Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Which off the shelf 20" complete upper for MOA accuracy

Which complete 18 or 20 inch complete uppers in 5.56 are expected to give out of the box MOA accuracy with a good trigger. Must not have a threaded barrel, bayonet lug, flash hider or compensator.



Thank you

Rock River

White Oak Armament
Compass Lake Engineering

Regular weight, or bull barrel?

Armalite 15T, with Federal 77gr match factory loads. Chip McCormick 3# trigger. I bought the barrel separately and installed it, but you can buy complete uppers from Armalite as shown.

with handloads I have yet to see an upper off the shelf that won't do it.

Factory loads can be a crap shoot.

But RRA and Bushmaster over many years have seemed pretty dang decent.

Armalite too but at times, had been a bit iffy maybe 15 years back, but I bet armalite is about the same as the RRA/Bushy these days.

Was thinking bull if that helps

RR , Stag , White Oak , take your pick

My 20" wasn't a complete upper but I know of at least a dozen 18-20" factory build AR's from Rainier Arms that go MOA or better.

Rock River. My Predator does 0.6" with match ammo.

My thoughts as well; pretty much any upper should be capable of MOA accuracy, as long as the barrel is halfway decent, and it has a free float handguard of some sort. MOA accuracy is easy to achieve in an AR with good ammo, and it doesn't require a high end match barrel to do it. Not that there's anything wrong with a match barrel, but if you're going that route, you should expect a lot better than 1 MOA.

There are more SMOA AR-15 rifles than there are SMOA riflemen.

Not quite he same, but I bought a DPMS AR10 upper on sale and it will hang PPU ball around, well under a MOA @ 300m. event tried handholds yet, or another ammo. Forgot Ive also got a DPMS cheapy carbine that will hit a coke can @ 430YD most days when theres no wind. Ball or handloads, varmint type shoot very well, match type loads not as well. I think the 495 gent is 90% right.

I think with a little more shooting you will be surprised just how bad ball ammo is. I have gotten several MOA or better groups from ball ammo also, but that was just luck. Once you start putting more rounds into the group, that MOA group can easily open up to 2-3 MOA.

^^^ has worked for me ^^^

Free float tubes don't have much at all to do with accuracy from an AR. But if you are going to put sling tension on the upper then you can't be without them.

Still I prefer to float a barrel anyway because for hunting I"m liable to stick a bipod on the end anyway or use a sling for shooting.

In the strictest sense of the word free floats might not improve accuracy. But a non FF will have very large point of impact shifts in a field environment shot from conventional and unconventional positions.


In the not too distant past, we tested multiple issued M4A1's with the standard KAC RAS rail and a commercially available drop in extended FF handguard. The exact same rifles were used with the exact same shooters using the same rifles only switching out the handguards between tests. Shooter ability ranged from new members still in training to seasoned experienced members that are high level competitors.


There were two different tests conducted back to back. The first was a pure accuracy benched test. Ten rounds were fired from each rifle at both 100 and 200 yards. Groups sizes were measured for extreme spread. The second test was from ten different alternate positions with accessories mounted and dismounted throughout. Again 10 rounds were fired from both 100 and 200 yards with each rifle.

Benched there was little difference between the rifles. Alternate positions showed a huge difference.


The below target was one of the test ones, and produced the smallest groups from the NON FF portion. In other words- it is the best that the non FF produced.

20x rounds fired at both 100 and 200 yards from 10 different positions at both ranges.





Non FF on left, FF on right. Again, alternate position test.


Averaged out between all shooters, the non free float guns had a 100% hit rate (for group size) on a 8 inch target of less than 50 yards. The Free float guns had a 100% hit rate of around 200 yards.



I would rather have an M4/AR15 with an extended Free float rail and iron sights only, then a non FF with every optic, light, laser or sling I wanted.

Well that flies in the face of years of shooting we did.

Benched, if you put the rest where you are supposed to, there was extremely little difference.

BUT there is a difference if you position shoot and use a sling the normal way.

BUT again if you use a sling on a non floated upper the modified way such that it ties off around the barrel nut you find you are back to normal accuracy.

As noted while I have only one non floated upper, I just had to have them because we used great sling tension in matches, and the hunters have bipods generally, they are not a requirement for great accuracy.

You can't float an M1A and you can get consistenly sub MOA from them. About the same difference, but with a flimsy stock and sling tension you can not only get worse accuracy but worse yet varying zero's...

Yet I don't know many that don't float the guns.

Given the choice of a better trigger, or a float tube, and being able to choose only one... the float tube would not even be considered.

That's the main difference of high level competitors= consistency. If you know the positions and are using a sling, of course one can maintain consistent POI. However, positional shooting with padded coats isn't "field" shooting, or at least not what I would consider field shooting, though positional shooting is one of the backbones of basic rifle marksmanship.



Just adding or removing a weapon mounted light can and will shift POI around 2 MOA. A weapon light and a IR laser generally between 3-6 MOA.


The high hits on the left target are from the FSB touching the hood of a car, the lowest hits are from sling use and using a vertical foregrip. When I say alternate positions- I mean barricade work, under and over vehicles, bipods, mag mono-podded, foregrips, lights, lasers, etc, mounted and unmounted between shots.


The average between all shooters was a 6-8 minute shift between being zeroed mag mono-pod and prone with a tight sling. Again with standard issue M4A1's utilizing the factory sling mount.

Same goes for bolt guns really.

My Rock river's have never disappointed me.