• This Forum is for adults 18 years of age or over. By continuing to use this Forum you are confirming that you are 18 or older. No content shall be viewed by any person under 18 in California.

I love it when this happens . . .

JLT

This is what I have to work with . . .
Gold $$ Contributor
Things were kind of slow at the shop this past week, with the Labor Day weekend coming up and a local classic car/hot rod show going on, so I decided to tinker in the back while an absolutely filthy Remington 7400 was taking a solvent bath.

I had a 24" bull profile Mossberg AR barrel with a 5.56x45 chamber and a 1:9 twist in the rack and some other odds and ends lying around, so I built a rifle on Thursday afternoon. Nothing special - the single most expensive component was a Timney 3lb. Skeleton trigger, followed by a decent NiB BCG. I mounted a Sightron S-Tac 4-20x50 in Weaver six hole tactical rings on it and it turned out like this:

24_bull_ar.jpg

I took it to the range on Sunday afternoon for a break-in and to shoot a few groups. Knowing what I paid for the barrel, my expectations were modest - I'd be happy with .5 - .75 MOA.

It got a 15 round break-in (PITA with an AR) and roughly zeroed at 100 yards. It shot well during the break-in routine so I changed targets and settled in to shoot a few groups.

I shot off the bipod you see in the photo and I fed it a load of proven accuracy in a number of rifles - 68 gr. Hornady BTHP seated to mag length, 23.8 gr. IMR 8208XBR, LC '09 brass and a Tula SRM primer. My expectations were cautiously raised when I put the first two on paper and made a sight correction for the third. This was the first group, including the sight correction:

tgt_1.jpg

About .430 - ish, with the third shot one click right and two clicks up.

I hung another target and the second group turned out like this:

tgt_2.jpg

.220 - ish. Could be a couple of flukes, but the expectations were starting to rise a bit.

A third target went up and I did my best to bear down and hold-breathe-squeeze in disciplined fashion. Three shots later, and this was the result:

tgt_3.jpg

That's one of the best groups I've ever shot with any kind of rifle and definitely the best I've shot off a bipod. It measures about .270 edge to edge, so this one's in the .05 range. Three very nice outcomes in a row start to shrink the probability of 'fluke' pretty dramatically, so I decided to move to the 200 meter line for the next group. I fairly ran down to the target board and put up a fresh target.

After getting myself under control, I dialed seven clicks of elevation and fired three more times. This was the result:

tgt_4.jpg

That's about .300 CTC. Needless to say, I'm quite pleased with the results so far. Not bad at all for an AR built around a $150 (retail) barrel! I'm thinking the local crows and coyotes will absolutely hate this thing.

Oh, and the Remington 7400 is still soaking out back. The *@!% thing's so filthy I don't want to touch it.
 
Great build and great shooting! Its amazing how accurate ARs can become these days. I have a varmint AR that I built which consistently shoots sub 1/2 MOA 5 shot groups at 100 yards. My custom varmint rifles aren't a whole lot more accurate than my AR. Nice thing is the AR holds 30 rounds and keeps em flying down range without ever moving anything but my trigger finger :)
 
All the planets in this Galaxy lined up for you !

I'd be afraid to change anything on it.

The component pulling the trigger is obviously pretty darn good too.
 
Great build and great shooting! Its amazing how accurate ARs can become these days. I have a varmint AR that I built which consistently shoots sub 1/2 MOA 5 shot groups at 100 yards. My custom varmint rifles aren't a whole lot more accurate than my AR. Nice thing is the AR holds 30 rounds and keeps em flying down range without ever moving anything but my trigger finger :)
Indeed, ARs can amaze nowadays and they are so incredibly flexible. Even my lightweight upper is MOA or better. If this one keeps shooting like this, it'll wipe the floor with my very carefully built Rem 700-based .223. There's an FT-R match in this rifle's future, for sure.

I envy you and your 30 rounders and fully functional magazine release buttons. I'm in New York state, way behind enemy lines, and we're limited to 10 round magazines and magazine locking devices. That notwithstanding, the AR is still my favorite varmint/predator platform.
 
All the planets in this Galaxy lined up for you !

I'd be afraid to change anything on it.

The component pulling the trigger is obviously pretty darn good too.

Sincere thanks, Zero333.

