First, y'all remember the barrel sale back around the end of June. I gave $199 for this barrel, it's a 1/8 twist 16" PredatAR which is a light weight match barrel made from some undisclosed steel. It looks like a coated SS but the machine cuts have a mirrored finish. The thing may be a tomato stake but it looks better than any barrel I've seen bar none. Even the bore has a mirrored look.

The barrel extension is SS but the barrel you can see there and chamber is coated black.

another machined cut.

Now as much as I love LaRue Mounts and every other part I've tried of theirs, their gas block sucks!

I didn't like the looks of the bulky thing so I was gonna use a normal low profile block but they drilled 3 set screw holes made for their gas block.

I decided to try the overpriced turd but then I got it here it was too heavy for a light weight build, it weighed 2/10th's of a pound on my UPS scales! So I cut it off and whittled it down, then parkerized it. It doesn't register on the scales now.

to be continued

I also decided to try BCM's Keymod rail. It's lighter than anything else I've seen yet has an anti-rotation feature and get's pretty good reviews, I can't fault it. Assembly was easy and well thought out. It's very comfortable but dang this thing is lighter than my Troy rails. I used Rainier Arms' forged upper with no forward assist and a semi bolt carrier to save even more weight.

Parts gathered

I stuck the finished upper on my Noveske SPR lower complete with SOPMOD stock and H buffer, the gun weighs 6 lbs. even bare and 8 lbs. with the 10X Super Chicken scope in a LaRue mount.


I am completely at a loss at how to scope it, I have a 6x Super Chicken that would be most useful but I hate to stick 2 lbs. on a light weight gun, so it might get my ACOG or just a simple 1-5 but for now, I'll test the accuracy with the Hubble on it.

Here's a look at how BCM keeps the rail from rotating or coming loose, both designs are simple yet impressive.


I'll try to get it out this weekend and see if it'll shoot and report back.

Nice! Looks like you just ground or hacksawed the front sleeve off the gas block? I like those KMR rails!

Looks good. The KMR is probably my favorite rail. I wish it was just a tad bit bigger in diameter but overall is an excellent rail. I really like the mounting system, seems like a very good design. Similar to the geissele but I prefer the "shape" of the octagon rail vs. the cross style.

If looks had anything to do with accuracy I'd say that would easily shoot 1/2 MOA.

I now just about hate that DD Lite rail after the KMR.

now if it don't shoot you can blame it on the modified gas block

Who makes a good low profile gas block without modifying it? Yankee Hill? I have no need for a front sight.

BCM, Noveske, Vltor, Daniel Defense.... Syrac and SLR make good asjustable ones.

Very nice looking build! I'll be interested in how it shoots. I do hope it will shoot very good for you. As mentioned, it certainly looks like it will.

I just got a notification that a package is on it'w way to me with one or two of those pretty barrels, too. I ordered two, one of each design on sale. Package of 4 pounds so around the 19th we'll see how much of that is barrel and how much is box.

It's mostly rocks to keep the Reardon steel from floating away.


I realized I need another scope mount so if any of the LaRue guys are following this, I'm good on T-shirts but a 30mm LT 104 would be nice...

I hate this place ...if you shoot a 1 inch 10 shot group with that featherweight I am going to have to go and find $500....

For 500 bucks you can pick any known name barrel brand, and have it set up correctly and chambered, well pretty close... 350 buck range for good known barrel brands. Likely 200 or so to chamber etc.. I have not bought one in years, so I might be off.. but pretty close I suspect.

And I suspect you'll easily shooot a 1 inch group with TWRs new tube.

WOP, 495 Krieger, set up and ready to roll. At the worst price.

I"ve never had a Krieger that would not shoot well, the worst one was about .75 moa as I recall and that for 10 shot groups as those were the smallest number of rounds we would shoot for group ever.

Featherweight is simply a matter of contouring the barrel correctly.

Not sure what that would cost then, if anything extra.

Which means that for 500 bucks, the La Rue tube should be shooting as well as any top line name, Krieger, Rock, Bartlein etc...

Most companies we spoke with would not contour a match barrel down that much if any and those that would wouldn't guarantee anything. I'm pretty sure we checked with WOA but not WOP.

Even my Noveske light weight is closer to an hbar than a pencil barrel.

