I am curious what the expected and acceptable accuracy of a home build is? Mine consists of Noveske receivers, WOA 7 twist SPR barrel, Seekins safety, bolt catch, Geissele NM Trigger, SLR Helix FF Rail. I shoot 69gr and 77gr SMK match ammo and typically get .8-.9" 5 shot groups at 100 yards. Not hardly a tack driver but considering my lack of consistent practice and it being a home build, I am pretty satisfied with this. Should I or could I reasonably expect more from the rifle with these parts supposing I worked on my technique more?

What optic? For a red dot or open sights .9 ain't bad. For a 1-4 or better should at least get 1/2" with reloads

I have not. I think I have some Hornady 68 and 75gr BTHP in my stash somewhere I can try out. Others you would recommend?

At least 1/2", as in perhaps better? consistantly or one off ? either way thats a bold statement regardless of glass. Mine has a Vortex PST 4-16x FFP on it now. Not world class glass by any means but not crap either. Knowing that everything below 1 MOA becomes exponential in terms of incremental improvement, I would be thrilled to be able to shoot .75" groups consistantly.

Not trying to sound like a jack wagon here but with 69 or 77 match kings handloaded to fit your rifle 1/2" should not be hard with a 4-16 scope. As far as anything under 1moa consistently is good I agree

I handload for my .308 and 6.5 but havent for my gas guns. I can do so as I have all the components. I figured the limiting factor on accuracy of my rifle would be the rifle and the sum of its parts rather then the ammo. If it was a JP or GAP rifle, I get it but something I put together ? Hmmm.....

Try it, you may suprise yourself

1/2” with a 1-4 optic would be very impressive.

I don’t have a WOA, but getting 1/2moa groups from a Rainier Ultramatch with 73 eld-m’s hasn’t been too hard with 2 barrels during load development. One had a 4-16PST, the other a 5-25 ATACR.

I think anything under MOA is pretty darned impressive with factory ammo and any kind of scope.

Sub MOA with a 4x scope?   I personally don't think is.....  typical.

But definitely handloading should yield better accuracy when you find what it likes.  There are so many bullets out there.

Molon uses the 55 grain Sierra Matchkings as his gold standard accuracy load.  I don't know his load data for the powders and I'm not sure how picky he is about brass.  Or what brass he uses.  Some guys like to only use Lake City brass because it has been found to have a very consistent case capacity.   And it lasts for multiple uses.

I don't handload.  But I know that the 52 grain hornady bullet is usually a very good performer in a lot of rifles.  But obviously better for close range.

And you can't go wrong with 68/69/73/75/77's.  Of different makers.  Hornady, Sierra, Burger.

There are others but if it were me, I'd start with the 52's for a 100 yard load.   But I would probably do 75's or 77's if I knew I wanted to shoot further.

Thanks for the feedback.
I am going to try handloading some to see happens. I dont have the time to create a bunch of different loads for different distance, however I know I will never shoot past 500yards with this rifle so I dont need to get too crazy. Besides all .224 bullets are pretty reasonably priced so if 75 or 77gr bullets shoot well and cost a few pennies more each, I dont care and will use them even when shooting 100-200yards. I really would like to find 1 pet load that works well and call it good. I will load up several hundred or a thousand round and call it good. Shoot 50, load 100 from then on.

If you are already shooting .9 5 shot groups, then your are pretty close to exceptional performance already... So long as you have mutliple 5 round groups that all measure that size.

Cherry picking a few at .9 is not statistically signigicant so dont do that. Let the rifle be honest with the load and be honest with yourself behind the trigger.

How much time and energy you devote to the pursuit of additional accuracy is the question. Reloading will get that much further, but after that step trying to improve further is going to cost significantly more time and/or money.

If your not scheduled to compete for prize money at nationals next week, I would quit at reloading and call it good.

Personally I switched to 10 shot groups as 7 or more shots is a statistically significant group.

