The "New" Barrett MRAD Thread!!!!!!

[Raik]

The Federal Gold Medals are available, in 338 and 308. Ok, they are the most expensive .. the 338 in Dollars about 10,- Dollars each shot.

338 ammo is available by RWS, Federal Premium, Lapua, Hornady, Norma, Prvi Partizan and Remington. Prices ranges from 2,50 $/shot to 10,-$/shot.

Yes, of course i mean how is the zero maintained, if i put back the barrel back on. Especially for the 338. I hope its not more than 1/2 to 1 moa.

And the other thing is... the bullet coat... i should stay to one material.. either copper or Nickel/mild steel or red brass. Its not good to change constantly.

 

[Raik]

[No message]

 

[diverdon]

Most of us in the US who plan to shoot a lot take up reloading as a side hobby to reduce the cost and increase the precision of our loads. In .338 Lapua makes good brass, so if you are interested in reloading you could buy a few boxes of their loaded ammo and save the brass. Here in the US I can reload .338 for just over $1 per shot.

 

[Raik]

You are right, i think i dont get around to reload. I will make an application for the reloading license. 1-2$ per shot would be incredible cool.

 

[canuckistaninia]

You need a license to reload? that's a pain in the ass

 

[Raik]

Yes it is!! The weapon laws here in Germany are really worst case. You do not want to know what procedures I've been through until I got it all approved.

 

[TheGerman]

Yes it is!! The weapon laws here in Germany are really worst case. You do not want to know what procedures I've been through until I got it all approved.

This is what I figured. I left way before I had an interest in reloading, but this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

 

[Raik]

Hey German, where are you coming from? (do you speak German?)
Well i ordered the MRAD in Switzerland. In Germany it would take 18 month delivery time. Terrible! At least the rifle in that color and version i wanted.
Then all the procedures to import the rifle to Germany from Switzerland were also not that fast. Then last procedure was going to the fire department and they wanted to have a modification to the barrel... for safety reasons. They wanted to have i little free flight of the bullel in the chamber.
So you see how much "Love" i must have to that rifle to take all this trouble on myself

 

[diverdon]

Hey German, where are you coming from? (do you speak German?)

Are you kidding me! TheGerman not only speaks English better than Americans, He speaks German better than Germans, and French better than the French. Ect ect ect.

 

[TheGerman]

Hey German, where are you coming from? (do you speak German?)
Well i ordered the MRAD in Switzerland. In Germany it would take 18 month delivery time. Terrible! At least the rifle in that color and version i wanted.
Then all the procedures to import the rifle to Germany from Switzerland were also not that fast. Then last procedure was going to the fire department and they wanted to have a modification to the barrel... for safety reasons. They wanted to have i little free flight of the bullel in the chamber.
So you see how much "Love" i must have to that rifle to take all this trouble on myself

Bavaria, Neu Ulm but am in Utah now. I do speak German; actually talked to Oma on the phone today.

Do you have a requirement where you have to basically have a walk in safe room in your home for the rifle as well?

 

[Raik]

@ diverdon: ahhh well ok. I know very well, my English is not that good.... but, i try to give my best !! And good to know, that there is somebody, who can better speak my mother language . ... kidding ;-))

@theGerman: I am near Karlsruhe... so maybe 1,5 hours distance from Neu Ulm. Last summer i was in Texas, New Braunsfels, San Antonio and Dallas.
The requirement is to have a gun cabinet with minimum Category 0. This is what i have. A safe room is not required.

 

[carlm338]

Question for the MRAD owners:

I used to have a 338LM 98B. I had a failure to fire scenario once at the range. It seems that the polymer bolt sleeve had rotated a little in the CCW direction. This caused the trigger to fail to fire the chambered round. Working the bolt (ejectcting and rechambering a round) did not 'fix' the probem. There was enough latitude in the polymer sleeve bolt opening so that closing the bolt would not rotate the sleeve far enough in the CW direction to clear the condition. I had to open the action, remove the bolt and reposition the sleeve in order to fix the problem.
Just curious, this only happened once, and an instructor that was teaching a class at the range told me how to fix this. He said that he has seen this problem before.
It really was non-obvious as to what was going on as the bolt operation (which does rotate the sleeve) did not fix it.

 

[TheGerman]

@ diverdon: ahhh well ok. I know very well, my English is not that good.... but, i try to give my best !! And good to know, that there is somebody, who can better speak my mother language . ... kidding ;-))

@theGerman: I am near Karlsruhe... so maybe 1,5 hours distance from Neu Ulm. Last summer i was in Texas, New Braunsfels, San Antonio and Dallas.
The requirement is to have a gun cabinet with minimum Category 0. This is what i have. A safe room is not required.

