 79s says they are not consistent. He may be right, but this bolt gun loves them. Again, like him, I really like the 69gr SMK for a good short game bullet. Even though they are a boat tail match, they are very consistent shooting. I'll be shooting an AR match this saturday and that is the bullet I'm going to run. I'll be using my Noveske and my Northtech Defense. They shoot the same load very well. One I've posted before.

Lol I tried and tried to get them damn things to shoot. I haven’t tried them in this ballistic advantage barrel. But those 69 smk shoot real well for me. I think you can get 500 68 hornady otm for $89 bucks which is pretty damn cheap. Hell for that price I might buy me some just to have.

If you want a flat base bullet, try the Sierra flat base version of the 69 SMK - the 60gr HP. It's just a 69 with the BT cut off.

It may very well be the best shooting .22 Sierra makes.

https://www.sierrabullets.com/product/22-caliber-60-gr-hp/

J, I had the same problem with the 75gr hornady match bullets. I bought 1000 because they were cheap. I wont do it again

Great suggestion Tyrone.

That sounds like a plan Tyrone. Except for over the top of picked bean fields and maybe a corn field we don't have many shots over 100 yards. A flat based bullet does well for our needs. There are only 2 over 100 yard ranges in the area. At the closest range you have to be a member and the next one is 90 miles away. Right now it looks like my Ruger American compact, also with an 18 inch barrel is the accuracy king at my house.

I shot a 2" group with the Midway barrel yesterday using the Hornady 55 grain soft points and 25 grains of AA2460. This load is one of my favorite combinations. It appears the barrel just isn't going to be what I hoped it would be. At least with the current loads I'm using. With a flat based 60 grain HP I can use them in the Ruger and maybe even the Remington ADL with a 1/12 twist.

I will give a few more bullets a try just in case I'm missing something. The 68 grain Hornady and the 69 grain Sierra sound promising. But, I'm going to take a break from this project for now. Come fall and some cooler weather I'll look at it again. I will say I'm really enjoying the range time. Even a bad day at the range is a good day. For future reference; if there is a next time, I'm getting the BA barrel.

I want to give a shout out to jiveturkey for letting me use his free float hand guard during this process. I was surprised just how much the hand guard affects accuracy. That was my biggest lesson during this process.

kwg

Sounds like you learned something good buddy. I believe in the sticky I started most agree that a freefloating handguard cuts group size down. I know in my upcoming shoot, the rifles I use will all be wearing freefloating handguards. All except for my Colt. Last year at one of our shoots, I felt bad for pulling out the Noveske in the iron sight matches, so I put it away and shot my Colt. It does not have a free floating handguard, but it must have a damn good barrel:


This was the target from that shoot, with my new (at the time) Colt:

I was on a roll that day.. ha ha . The Portlandia and Vancouver guys thought they were going to come to your little hick clubs range and clean up that day. They were using some fancy olympic style AR's too. I'm wondering why they didn't come back to the next ar shoot we had? They wanted to come in and change some of your slow fire shoots. One guy say's, "lets have a fast fire event". I ask, what does that entail? "Well, it's 10 shots in 60 seconds", says the Vancouver sob wearing the shooters jacket. I say, "that's not what I would consider "fast fire", let's do 10 shots in 10 seconds". If you don't get all 10 shots on target, you get scored accordingly. Fair is fair right? They only got 7-8 shots on target. Poor saps.. It was fun/funny watching them try though.. As stick would say, "bless their hearts"...