Best off the shelf AR15 precision barrel

Smitty192

Smitty192

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#1
I'm in the market for a precision AR15 barrel.

I have a giant pile of Black Hills 5.56 / 77 TMK and figured I would build a rifle around some ammo.

I don't want to go a custom (CLE, Craddock, etc.) route. Looking for a reasonably priced, off the shelf barrel.

Open to suggestions.

Thanks
 
#7
Smitty192 said:
I have a giant pile of Black Hills 5.56 / 77 TMK and figured I would build a rifle around some ammo.
Click to expand...

In fact, if you're trying to do a specific ammo, I'd call John at WOA and see what barrel he recommends for building around that cartridge. I'm sure any of his barrels would shoot them well, but he may prefer one over another. Just a thought...
 
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#12
all the above mentioned are good, I have a Rainier arms ultramatch 20" barrel with a 223 wylde chamber 1/7.5 twist on mine right now. Seems to be a hammer. They usually have several barrel options in stock ready to ship. Which is why I chose them over others.
 
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#13
Just built an AR with a White Oak SS Match, 1: 8 , Wylde Chamber. Getting .5 moa 5 shot groups and several .375 3 shot groups with the very first rounds through the barrel. Excellent for the money...around $250.

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#15
I had a 20" Shilen barrel and bolt combo bought from Midway USA that was the most accurate AR barrel I've ever had, especially with 77gr smk with a max load of TAC using their 5.56x45 NATO load data.
 
#16
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#17
I’ve had weirdly great luck with BA Premium barrels in 223 Wylde. I know they’re not considered alpha class but all three are consistent sub moa shooters and one 20” dmr just about always prints under half moa which is insane for a $250 off the shelf barrel on a home built upper. Primarily shoot Sierra 77s and Hornady 75s out of them. These barrels are now my go-to for anything shy of a spare-no-expense build, which excludes an off the shelf barrel pretty much by definition.
 
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#18
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#20
buffalowinter said:
Just built an AR with a White Oak SS Match, 1: 8 , Wylde Chamber. Getting .5 moa 5 shot groups and several .375 3 shot groups with the very first rounds through the barrel. Excellent for the money...around $250.

View attachment 7311262

View attachment 7311271


View attachment 7311275
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but what in the actual FUCK! are we looking at here??? Did you really cherry pick random three and five shot groups and then average them like they are from the same target 😂

Maser.... Is that you?
 
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#21
bigjake83 said:
I'm sorry but what in the actual fuck are we looking at here??? Did you really cherry pick random three and five shot groups and then average them like they are from the same target 😂

Maser.... Is that you?
Click to expand...

Isn't that how it works? Between what I see on the forums and Facebook, I can't believe that more records haven't been broken😁
 
#24
bigjake83 said:
Dude seriously!?..lol I'm about ready to go out and get all my old targets have some Arts and Crafts time and come back as a God amongst these forums.
Click to expand...

It was sarcasm. These people that hand pick their groups then claim they are 1/4 moa shooters or better with factory rifles is comical. Just like the ones that claim they can beat the record for the long distance record but if you watch their scores at a match, they barely score any points for the entire match. It's always easier when you go out of a morning when conditions are nearly perfect.
 
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#25
Bradu said:
It was sarcasm. These people that hand pick their groups then claim they are 1/4 moa shooters or better with factory rifles is comical. Just like the ones that claim they can beat the record for the long distance record but if you watch their scores at a match, they barely score any points for the entire match. It's always easier when you go out of a morning when conditions are nearly perfect.
Click to expand...

I’m 100% guilty of this in that I only “count” days when conditions are great and I’m shooting well.

However...

I don’t think that’s the worst thing when I’m trying to narrow variables down for evaluating gear. My best and my worst barrels are 4 moa on bad days; only the goodies are sub 1 on perfect days.
 
#26
Craddock has a lot of "off the shelf" stuff; WOA is a given, same for Ranier UltraMatch, Compass Lake is make to order but essentially "off-the-shelf", Brownells has various top shelf barrels in stock, including Criterion.

As for BH MK-262 ammo, while it's good, you can likely get marginally better accuracy from good handloads. Not sure but I think I recall that the military spec for it is 1.25 MOA.

There's some data in this link from MOLON that will show groupings for both standard MK-262 & also with the TMK version.

Even though just about every poster here has a sub-MOA rifle, MOLON wasn't able to break that barrier with either type of ammo.

MOLON Testing BH TMK / MK-262

Seems that he did another test somewhere just on MK-262, but I can't find it right now.

MM
 
#27
I've got a low mileage 16" CLE Barrel that I bought for a project a few years ago and never used. PM me if your interested. Mid-weight with Mid length gas system if I recall.
 