53 ELD match is a great bullet for accuracy testing. Pulled a .238 mean radius off 10 rounds @ 100 with a 10x optic.

0.5-1.0 is expected.

With my driving, <1.25 is acceptable.

I'm happy with 3/4-1 MOA from my gas guns with match ammo. I don't run high magnification and rarely shoot for groups. as long as I can bang the steel (2/3 ipsc) out  to 500-600 yards I'm happy.

With a cheaper barrel anything under 1moa even with handloads is good IMO.

Unless you are shooting sub-moa targets or shooting solely for tiny groups, 1moa vs. 3/4moa doesn't add much benefit but can waste tons of ammo and time trying to get there.

barrel most important part of equation. try a different one... perhaps borrow one just to see. maybe someone has a fast twist upper you could borrow.

Anything under an inch (1 moa) at any distance is a tack driver IMO. I rarely get75/77 grain bullets to shoot much smaller than 1 moa. They shine at distance because they buck the wind better.

Try some 52/53 grain match bullets at 100 yrds if you want to see how well any AR can perform. They routinely shoot better regardless of twist rate.

If you are wanting super accurate ammo for 100 yard groups, the lighter, flat based Berger 52 grain target bullet fired from Lapua match cases, Federal GM primers and a worked up load of suitable powder charge (LT-32, Hodgdon 4895, IMR 8208 XBR) is going to be hard to beat, provided your barrel, trigger and glass are up to it.  OP has made some good choices in his build.

This is easily a sub 1/2 MOA bullet out to 200.  Not a good choice for longer distance, but may be the best .224" bullet on the planet for 100 yard groups.

This will push any semi-auto .223 rifle to its limit.

I shoot a DPMS GII Hunter.( I can hear everybody laughing)

I worked up my own loads and found one that shot very well for me. .625" or 5/8". I was really happy considering that the barrel was a factory DPMS.

I worked out in yardage and pretty much kept the .625" Then winter came and I put the rifle up because it is no fun flopping in the snow and ice.

Eight months later I drug out the rifle and took it up to my favorite mountain top to shoot stumps and pinecones out to 1000yds just like I did the year before and I was horrified to find out my rifle went to shit during the off season.

I returned to the rifle range to figure out what was wrong with my rifle and being a man there is no way I am telling everyone on the internet that I was so out of practice I couldn't even get a 2" group at 100yds.

I continued to torture my rifle until it learned who is boss and started grouping very well again.

I believe the OPs rifle has been sand bagging and the OP needs to keep the load he is shooting and go back to the range until that slovenly rifle starts to behave and shoot smaller groups.

Teach that rifle who is boss OP.

Long story short, gas guns take a little more practice and patience than a well behaved bolt action.

I personally couldn't care less about what my rifles do at 100yds, but I will accuracy-test and do some initial pressure ladder work at that range often just out of it being a sad necessity.

My wind calls are going to affect hit probability at distance more than anything, since I primarily shoot a lot of steel if I'm not doing CQM with blasters.

I still have not accuracy-tested my 12" 6.5 Grendel at 100yds, but I know it was easy to hit small buffalo silhouettes from 400-800yds with it.

My POI was very close to POA even at 800yds, using a reticle BDC scope at 4x, which is impressive.



When I go to the range and do some ladders with it, and maybe some grouping with factory ammo and known hand loads I like, will I lose sleep over .75 MOA vs 1.5 MOA groups?  Nope

One of the main bullets I'm interested in with it for long range performance is the 130gr Noslder RDF.  I have only seen a few people that have been able to get that bullet to shoot MOA or better.

Let's say it "only" holds 1.5 MOA at 100yds for me.  That's 15.7" at 1000yds.  1 MOA would be 10.5".  Do I care?  Nope.

I just want to watch it impact the steel at well above supersonic speed, and hear the rewarding clang generated from that kind of momentum, which will be dependent on my LR fundamentals and my wind call.