I used to live in Texas in the early 90s. I've been to New Braunsfels - its where the Schlitterbahn is!

 

[TheGerman]

Question for the MRAD owners:

I used to have a 338LM 98B. I had a failure to fire scenario once at the range. It seems that the polymer bolt sleeve had rotated a little in the CCW direction. This caused the trigger to fail to fire the chambered round. Working the bolt (ejectcting and rechambering a round) did not 'fix' the probem. There was enough latitude in the polymer sleeve bolt opening so that closing the bolt would not rotate the sleeve far enough in the CW direction to clear the condition. I had to open the action, remove the bolt and reposition the sleeve in order to fix the problem.
Just curious, this only happened once, and an instructor that was teaching a class at the range told me how to fix this. He said that he has seen this problem before.
It really was non-obvious as to what was going on as the bolt operation (which does rotate the sleeve) did not fix it.

Where's your question

If your asking if this happens in the newer generation of MRAD's, I've never had it happen and I've never heard of it happening.

While dissembling my MRAD and getting acquainted with the sleeves and how it all works and goes together, I remember that once the sleeves are in correctly, they cannot rotate at all.

 

[carlm338]

Where's your question

If your asking if this happens in the newer generation of MRAD's, I've never had it happen and I've never heard of it happening.

While dissembling my MRAD and getting acquainted with the sleeves and how it all works and goes together, I remember that once the sleeves are in correctly, they cannot rotate at all.

I was thinking that they rotated as you opened and closed the bolt but maybe I am misremenbering. The point I was trying to make was that at least on the 98B, if the sleeve was rotated CCW a bit, you would get a failure to fire and I was wondering if that could still happen on the MRAD.

BTW, if anyone thinks that the 98B is a slouch, I made 4 out of 5 hits on a 24" square target at a mile in 20-25 mph wind with one (338 Lapua).
NOTE: I had a really good spotter, so the credit is really to him - I was just a trigger puller.

 

[Raik]

The MRAD bold sleeve mechanism has a notch to prevent rotating.

 

[canuckistaninia]

MRAD has a 2 part sleeve.... the forward sleeve, near the ejection port/mag well, is indexed so it cannot rotate during firing/operation of the gun. The rear sleeve free spins with the raising and lowering of the bolt handle. It basically self indexes every time you cycle the bolt. Maybe I don't understand what issues you had with the 98B, but if you can close the action on an mrad, either the sleeve is correct and GTG, or you broke the indexing pin to get it to close.

 

[Raik]

My MRAD has two part sleeves, like canuckistaninia said. But on my mrad both sleeves are indexed and have notches. So they cannot rotate. Even not during circling and closing the bolt. Furthermore its not possible to close the receiver down and lock if the sleeves are not correcty inserted. If yes, there might be a broken indexing pin.

 

[Raik]

@the German: Do you know in Germany a 1000 meter shooting place for cilvilians? There are some 300, but 1000 is rarely. And if yes, then military only.

 

[canuckistaninia]

My MRAD has two part sleeves, like canuckistaninia said. But on my mrad both sleeves are indexed and have notches. So they cannot rotate. Even not during circling and closing the bolt. Furthermore its not possible to close the receiver down and lock if the sleeves are not correcty inserted. If yes, there might be a broken indexing pin.

eh? are you sure about that? if the rear sleeve is indexed and doesn't rotate, you wouldn't be able to cycle the bolt.here it is "closed", acting like a dust cover (when looking from the rear it has rotated clockwise)

and here it is open (when looking from the rear, it has rotated counter clockwise) it got spun when the bolt handle got raised.

 

[Raik]

Huh... let me check this on friday when i am back home. Now when i am looking to your rifle i get doubts. The dust covering makes sense. I was so sure remembering i had problems first time foldering the rifle down and locked because of this back sleeve. But maybe i mix up anything because i have the rifle just sinse few days and i am telling bullshit .. Was there not a 90 degree cutout in the back sleeve? hmm.. i will look on Friday. But i dont believe that there are 2 different kind of new mrads

 

[Raik]

update!! I had a pic on my phone of the rifle. Its same as canuckistaninias. Back sleeve is turned and closed position... so it must be rotatable. Only the front sleeve has an indexing pin. Now we have it

 

[TheGerman]

@the German: Do you know in Germany a 1000 meter shooting place for cilvilians? There are some 300, but 1000 is rarely. And if yes, then military only.

Last 1k meter range I shot at in Germany was in Hammelburg. But I don't think they let you in unless you're wearing a uniform.