LaRue sent me an email to rate their gas block but I messed around and deleted it. Up here at the hospital, daughter had surgery this morning and it got very hectic. She's doing good and if all goes well, I'm gonna try and shoot in the morning.

glad your daughter is doing well!

Hey, hope all turns out well with the daughter. If there is anything we can do, other than say a prayer, let us know!

I coudl see WOA not doing it, thats not the custom side. I could see WOP not doing it because their main goal is competition guns.

Either post or pm me dimensions on the La Rue barrel, I may just buy a blank and contour it down and chamber it and see what happens. Wont' happen soon, but might be fun to play with to see how something like a cheap shilen works with a light gun.

We had a guy do some Shilen barrels against their advice and they turned out fine. Though no one shot 20 shot groups with them.

Made it to the range today and at first I was highly disappointed. Best groups of 5 were going 3-5" at 100 yards with the 10x super chicken. I decided to try the scope on my 16" Noveske and it shot well enough to dismiss the bad scope idea.

I looked the gun over and couldn't see anything obvious so I decided to take off the A1 flash hider and it started showing promise.

It is rather windy here and the top left group of 10 was mostly my fault and they were all back to back but it will do 5 in 1.5 MOA and probably better with a better shooter and maybe another bullet. I'm just out of time to do much more tinkering for now but I think I'll like the barrel.

77 grain? Odd about the flash hider!

Yes 77 gr TMK's and 24.3 grs of TAC lit by a CCI 41 primer.

I only had a dpms A1 flash hider, it's got a 30 caliber hole in it and probably not disrupting the gas true. I don't know but it sounds good. I did read the other post about a vortex improving accuracy and remembered having similar results.

hmmm...

shoot 69 and 25 of varget and a br4, its about like picking up a box of GMM and see how it shoots.

The only reason to have threads on a barrel is for a can or competition muzzle climb reducer

If you put one on it really needs to be bored out larger than what they typically come, around 30 cal or so for a 224 is not a bad idea. So since you have it bored out, then I think thats not the issue.

Then you have to be somewhat careful of torque, especially on a skinny tube.

I've no use for them, as soon as the rules allowed us to get rid of the flash hiders we did.

IMHO using the 69 load as a base line for every new barrel, even if you never shoot em again, is a good thing to have the data from.

I'll bet the gun isn't a bad shooter.

I agree with trying some 69gr SMK's. The TMK's have that finicky shaped ogive, I bet they will shoot better once you figure out where to seat them though.

I'm off to test some 77's and Varget from my CLE 18" Douglas barrel.....

Ive used Vortex flash hiders for years but didn't have an extra so I put the A1 on there. Reason I had an A1 around is I use red loctite and just butt it up against the peel washer, no torque other than hand tight, per AMU I believe. I'll try it again with a Vortex I robbed from my SPR and try some different bullets. As frustrated as I was, I didn't even shoot my Noveske that well but that's been a reoccurring theme here lately.

I feel like the barrel will shoot, I just didn't have time to mess with it.

TWR,

Have you shot the 77gr TMK's before out of an AR?

Have used the BH loading for a while and they do as well as standard 77gr Sierras, however have spent a bunch of time working up loads for them and they are extremely finicky. At least when trying to run top end loads. Guns that consistently shoot MK 262 (77gr match) at 1-1.5 MOA for ten rounds, are 2.5-5 MOA with most loads with the TMK's.

My last load today:

25gr Varget with a 77gr SMK.




I think I'll give the challenge another try.

Form, I tried them in the challenge and wound up going to NBT's. These were what I thought was all I had loaded up but I found a thousand SMK's I loaded for a rainy day. Gonna try again tomorrow.

Correction, they were NCC's that haven't been that accurate either.

Loading some 55 NBT's now.

which of your guns was this? I have not tried varget yet with the 77's. Headed to the basement to load a few now!

This was with the 18" Douglas SPR barrel from Compass Lake Engineering. This was the best load out of the 5 I tested with Varget. Two of the other groups were right around MOA or slightly less but were at a lower powder charge. I am low on the SMK's so I am going to try the same load with some Nosler's and Hornady's this afternoon.

One thing I found out was BCM needs to supply aluminum rail sections with their KMR's. The aluminum one I had on order didn't get delivered on time. Having a consistent bipod pressure was a challenge with the plastic one.




