Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles List your ar15 accurizing tips

Guys, list your accurizing tips and tricks for the AR platform rifle. I was talking to a shop owner who builds custom precision AR's and he was telling me about some of the things he suggests for accurizing ar rifles. I'll list what he named off and see what you think. It would be nice to hear from some of you guys that shot the MOA all day long and black rifle challenge here. Anyway, here's the starting of a list from the guy at the shop:

1. Truing the face of the upper receiver.
2. Accu wedge to remove slop in upper and lower receiver fit.
3. Captured recoil spring system. JP enterprises or Armaspec stealth buffer system.
4. 2 stage match/varmint trigger or single stage match trigger with anti walk pins.
5. Barrel properly torqued.
6. Anyone here care to explain how to bed a barrel into a receiver?
7. Good quality barrel: What's your favorite? WOA, Shillen, Windaham Weaponry, Noveske, Wilson Combat, etc.
8. Tuned handloads.
9. Comfortable butt stock. I prefer the PRS stock for shooting prone or off the bench.
10. Good comfortable grip. I prefer the K2+
11. Good solid cantilever scope mount.
12. Proven scope. My favorites for the AR are the AR556 and AR762 4.5-14x42 made by Burris.
13. Good solid beefy upper. Which do you prefer? My favorite is Northtech Defense.
14. Freefloating handguard.

Feel free to add to the list or make your own list. I'm sure some of you guys will have your own recipe. That of which will probably include an adjustable gas block. But does it really make the rifle more accurate than a well tuned buffer weight system or capture spring system? Probably not.. Let me know what I left out. If you want, post some pics of your extremely accurate ar's (I'm talking 10 shot groups too). TWR will appreciate that.


What made me think of starting this thread today was when I changed the handguard on my 6WOA. I wanted to put the 16.7 NSR back on my 6WOA because I don't like the round Hogue thats been on it. The Hogue just looks cheap, but the rifle shot better with it vs. the NSR. I had to think about why I was getting weird fliers with the Noveske handguard installed last time. I came to the conclusion that the 6 handguard locking screws were bottoming out on the barrel last time and I knew this was probably the problem. Today I ground down the screws so it locked down to the barrel nut and stayed clear of the barrel itself. After shooting the rifle today, I think that was the problem. It shot great. No random fliers like before. It looks mucho better with the Noveske NSR on it too:

This ^^^^is an old picture of the rifle, but you get the idea.

Here's how it looked with the Hogue handguard:



For iron sights, all things in the list apply. But I'll add, find a good set of iron sights, if you want to focus on precision. The Ultradyne C4 flip up irons sights, that I've been playing around with are hard to beat in the Accuracy department. Have a happy and safe 4th of July guys...

I’m probably gonna upset a few here but here goes.

Start with a good barrel and make sure the bolt seats square with the barrel extension when locked up. (I do not mean squaring the upper)

Keep the barrel nut torque on the low side of the range. I don’t like to go over 40’ lbs

Free float the barrel.

Feed it good ammo.

Everything else is to help you shoot more comfortably or to help the company that designed the latest gizmo make money.

Good barrel
Good trigger
Good sights.

Good barrel
Tight fitting thermo upper or glue/shim in the barrel

Repeat until you get it right...............if those are not in place all else will not be effective.

Good trigger & good ammo go w/o saying.

MM

I like that. Good point on the barrel nut torque.

TWR,
What is your procedure to insure the above?

You forgot the trigger.

Good stuff MM. Its that kind of stuff that doesn't get brought up often here. I know rost has talked lightly about bedding a barrel into the receiver, but the glue shim idea isn't spoken about often enough. I know there are guys that shoot a chidt ton here. Some don't give a fu ck about accuracy, but only care about "MOM". While others are concerned about getting sub moa accuracy. I've heard guys like rost say that most ar's are cabable of delivering moa accuracy for 10 shots, yet there aren't a lot of guys proving that theory. Hence the reason for starting this thread. If you guys have proven methods, I'd like to hear them.. I'm still new to the platform and not a "spray and pray" shooter. Never have been, and likely never will be..

I see the AR as a damn useful tool:


Even the ones with irons should be expected to shoot well.


MOM or not.. and yes, that is a "light" rifle without a "truck axle" for a barrel on it..

BSA,

Thanks for the nice pics. They were very enjoyable.

I'd greatly appreciate our members comments, guidance, or instructions on #6 above.

Thanks.

I'm sure rost495 knows far more than I do, but I'm not buying that particular statement.

