Any reason not to? Who has one?

I'd try one in a heartbeat. The owner of Larue tactical used one to place first in the Arfcom "moa all day long" challenge. He averaged .340 MOA for (5) 5 shot groups. If you like accuracy, it may be worth looking into. By the way, the second place shooter was also shooting a Larue tactical. I'm not sure if anyone here shot a Larue tactical in our moa all day long challenge. May be worth a look though..

I have a LaRue PredatAR which is a pencil barrel and it pretty accurate for what it is. The Stealth is supposed to be extremely accurate but they are heavy.

Even though the PredatAR has a lighter barrel profile, they are supposed to shoot very well. The second place shooter at the moa all day long challenge, I mentioned at arfcom, was using a predatAR barrel. Other shooters in the top 10 were using Larue barrels.

I don't own a La Rue. Never will.

Why not?

No reason not to, at all.

2 words.................Mark LaRue.

I wouldn't bet a lot of money on LaRue winning any kind of serious & honestly run shootoff today unless someone went through a lot of barrels to find one to enter with.

LaRue would only win if no one else showed up.

But that's not to say that they are not very good products, because they are, all of them.

JMHO, YMMV

MM

Have a stealth barrel, easily 1/2" groups

How can you go wrong when it has "tactical", "stealth" and "sniper" in the title? All they missed was "operator".

Very nice. Thats all im going to say.

Laughin' here......................if you go over to Sniper's Hide, virtually every gun owned by anyone there is 1/2 MOA, all day, every day.

Didn't quite seem to work that way here in the BR Challenge.....................

MM

Fairly close to what I'd say if I could bring myself to say it. I just have a bit of behind the scene knowledge and lets just say it irritates me how things are done and while a good product the bottom line is to make the most with the least and thats something that will bite you now and then. Makes NO sense to me to just not use better things instead of sorting. But most people really don't need more than moa and moa can be had with dang near any tube these days.

At least when we are talking 3 shot groups huh buddy?

Oh no, you didn't.. Had to bring that chit up again...


I've been beaten down by the consensus here (at the fire) that it's only the first shot that counts and 3 shot groups are all you need to verify accuracy and precision... No one wants to play the 10 shot group challenge here... What was it? 8 shooters, in each challenge, that could prove their chidt was sub moa or even moa. You were one of them. We know who the other 7 were too.. Its been a while since I looked at those threads, but if I remember right, there were well over 60,000 views for the moa all day long challenge and, surprisingly, almost 1/2 a million (over 350,000) views of the black rifle challenge thread. My guess is there's over 100,000 people trying to decide on whether or not they want to participate. Of those people, a fair amount of them figure its just easier to say their rifles shoot "sub moa", "moa" or even more laughable "1/2 moa"... Just hand them their participation trophy and move on, don't bring it up anymore because guys cry about such things. It hurts their ego's or something... There's far too many expert handloaders here too that have 1/2 moa loads, but somehow can't seem to prove it.. Much like in the threads you mention.. Hell, maybe I'll add an entry I shot with my Northtech defense a few months ago. .693 moa I believe, from a cheap azzed Windham Weaponry barrel.. That would give the new guys, that say their rifles shoot 1/2 moa, a chance to prove it..

Heck BSA, had to be at least 300,000 views from guys you sent links to...

The other lot were there for the laughs and stupidity.

Yeah, but not too many takers. There's a lot of "1/2 moa" shooters around, until you confront them. I see it in local competition as well. I guess its just human nature. We all know the guys that think those threads are "stupid", as in the last poster, can't shoot for chidt. He'll claim he can, but can't prove it..

#knowitall

#iliketohearmyselftalk

I like to limit my shot groups to 3 rounds, 2 is even better. Mostly because the more rounds I shoot, the mo' bigger my group sizes gets.

LMAO. standard for most anyone is 5 shot group. 3 shots are really good indicators though.
For me anything less than a 20 shot group is worthless for comp guns.

But then again I'm not nearly so picky about group size as some are. Much more picky about group size though than what any Chrono has to tell me until I pass 600.

But we all have our own ideas as to how many in a group. Big deal. Not a soul really cares except you caring about your own standard. And thats the way it should be.

And now to confuse things more IIRC 7 round groups were supposed to tell it all...

Dunno. I shoot a ladder. Pick a few loads around the middle. Shoot 3 shot groups to not be a big waste of ammo shooting 10 shot groups. Then tweak it some. If I'm not in a place I like toss the barrel and start over because the barrel has issues.

That said 3 or 5 shot group any barrel is capable of MOA. Dang near it anyway. And if I"m saying the I have this load thats 5 shot MOA capable, I've shot it enough to know it will do 10 or 20 to that same or awful close. Close enough for most.

That said this isn't a flame post. Just rambling thoughts.

I’ve moved away from trying to shoot groups to shooting faster and I’m doing it with pencil barrels and red dots more of late. Of course now with the shortages on components, I’m fixing to just start hunting again and save my ammo.