Other than that, I don't actually remember any real kind of range that wasn't in a Schutzenheim or wasn't set up for airgun or kleinkaliber shooting which is all at much shorter distance.

 

[Raik]

Man kann doch auch als Zivilist in den Reservistenverband eintreten ..haha.. vielleicht klappt das

Well i go to Phillipsburg first, there is a good old military shooting range up to 300 meters. And i ve heard in Crailsheim is a 1000 meter ... otherwise i must come over to US or Africa or wherever

 

[TheGerman]

Man kann doch auch als Zivilist in den Reservistenverband eintreten ..haha.. vielleicht klappt das

Well i go to Phillipsburg first, there is a good old military shooting range up to 300 meters. And i ve heard in Crailsheim is a 1000 meter ... otherwise i must come over to US or Africa or wherever

Any reserve unit ranges I've seen were short; like 300m or less to basically sight in and be done. But its worth a shot. I don't know much about the Karlsruhe area though. Was stationed in Sigmaringen and Fussen before deployment and spent the last 6 months in Hammelburg. So basically, I never left Bayern unless it was to go to Kosovo, and then back to Bayern.

 

[IanHusaberg]

Hey guys,

Was wondering if any of you add oil to your bolt or just run it dry? Oiled mine last night. Helped a little.

On another note, I have a scope in the PX. Looking for conversion kits as a partial trade. Long shot, I know.

 

[TheGerman]

You dont have a shitty Leupold Mk4 3.5-10 M3 sitting around do you?

I add oil to the bolt when I clean the gun, which is not very often. The action is actually advertised as self lubricating.

Why u no self lubricate!?!

 

[Dooby]

yes, very little, CLP

 

[IanHusaberg]

Sorry, its not a Leopold!

CLP is what I used.

 

[TheGerman]

Have 2 questions I can't seem to find the answer to in regards to the Barrett. Would be interested if anyone has this info and can link/attach it.

- When the MRAD was submitted for the PSR trials/testing, what optic did they use? Was it supplied by Barrett, or did the testing already have optics and stuck them on the rifles? From the solicitation (linked below) any information I've ever seen only refers to a very generic 'day optic' nor does the list of what the rifle must have to meet the basic requirements mention an optic.

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportun...&cck=1&au=&ck=

- We know the outcome was for the Freedom Group/Remington submission. But why? Has there ever been a chart or any scientific comparison published showing what made the Remington rifle beat out all of the other submissions? Would be very interested in seeing how the Barrett did versus all of the others. Or was this another case of Remington managed to take the SOCOM guys to Mons Venus more than the others did?

 

[IanHusaberg]

Remington bribed the right generals. I'd imagine it was one of the scopes that a BORS system went on NIghtforce NXS or Leopold?

These are just a WAG's.????????

 

[diverdon]

Remington bribed the right generals. I'd imagine it was one of the scopes that a BORS system went on NIghtforce NXS or Leopold?

These are just WAG's.????????

I think it was congress critters who were bribed. Unless I'm mistaken Remington was still headquartered in Illion NY when the contract was issued. A couple of NY Senators and congress men can carry a lot of weight with the generals.

 

[canuckistaninia]

Remington bribed the right generals. I'd imagine it was one of the scopes that a BORS system went on NIghtforce NXS or Leopold?

These are just a WAG's.????????

It goes on a lot more then those. I've got one coming for my atacr

 

[Raik]

Has anyone compared the MRAD vs SRS-A1 from Desert Tech? Some people say that the SRS-A1 has a better return to zero in case of a barrel change. Or what other advantages has the one rifle to the other?

 

[IanHusaberg]

It goes on a lot more then those. I've got one coming for my atacr

At the time of the PSR contract, didn't think their were other scopes that accepted the BORS?

 

[IanHusaberg]

Has anyone compared the MRAD vs SRS-A1 from Desert Tech? Some people say that the SRS-A1 has a better return to zero in case of a barrel change. Or what other advantages has the one rifle to the other?

I'd have to say your right about the return to zero. My experience changing barrel zero is all over the map. 300WM 20" to 308 22" to 338LM 24"to 260 24" to 338LM 24".

I don't know how DT does it? Even when shoot same caliber, changing loads POI shifts for me when changing bullet weights.


I just watched the MSR video. One thing I wish the MRAD had was a locking feature for the cheek riser and butt length like MSR.