Personally, I think you have to have a top tier barrel to have it shoot 10 rounds consistently sub MOA.

And only top level AR's have that, but having said that, there are lots of top tier barrel makers today provided you are willing to cough up the $$$$.

YMMV.

MM

Bedding the barrel has been talked about a lot on other gun forums. Some say it works others say it doesn’t. I bedded my green mtn barrel because slop between barrel extension and receiver. I recently picked up an ARP barrel and I had to tap it into the receiver. So if one wants to avoid bedding a barrel make sure the barrel company is using a quality barrel extension. Plenty of articles on the World Wide Web about barrel extensions. But bedding a barrel you take loktite 620 put it on the barrel extension and put in the receiver. Then you torque your barrel nut and let the loktite setup.

I do use loctite to bed the barrel into the receiver, forgot about that.

UP, I didn't forget about the trigger, that was in the section of everything thing else is for you. A good trigger does nothing for the mechanical accuracy of the gun. It just makes it easier for us to shoot it.

As for squaring the bolt, I'm not smart enough to figure out how to measure it but I have a friend that had a gun that was just almost a great shooter. One of his customers and friends is a top shooter/Smith and he looked at it. He lapped the bolt into the barrel extension and viola, the gun came around. Ever since then I've played with bolts when everything else was done.

Another thing is don't over tighten muzzle devices. I use red or green loctite and get em timed by trimming the crush washer and count on a barely snug fit and the loctite to hold it.

Each item has some impact on how the rifle shoots BUT...

The biggest one is the barrel... most guys don’t know how to check a barrel by slugging it, and then lapping any issues they find out of the barrel.

Then chamber, lug engagement, and barrel contacts ... after tiggers the things that plan in get pretty small.

Good post MM. However, Im wondering about something an airborne ranger buddy told me a while back, that kind of made me think a bit. He said the ar industry is hot right now, the companies are in competition with one another. A lot of new manufactures wanting their product to thrive, so you are seeing more and more accuracy guarantees and happy customers. It made sense to me when he explained it. The sob gave me a good run for my money on our last ar shoot too. Id like to say he was cheating with his bluetooth sig sauer scope too, but then he'd probably say i was cheating with my rifle in the iron sight division And yes, we all have to give rost credit for knowing his chidt. The man can shoot. Im wondering how hes doing. Probably catching fish right now. Im appreciative of the knowledge base this particular forum has to offer. Hope you guys are having a great 4th!!

I will let you know on Tuesday how Rost is doing.. he's coming down to shoot 600yds at our club shoot which will be a sanctioned NRA 40rd mid range shoot. I do have a question at your club shoots are you guys using shooting bags and bench to shoot of of?

Cool, let us know how he's doing. Good luck with your shoot. We shoot off the bench and off hand and other positions. Depending on what the guys want to do. It's not a NRA sanctioned shoot, so we make our own rules buddy.. That's why we shot 10 shots in 10 seconds at 100 yards. My score was 100-9x and 10 shots clean. My buddy, the airborne ranger came in second with 8 shots on target. All in the 10 ring. Of course, he lost 20 points right off the bat because he couldn't get all 10 shots off in the time allotted. I'm the one that suggested that shoot. Partly because the guys from Vancouver (clark rifles) suggested a "speed shoot". Their idea of a "speed shoot" was 10 shots in 60 seconds. To me, that was childs play and a ridiculously long time. They didn't want to play those games and decided to drop out at that point. It's not even like I asked them to throw a hundy on the table.. Granted, I did just that the other day when a couple marines were up at the range with their fancy AR's. I even said they could use their fancy AR's and I'd use my iron sighted AR.. They were smart and didn't take me up on the offer.. Do you want me to get a jacket and start shooting without a bench John? The sooner you realize shooting is shooting, the better off you will be..

Thanks spotshooter. Good info.

Lol oh boy...

I will let Rost post how he’s doing..

finally a day that I get to be an hour late to the dock AND.. have cell signal enough to read....

I've not had a barrel extension/reciever loose enough to matter.. yet... but loctite and or a smidge of bedding compound could solve it. I'd prefer not to though personally. Locks the barrel to the receiver. and it may ruin the receiver getting it out. Surely don't use 640....

Barrel and its assembly is most important to me. Most of the rest is fluff. Even a float tube. But a tube prevents barrel tension if you sling up. There is a way around that though by proper use of the sling.