I'm not touching a thing, believe me! Planets, asteroids, stars, singularities and space junk had to come together just so and I'm not about to mess with it. I just wish I could pull it off every time . . .

As for the trigger pulling part, I didn't have any coffee that morning and I went to Mass with my family before I hit the range. The latter must have been working for me, 'cause I ain't that good!
 
thats great!! I might use ur load data on the ar that been shooting.?

That load has worked very well for me in all of my ARs and it does a fine job in my bolt actions, too. I've loaded this recipe for a few of my customers and they've commented favorably. It's my 'test mule' load for 5.56 / .223. It clocks 3,040 fps out of my 26" barrel with single-digit SDs. 8208 XBR seems to deliver the goods with this bore/capacity ratio - great performer in the Grendel, too!
 
That load has worked very well for me in all of my ARs and it does a fine job in my bolt actions, too. I've loaded this recipe for a few of my customers and they've commented favorably. It's my 'test mule' load for 5.56 / .223. It clocks 3,040 fps out of my 26" barrel with single-digit SDs. 8208 XBR seems to deliver the goods with this bore/capacity ratio - great performer in the Grendel, too!
That's interesting because even though my AR is a custom barrel chambered in 20 TAC, it also likes 8208 XBR the best. Very close second is a load I have with IMR 4895, also sub 1/2 MOA with 5 shots.

8208 is also what I use in my 6.8 SPC AR-15. Though it is a lighter barrel and accuracy is only around 3/4 MOA with 5 shots using 110gr Hornady HP bullets.
 
Last edited:
Nice shooting, I'm a dedicated AR shooter moving to bolt guns (thanks Sacramento...) and that's some good paper punching no matter what the barrel is screwed to! Another good load is 23.2 of 8208 under a 75 or 77 grain pill, LC brass and a Rem7.5. The 75 would be iffy in that 1:9 but for 1:8 and faster it's a solid combination.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JLT
That's interesting because even though my AR is a custom barrel chambered in 20 TAC, it also likes 8208 XBR the best. Very close second is a load I have with IMR 4895, also sub 1/2 MOA with 5 shots.

8208 is also what I use in my 6.8 SPC AR-15. Though it is a lighter barrel and accuracy is only around 3/4 MOA with 5 shots using 110gr Hornady HP bullets.

You have me thinking . . .

I have a couple of .20 Practicals - a 22" bull AR upper and a custom Savage bolt - and I've been feeding them H4198 from the beginning. The .20 Tac and the .20 Practical are so similar, I'm going to do a work-up with 8208 and the 39 gr. Sierras and see what happens.
 
Nice shooting, I'm a dedicated AR shooter moving to bolt guns (thanks Sacramento...) and that's some good paper punching no matter what the barrel is screwed to! Another good load is 23.2 of 8208 under a 75 or 77 grain pill, LC brass and a Rem7.5. The 75 would be iffy in that 1:9 but for 1:8 and faster it's a solid combination.
California, New York - same crap, different borders. I feel your pain, brother! Texas is looking better and better with every passing day.
 
You have me thinking . . .

I have a couple of .20 Practicals - a 22" bull AR upper and a custom Savage bolt - and I've been feeding them H4198 from the beginning. The .20 Tac and the .20 Practical are so similar, I'm going to do a work-up with 8208 and the 39 gr. Sierras and see what happens.
Should work. The 39 Sierras always shoot good. 8208 is a little slow for the 20 TAC and 20 PRAC, so if you want decent speed, you'll end up with 100% case fill when the bullet is seated. Which is a good thing
 
Benchmark works pretty good in the 20's too. 8208 is a bit slow for extruded as mentioned, wanna use a slower powder go ball, like H335, 2230, TAC etc. H335/WC844 is my go-to powder for 20 Prac. Lots of people swear by N133 haven't used it myself.
 
Benchmark works pretty good in the 20's too. 8208 is a bit slow for extruded as mentioned, wanna use a slower powder go ball, like H335, 2230, TAC etc. H335/WC844 is my go-to powder for 20 Prac. Lots of people swear by N133 haven't used it myself.

I use N133 exclusively in both a bolt and AR .20 practical. I can go up or down in one tenth increments, a half a grain and it still shoots the pretty much the same.
 

Upgrades & Donations

This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.


Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.

You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.


To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.

Forum statistics

Threads
166,259
Messages
2,215,105
Members
79,497
Latest member
Bie
Back
Top