 

[mrX]

MRAD 338 LM 26" with TBAC 338P1
300gr SMK
Lapua brass - brand new, not resized
90.2gr Retumbo
WLRM primers
3.68" OAL

5 shot group
2730 fps
2726 fps
2731 fps
2725 fps
2732 fps
avg 2729
es 6

 

[IanHusaberg]

Nice SD. Don't think I've even seen that ragged of a hole in my life? How come you white outed the 2nd velocity?

Kinda hard to measure?

 

[mrX]

Nice SD. Don't think I've even seen that ragged of a hole in my life?...

you need to get out more...

pen quit working and writing over made it unreadable.

x

 

[IanHusaberg]

you need to get out more...

pen quit working and writing over made it unreadable.

x

I get out plenty. What are the exact measurements of the ragged hole, center to center?

I like your DIY Magnetospeed mount. Can you tell us a little about it?

 

[mrX]

I get out plenty. What are the exact measurements of the ragged hole, center to center?

I like your DIY Magnetospeed mount. Can you tell us a little about it?

I'm usually not good at reading people esp on the interweb but you seem to have issues with ragged holes

didn't measure and don't care

despite the ragged hole I'm pleased

these were shot at a public range. the sagging backstop is 1/2" thick tar paper like material suspended from posts. the concave shaped backstop does not support the middle of the target

I'll request a new backstop for less ragged holes

the photo captions give details

2 ft hollow closet rod weighs 415 grams
1" burris signature vee med rings
1/2" qr picatinny risers from Amazon actually measure 14mm rise
whole assembly 2 ft rod/risers/rings/magnetospeed assembly 847 grams

I first set up this up with a single burris 5 slot 1/2" riser and it also worked

the magnetospeed spacer/pad selection is the same as when mounted to the suppressor

1mm clearance between the tbac and the ms assembly. suppressor screws on/off without contacting the ms

absolutely rock solid...

the ragged hole...once considered as a name for a popular pub but they settled for hooters...

x

 

[TheGerman]

Nifty setup. I had a similar idea once with using the rail risers and rings to hold something out to hold the magnetospeed unit, but could never figure out what that something could be.

 

[anthonylombardo]

Been doing some research on the carbon fiber wrapped process and just wanted to see if anyone had hands experience with them.What are your guy's thoughts on Barrett's Carbon Fiber wrapped barrels?

I already have the .308, 6.5 CM, and .338 LM all steel based. I was considering getting a 300 WM for an upcoming Safari Hunt I am going on this summer. Going to be hunting mainly plain animals and even know my .338 will pack enough of a punch I really would not like to incinerate smaller plain animals such as springbok or impala but I am going to an Eland so I do need some power. I'm not hunting any big 5 animals so i don't need the legal minimum of .375

 

[diverdon]

I've been told that the Barrett CF barrels are sourced from Proof. Mine is in .260 and I don't have any complaints. Just so you know changing to a CF barrel on an MRAD does not a mountain rifle make, Of course I still have the bipod and fairly heavy scope so YMMV.

 

[TheGerman]

I've been told that the Barrett CF barrels are sourced from Proof. Mine is in .260 and I don't have any complaints. Just so you know changing to a CF barrel on an MRAD does not a mountain rifle make, Of course I still have the bipod and fairly heavy scope so YMMV.

Anyone that says this rifle can't be carried normally on a hunting trip needs to put 60lbs in a ruck and do 4 miles in under 60 mins twice a week, and 6 miles in under 90 on Saturdays. Few weeks of this and the MRAD isn't a big deal.

 

[diverdon]

Anyone that says this rifle can't be carried normally on a hunting trip needs to put 60lbs in a ruck and do 4 miles in under 60 mins twice a week, and 6 miles in under 90 on Saturdays. Few weeks of this and the MRAD isn't a big deal.

I did not say you could not carry it of course it can be carried. The point I intended to make was that in my case pulling off the fluted .338 barrel and installing the CF .260 did not seem to make the rifle perceptibly lighter, it does however look very cool and shoot lights out.

 

[TheGerman]

Did Ian die?

 

[IanHusaberg]

No. But it sure feels like it. Just got a new job at the beginning of Dec. and I'm working 60+ hours/week. Wish I was dead. Not much time to shoot or hang out here. I saw no one has post in here since the 7th.

 

[sierracharlie338]

Seems we all have been busy.

I’ll be trying to get some hunts in with my 338 very soon. Hopefully there will be death pics.


I went to Barrett…

 

[TheGerman]

No. But it sure feels like it. Just got a new job at the beginning of Dec. and I'm working 60+ hours/week. Wish I was dead. Not much time to shoot or hang out here. I saw no one has post in here since the 7th.

Been busy too.

Either family, holidays, travel or shooting. Retirement is hard.