Most ARs will shoot MOA. With the right load. I've yet to see one that wouldn't shoot MOA with a 5 shot group at 100. That said we each define parameters as we wish. BSA has his 10 shot thing and thats his call. But typically it always was 5 shots into an inch or less, even if thats not exactly MOA is what I"m talking about. At 100 yards. And just because you can shoot 10 into MOA at 100 doesn't nearly mean you can at 600. But you have a start.

As to the time limits for rapid in NRA/CMP lets just say it can't be all that easy if most folks are not shooting 200s in those matches. Especially the CMP no sighter matches. I"ve shot sub MOA groups in 300 rapid and they be in the 9 ring. Due to lighting, or wind etc... or just me. RE irons. I've never shot a scoped match in my life. FWIW.

Once most people are shooting clean then NRA typically makes the target harder. Have not heard that mentioned yet. Heck I've not even heard that we have this whole slew of 500/800s shot now since going to optics. And since having guns capable of MOA are so common out there one would think everyone would be shooting them. But the whole issue is the loose nut behind the butt. They often think its easy and simple and find out its not quite that. I know I never thought it would be simple to shoot well. And it never was. And I certainly never was a top shooter either. But somehow I ended up after years with a high master in across the course and long range. Blind hog finding an acorn as it was.

Since BSA shoots what he wants, when he wants at their ranges, its hard for me to swallow the fact that rapids are simple to him. They may be. He may might could be a 200 shooter in rapids all the time. But there are lots of other things going on in a position match vs shooting 10 in 10 seconds off a bench with a bipod and scope. Each has its own issues.

Maybe its time we get BSA into shooting high-power ever weekend for a year and see what we get? LOL. Probably hand me my tail. Shooting is shooting. But its not. IF it was then I"d do ok at any match style I entered. That is far from the case. Usually not at the bottom, but not at the top. The more actually sanctioned matches you get in of all types though the better you get because of many things including stress. We shot silhouette of all kinds. Bullseye pistol. Smallbore 3-4 position. Palma(with a service rifle). Long range. Mid range. 3 gun. IDPA. IPSC. lots of local range thrown together stuff which I did usually win, since they were not really that challenging and almost never involved positions. Probably forgetting some. But shotguns prove shooting is not shooting. I rarely hit 50% with them...

And yes, praise the Lord, I probably will shoot a match on the 7th for the first time since 2004. I have zero gear up here. But this really good guy I know is loaning a gun and ammo so I can play. Not even sure my eyes will see 600 anymore. But the gun might even have optics on it. I really wish we were swamped with trips like a normal year. Going to be really hard to pay bills this year, but hey, we had a day off yesterday, got in a helo, flew up to a lake, and fished the stream back out to a river pickup. It was slow, but we missed more than we landed, as was 3 of us guides landed 60 rainbows in a 11 hour day. Lost well over 60 in the little creek. Nothing over 22ish inches but all topwater fly rod mousing mostly. A blast.

Fishing was slow to start. But pretty good now. Cannot get a 50 plus pound King to the net yet. Certainly would have by now if we had lots of clients. But we are only taking one trip a day right now and doing lots of maintenance work. Had one over 50 coming to the top the other day after about 25 minutes, needed about 5 minutes more but hook pulled. Only lures and a single hook allowed. Catch an release. 35s are the biggest I have netted so far. Happy clients though.

Lets cross our fingers on Tuesday. Have an early charter that morning and then haul tail to Wasilla for a ride.

BTW let me address the OP first post numbers

1 can't hurt.
2 no. It actually does, by a tiny bit but its not worth it. Only visible at 300 yards to my tests and then bedding upper to lower is better than a wedge one side only. Plus the wedge or orings flex... you don't want flex when you talk bedding
3 no
4 no
5 its important not to over torque
6 not my thing
7 Favorite barrel is usually what a smith suggests.... only exception is I"ll never use a Douglas ever again
8 they don't make a gun shoot better so to speak but they allow you to get the most accuracy you can. Generally simply due to vibration nodes
9no
10no
11no. But if you don't have a good mount or scope you won't know if the gun can shoot. But I've shot groups around 1.5 inches at 600, 5 shots testing, with the old mount in the handle of an A2.. and regularly got 3-4 inch groups at that range
12no, but again see 11
13 won't hurt, but then again we used to be limited to A2... so while they can't hurt, others can do well
14 No. But it helps as noted above on sling tension,. I":d think with a bipod too but I"ve never shot an AR off a bipod. Sling or bags.

Gotta run. Dock and boat await.

Jeff