Sorry for the hijack TWR.

No problem WE, I put my rail section on last night for a light mount and light mount alone. I like the light weight but seriously, a plastic rail? I need to order a few things like a sling mount and one for a bi-pod.

Have seen those plastic ones.. a buddy has a few. So far so good, plastic is much better than it used to be, but for a combat/self defense I think I'd have to go AL...

Wareagle, agreed on the aluminum rail section, but for now, if you tilt the bipod legs forward the rail will not see as much torque, and should hold up better.

I cannot like the plastic rail sections, I need to order a couple of the 3 inch aluminum rails! $40 for two rails, seems a lot to me.

It is high for a bipod, when you can put a sling stud on the tube for a few bucks, and pop the bipod on that. Of course I don't have any of the fancy rails so there may well be a reason that woulnd't work.

I'm so simple I get an AL tube, and just put a c ouple studs in place and a short rail section if I want a light on the gun and anything else. Can't think of one that doesn't have just a short rail section. Picatinny rail base blank from Weaver or such, cut in half sometimes, drill and tap..pretty easy, fairly cheap.

The pic was taken with the bipod loaded as it would be when shooting. I could not put any pressure on it at all but I have always shot better leaning into the gun. The rail is just flimsy, I really wasn't loading the bipod with much force.

Ya ya we know, old, stubborn and cheap.

Tried 3 different loads today and swapped out the 10x super chicken for a 6x super chicken, the 77 gr Nosler Custom Competitions didn't shoot any better. The 77 gr TMK's started out fairly decent as seen on the top right target. I let it cool and tried the top left and it just got worse.

Then I tried the 55 gr NBT's and the thing came alive (bottom right), I shot 3 on another target to sight in and they were touching, adjusted the 6x MQ super chicken and shot the 5 you see.

Feed it a bullet it likes and the LaRue barrel will do well under MOA for 5, not bad for a skinny barrel!

Continued shooting and fired 20 shots, though not from a bi-pod, and it turned out real well I think.

My New DD will shoot 10 55 Vmax factory into 1.5, for $199 a good deal on the LaRue, not sure for $499.

Hey, just cause its me, ya ain't gotta insult me right away...

Looks like you are headed the right way with bullets.

Its amazing that some tubes shoot about anything and others get picky. Then there are the picky bullets, like all the 77s I've ever tried, they'll shoot, but you have to work with em..

Nice to see it snugging up.

FWIW the flip side too, most all barrels take about 100 or so rounds to kind of settle in, and you are able to see what they will do. You might be getting there too. IMHO its probably the barrel building fouling until its full...

I was talking to a buddy tonight and he talked me into trying a different primer with the TMK's.

I'm pleased with the LaRue especially considering it's lighter than my Noveske and shooting almost as good. I'm also using a 6x scope and a 2" bullseye. Not trying to tell you to buy one just don't base your opinion on my shooting.

I shot the challenge with Hornady 55 grain v-max bullets, they simply shoot better in all three of my 22 caliber barrels. TWR's build also seems to shoot better with the lighter bullets. This has me wondering why.

Primers can make huge differences, either way or no difference.

If I'm searching, I sure try primer changes!

I think you got an outstanding deal on a LW barrel from a great manufacturer, again I am wondering about why the lighter bullets seem to shoot better, they do in mine as well. Silver lining in everything! If you had reported with 5 into 3/4 of an inch I would be $500 poorer right now!

My experience has been that light barrel/heavy bullet combinations are more sensitive to harmonic variations and hence changes in accuracy and POI shift.

I finished by Larue barrel build with a Larue Upper and BCM rail. I need to get optics mounted and take a trip to the range. I concur with Rost that you need a base line load for testing. The Varget/69g SMK is popular. I also like 25.9g Benchmark/50g Vmax, which dups the Blackhills load.

Thanks for the vmax varmint load info, I did not have that data from anyone.

Benchmark was just coming out when we were switchign to N540 and so never really used it except in 6/6.8 stuff

Took mine out today. Seemed to want to shoot, but I need to play with it some more. My 69gr SMK load for another rifle was right at MOA for 10 rounds. Gonna try some other bullets/loads and see how it goes...