So before I ask, let me give y'all a little background.
I had a low cost 16" AR I basically built from spare parts It was set up as a home defense-type weapon (budget red-dot, budget weapon light, etc.). One of my childhood friends caught wind of the fact that I built and knew a little bit about AR's. His son had gifted him an Ares Armor 18" SPR rifle. The rifle had a Magpul PRS stock, Geissele flat-faced trigger (which one...I don't know), Ares Armor Effin-A compensator, a bipod, and a couple of other improvements. It was built on what I assume was an Ares proprietary 80% lower. The 18" barrel was 416R, mid-length gassed, 1:7 twist, and the rifle ran a standard buffer weight. No optic, no magazine.
So anyway, this old friend wanted to bring his rifle over for me to inspect and tell him what he had. What he really wanted was a home defense weapon. To make a long story shorter, we ended up trading weapons.
I mounted an old piece-of-sh*t BSA Platinum Series 24X (dot reticle) on it to fire it at the range to see what kind of groups I could ring out of it. It was the only scope I had that was not already on one of my rifles that had enough power to attempt small groups.
At the range, I fired quite a few groups at 100 yards with bullets (handloads) ranging from 55 gr. to 75 gr. The smallest group I fired was around 2". Most of the groups were around 2 1/2 to 3 inches. There weren't fliers, just a lot of larger-than-I-like cloverleaf patterns. I noticed the cases were literally ejecting at 1 o'clock no matter what bullet weight I was firing.
My my 2 questions are 1.) What are your suggestions I try and remedy before I spring for a new barrel? And 2.) Can a rifles inaccuracy possibly be linked to improperly sized gas ports and/or buffer weights/springs?
Any help/suggestions will be appreciated. I should know this stuff, but as my age increases and my life just seems to keep getting busier and more complicated, my mind is drawing total blanks on this. Regardless, I think I made out pretty good on the trade.
PopGunner