#29
Thanks for all of the good information. I have a Mega Maten receiver set that needs finished and I'm in the market for a 308 barrel. I don't want to wait on a custom spun piece. What is the best off the shelf AR10 barrel? JP, Criterion...something else??

Thanks in advance for the help.
 
#30
MontanaMan said:
Craddock has a lot of "off the shelf" stuff; WOA is a given, same for Ranier UltraMatch, Compass Lake is make to order but essentially "off-the-shelf", Brownells has various top shelf barrels in stock, including Criterion.

As for BH MK-262 ammo, while it's good, you can likely get marginally better accuracy from good handloads. Not sure but I think I recall that the military spec for it is 1.25 MOA.

There's some data in this link from MOLON that will show groupings for both standard MK-262 & also with the TMK version.

Even though just about every poster here has a sub-MOA rifle, MOLON wasn't able to break that barrier with either type of ammo.

MOLON Testing BH TMK / MK-262

Seems that he did another test somewhere just on MK-262, but I can't find it right now.

MM
Click to expand...

Very interesting stuff.
 
#31
Smitty192 said:
Thanks for all of the good information. I have a Mega Maten receiver set that needs finished and I'm in the market for a 308 barrel. I don't want to wait on a custom spun piece. What is the best off the shelf AR10 barrel? JP, Criterion...something else??

Thanks in advance for the help.
Click to expand...

JP is definitely top shelf but I would also take a look at Rainier Arms and proof research SS barrels.
 
#32
I’m a JP fan, but someone recently posted a video of a side by side test with a JP and I believe it was a Kreiger spun up by Craddock. The Kreiger pretty much kicked JPs ass. I have a Kreiger on my bolt gun that shoots great. In the future I may investigate other options besides JP.
 
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#33
502Chevelle said:
I’m a JP fan, but someone recently posted a video of a side by side test with a JP and I believe it was a Kreiger spun up by Craddock. The Kreiger pretty much kicked JPs ass. I have a Kreiger on my bolt gun that shoots great. In the future I may investigate other options besides JP.
Click to expand...

I think that video was complete Bullshit!! And possibly a smear campaign against JP. I honestly cannot even count how many JP barrels I've owned and shot and if that was an honest comparison there's something wrong with that barrel plain and simple.
 
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#34
bigjake83 said:
I think that video was complete Bullshit!! And possibly a smear campaign against JP. I honestly cannot even count how many JP barrels I've owned and shot and if that was an honest comparison there's something wrong with that barrel plain and simple.
Click to expand...

Hey fellas, any link to this video by chance? Obviously, I'm a JP fanboy or whatever, but that doesn't mean all of their rifles shoot like mine. There's not a company out here who has 100% success rate in terms of maintaining high levels of accuracy, especially when it comes to fart guns.
 
#36
That video is right here in the gas gun section, and I just saw it in the last couple days, but I’m not sure which thread it was in. I hope it is false, the guys at JP have been to good to me for me to loose faith in them now.
 
#39
cdeiglmeier said:
all the above mentioned are good, I have a Rainier arms ultramatch 20" barrel with a 223 wylde chamber 1/7.5 twist on mine right now. Seems to be a hammer. They usually have several barrel options in stock ready to ship. Which is why I chose them over others.
Click to expand...
I have one of the older UM SPR barrels.
Pretty damn nice barrel and I’ve abused the crap out of it.
 
#43
bigjake83 said:
I'm sorry but what in the actual FUCK! are we looking at here??? Did you really cherry pick random three and five shot groups and then average them like they are from the same target 😂

Maser.... Is that you?
Click to expand...
Perhaps @buffalowinter has found, as I have, that fullsize targets- as shot on the range- don't store worth a fuck, and cutting them up to put in a notebook is a much more efficient use of space. And, it makes record keeping easier. I doubt he went out and shot a target in order to answer a Q on the internet, but probably had those groups in his records. Even I can tell that they were all shot on the same style shoot n see target, s ill give him the benefit of the doubt that they were shot on the same outing. For fucks sake, there's no proof that any target shown on the inter web was shot at the reported distance, but we usually give people plenty of slack. Unless they're shooting pretty darned good ammo... Hell, this ain't even the 6x5 thread.
 
#44
Off course I cherry picked the targets. The OP asked for a barrel recommendation, not a display of my marksmanship abilities...or lack there-of. I'm showing what the barrel can do, not what I can do. All the groups were shot last week, on the same day, within an hour. It was part of barrel break-in for the gun shown which I had just built. Were there some looser groups...of course, but that was me not the barrel. It never even occurred to me that by cherry-picked you meant I "cheated". Hell, the groups aren't even that good, especially compared to a good bolt gun.
 
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