We are all different folks with different ideals and that’s the way it should be. But I’ve yet to see a manufacture or custom smith that guaranteed anything over 3 shots so to most folk, 3 shots are MOA capable.

Whatever’s good enough for them.

I'm more interested in consistency & repeat-ability under all conditions than the absolute smallest groups anymore, since I'm not competing; if I were, then I would have a different view.

Below is an old article written by Jack Leuba, from Knights Armament Co., who is one their highly recognized gurus. I've highlighted in RED the pertinent parts for me & that more or less states my current goals with my guns. Kinda of a long read, but it is, what it is; skip to the RED highlights of you don't want to read is all.

Stating that a gun is unequivocally a sub MOA rifle takes 10 shot groups, but I have no problem with someone saying that their gun will shoot 3 shoots sub-MOA, but that really doesn't make the grade for a sub-MOA rifle.................and I most surely do shoot 3 & 5 shot groups for several different reasons.

MM


Let's Talk About "Accuracy"

Ask someone how "accurate" they want their rifle to be, and generally you will hear a response of something about "1 MOA", "Sub-MOA", or "nothing over 2 MOA", depending on application.

First things first: Accuracy vs Precision

There is a difference between "accuracy" and the size of a group (commonly called "precision").
For the moment, let's stick with the conventional lingo for this part.
In the simplest perspective, accuracy is simply hitting a target of a specified size.
Precision (in this context) refers to group size (more on that later).
This pic does a decent job of simplifying the concept:

So, you can be accurate, but not precise, and precise but not accurate.

Now, to get in the weeds about this, linking group size to precision is less descriptive than simply discussing "dispersion", that is, the distance between each point of impact. So, for the rest of this, I will be mostly discussing dispersion.

What is 1 MOA?

In the simplest terms possible, 1 Minute of Angle (MOA) is 1.047" at 100 yards, measured from the end of the muzzle.
This distance increases in direct proportion to distance: 2.094" at 200 yards, 10.47" at 1,000 yards, 3.42" at 327 yards, etc.
We, being lazy, tend to round this number to 1" per every 100 yards of distance. Frankly, it doesn't matter a whole lot, but it does let the guy that shoots a 1" group at 100 truthfully say that he shot a sub-MOA group, which makes people feel good about themselves.
If you want to know more about Minute of Angle (Minute of Arc, semi-technically), the world of Google is a click away.
Be warned: it's super boring, and won't help you shoot any better.

What is a 1 MOA group?

Well, the first question that you didn't ask is: by what measuring convention?
Your reply to the question you didn't ask is most likely something about the distance between the two furthest away shots in a group.
That is the most common approach to measuring groups, and is called "Extreme Spread".
(Note: that is also the nickname of my high-school best friend's sister)

ES is good in the aspect that it is very easy to measure.
ES is bad in that it doesn't really tell you much about the group.
How so?

Let's look at these two groups I happened to have readily available:

Which is the best group?

Most would consider the one on the left to be the "better" group, and would attribute the high shot to an ammunition or shooter issue, which it very well may be, but they will then discard that shot from the data set, which is not good at all. There is no point in gathering data and then throwing out the bits that you don't like. Now, if the shooter called the shot as off, BEFORE SEEING THE IMPACT, then it isn't such a problem to dismiss the shot. That said, something that far out would be readily apparent to the shooter if at magnification.

Anyway, if you are using ES as your sole data point for group comparison, the right side group would be better, at around 0.95 MOA, with the left group at around 1.55 MOA, even though 4 of the rounds are in a .5 MOA cluster.

Is there a better way?
One could use Average Mean Radius (aka Average to Center) as a method to discuss group sizes.
The concept is that instead of talking about the extremes of the group, we discuss the average distance from the center of the group to the individual holes. AMR minimizes anomalies, but can be misleading when talking to someone that is thinking in ES.
Molon has written up the "hows" and "whys" of this pretty well, and of course, Google is your friend for learning more about it.
Short story: if you get the "On Target" software, you can do this fairly easily at home, but you need a computer and some savviness to do it.
ES is pretty easily done with just a ruler.
So, is AMR better than ES?
No, it's just different. But better. Kind of.

Here is what On Target will give you:

Max is ES, ATC is AMR

Moving on.

So what criteria makes for a "1 MOA" gun?
Lots of dudes will go out to the range, shoot a bunch of groups, find the one that looks the smallest, measure it, and declare that they have a "sub-MOA" gun.
Of course, they disregard all of the 1.5-2.5 MOA groups that they shot before and after that group. While they very well may have a 1 MOA gun/ammo combination, they do not have the data to support that claim.

If they have a rifle that shoots 9 groups that measure 0.9", but 1 of 1.9", is that a "Minute Gun"? Sure, it might average 1 MOA, but is that really in accord with the impression given when one claims that they have a 1 MOA rifle?

Groups Shift.

Yup, they do. Get over it.
Where a bullet will go when fired through a cold, clean bore will be different than where shot 529 will go.
How much the Point of Impact (POI) will shift will be greatly linked to the condition of the bore and temperature of the barrel.
Steel expands when heated and contracts when cooled. Shooting faster will push more heat into the barrel steel.
Copper and fouling will change how the bullet interacts with the bore, and how much the jacket is deformed.
Every shot taken through a barrel is unique.

