Bill A. told me once to go long or go short with 'em. Here's an 11.5" Lilja barreled rifle (the barrel is actually closer to 10.75 or 11 because Lilja didn't include the barrel extension in the length). I built it while back, probably take it out for the first time next week if I feel up to it.
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Well, I finally got to shoot this thing. WOW! The Lilja barrel is dead on accurate, I was averaging .5MOA with the first ~40 rounds fired. All handloads .1 grain apart per five rounds with 120 BT's averaging 2100-2200fps with AA/Lapua brass, CCI34's and Tac powder IIRC. After I zeroed the irons, and KAC micro flips are always the best yielding groups about as good as the optic, I zeroed the USO 1-8x SR8. Talk about a dream, the perfect scope for this rifle, which I was kinda thinking it would be. At 1x it's like a circle-dot sorta like an EoTech and at higher mag it has a small tree reticle with a cross in the center. Full line illumination like all USO reticles. It was NICE. Definitely a perfect pick for this SBR since it'll work well short or long range.
I took the long rifle out too, the one pictured below this one above and it's been awhile so I needed to find the right load again. I got about .5MOA, same as this SBR, which is really good for the SBR but not so great for that rifle. But I got home and found an old target that had a .25MOA group, best I ever fired with it, and it had the load written down so when I heal i plan on tweaking these. I bet this SBR can do even better with the right load, perhaps even a lighter one like a 95gr., 100gr., or 107gr. We'll see.
Recoil was super light, almost sluggish, so I'm gonna change out whatever buffer I put in it with a regular AR buffer. That should clear it up. No hiccups with the .30 Ultra 5 and that short TBAC can has better performance than you'd think. The 9" can makes the rifle sound about like a suppressed .22 with a sonic crack, it's that nice, and neither affected groups.
Bottom line is I really like that Lilja SBR barrel and the JP ent. FMOS carrier was super slick as always. The SOPMOD stock is perfect for it too. The Geissle trigger is icing on the cake and the short bipod is nice but the legs have to be extended with these 30rd mags. No other AR fires as soft and smooth as this SBR, but that could be a liability unsupressed so a standard AR buffer is in order.
Easily a new favorite and I don't know why I didn't make one sooner (well, I guess i tried, but Satern had me waiting for years on a custom cut that never materialized).