I tend to prefer barrels and complete systems that show the least amount of group to group shift after fouling.
Kinda showing my hand here, but I would rather have a 1.5 MOA gun with 0.5 inches of shift than a 0.5 MOA gun with 1.5 inches of shift.
I'll let you ruminate on that before addressing it directly.

How much shift happens?
With one particular adopted Army sniper system, the specified allowable shift is 1.1" at 100 yards over 4 groups.

So what?
The only way to know what the gun actually shoots is to compare numerous groups.
The single most important aspect is the center of the group, and where your statistical center lies in relation to your desired point of impact at a stated distance.
Why?
Because each group is unique, and represents a very small data point when it comes to really knowing what the gun shoots. That is, until it is time to use that rifle in the defense of life.
What the individual group sizes are is almost irrelevant. Any of those individual groups could have any of the others' ES or AMR, and those numbers mean nothing practically if they don't go where you need them.

How many rounds to shoot in a group?
There are pros and cons to 5 and 10 round groups.
3 round groups tell you pretty much nothing useful unless you overlay around 10 of them, and frankly are too limited to really give a good indication of group center, which means that it gets harder to accurately track group shift from POA.

10 round groups are good, in fact I used to prefer them, and still do for non-precision low recoil guns. They get a little tiresome after the first 3 or 4, and can start showing heat effect more than baseline precision and shift. Shooter error with 10-round groups usually isn't a big deal right out of the gate, but when you get into the 200 round area shooter fatigue becomes more of a thing.

For dispersion and group-center shift, I prefer 5-round groups. A single 5-round group on its own is indeed a data point, but that data needs to be populated with several (at least 4) groups to accurately indicate anything usable.

This comes around to zeroing.
After my initial zero, I won't touch the turrets until I have at least 4 groups from which to determine actual group center.
If the group center isn't consistent with regard to point of aim, I want to check heat, and will generally shoot 4X 5-round groups, with enough time between strings to allow the barrel to cool.
If the group centers become more consistent, I do a heat work-up, shooting 40 to 50 rounds in 5-round groups with only enough time between groups to ensure good natural point of aim and correct position/NPA.
If the group to group dispersion does not improve, I at least know that the issue is probably something other than heat.

When it comes to data collection, I am more interested in group centers in relation to the POA than I am in individual group size. After shooting the gun for a while, I know what the groups should look like, and anything weird (large) gets noted

So what is a 1 MOA gun?
A true 1 MOA rifle would be capable of consistently placing the center every round fired in a 1" group at 100 yards, for multiple groups, with the same POA for all groups, with the only changes to POI being made by environmental factors.

Like I have said before: there aren't too many of those rifles in the world.

In the end, I don't really care about claiming to have "sub-minute" guns. I expect on-demand
performance.
A 1.5" gun (no group size over 1.5" ES, or no shots further from the center of any individual group t
than 1") with group to group shift of less than 0.5" is an exceptional performer, and frankly, of higher
performance than most "sniper" rifles. This combination ensures that as long as I do my job, I will hit
a 2" circle at 100 yards every...single...time.
This translates to a 12" target at 600 yards. Think of 100% success on a chest plate at 600.

Lets talk about that "0.5 MOA" gun with 1.5 MOA of shift:

It encourages a shooter to "chase zero". In this situation, the shooter puts out a nice group, and assumes that he did everything right, and therefore adjusts the optic to bring the group to the center of the target. He/she then shoots another group, and sees another good group, but outside the center of the target. So what do they do? Yup, crank away on the turrets again. Had that shooter simply fired 4 or more groups of 5 rounds and compared those group centers to the point of aim, he would be able to determine if the aiming device actually needed to be adjusted (group center average was not within 60% of a single click value) or if he is simply seeing the inherent group shift.

Most critically, is that it becomes very easy to overestimate performance potential, and wind up taking shots that the gun doesn't fully support. Shooter takes gun to range, shoots a bunch of the above .5 MOA groups and by chance happens to get his final group exactly where it's supposed to be. When it's time to take that .5 MOA shot, the group shift puts the projectile 1.5 MOA away from the intended impact point. Successive shots go around the same place, leading the shooter to adjust the optic/point of aim to achieve hits. Data for drop/wind (and truing) gets entered under the assumption that those variables, rather than inherent group shift, are responsible for the needed adjustment, which throws off the entire data set. This issue will continue to affect the data set (during following live-fire sessions) until sufficient data is accumulated and scrutinized with a careful and analytical eye.

All because you shot a 0.5" group that one time...

Last edited by Failure2Stop; 07-02-15 at 16:00. Reason: added discussion on shot group numbers, corrected AMR to ES in "better way" paragraph

Jack Leuba
Director, Military and Government Sales
Knight's Armament Company
[email protected]

Yea, that's pretty much it. Because, America.