What should I realistically expect my lmt mws to shoot?

I handload and have tried a variety of loads

168 hornady hpbt SMK, ELD
178 eld
175 smk
155 hornady hpbt

Powders I have used are IMR 4064, and ram tac.

Best Is 168 smk with 4064.

Best groups are just over an inch but usually 1.25-1.5.

Rifle has a Geiselle trigger, brt gas tube, 16” chrome lined barrel, sandman S, and a pst gen 2 3-15.

Is 1.25-1.5 about what I can expect out of this platform?

When you tried a variety of loads, did you find any nodes among those loads?  

When I was doing the work up for my 6.5 Creedmoor there was definitely a node that I saw.

I’m not sure what kind of accuracy to expect from a chrome lined barrel, but that’s pretty decent for a gas gun.

Shooter ability always comes into question with these kinds of questions. I would not be satisfied with 1.25" groups. I have no idea what kind of shooter you are, but when I have something not working for me, I always wonder and troubleshoot the nut behind the trigger.

Besides that, seating depth can play a huge role in accuracy as well.

I’m not the best shooter by far but I can hold .5” with my 6.5 bolt gun consistently

Bypassing handloads for a moment.

Have you tried federal gold medal match in that rifle and if so how did it shoot. Curious how a factory precision loads compares.


https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/threads/stainles-lmt-mws-accuracy-reports.167221/

168gr FGMM was similar to the handloads.

Perhaps the barrel isnt in the gun correctly. I and several others have had the same issue. Remove barrel, clean barrel end, clean down in hole, re-oil end of barrel and hole, stand gun on end and insert barrel. Then with gun standing on end gently tighten the screws evenly. Torque to correct numbers. It will now shoot good again. Crap ammo should be in the 1" area and handloads/match sub 3/4".

The first time I took my barrel off to clean the breach area I re-installed it with the gun laying down on the bipod. The barrel didnt like the way it went back on and I was shooting 4” groups at 100. I took the barrel off and cleaned it then re-installed. The gun went right back to shooting 1/2 inch groups.

Interesting I’ll try this. Thanks.

I pulled my muzzle brake and will shoot some groups with nothing and see if maybe it was too tight or interfering in some way.

1.25moa is pretty crappy with hand loads and FGMM. All of my MWS’s have been sub 3/4” rifles with match ammo and all but one were 16” CL. I’d make sure your barrel is properly torqued and everything else is tight. Maybe verify with a different optic too.

If everything is good to go I’d be looking at another barrel and at that point I’d just have Craddock or someone else spin one up using your barrel extension.

Took it out again, minus any muzzle device.

Everything was torqued, I shot off a Harris bipod with a stock cradle in the rear. Three groups of 168smk handloads, three of 168 FGMM, and three of 168 hornady BTHP.

best group was .9” with 168 handload and the rest were over 1”.

I’m considering dumping the rifle all together. Apparently bolt guns are my thing since I shot multiple sub moa groups and one sub .5 with a worse optic than what’s on the lmt.

Assuming you’re shooting 10-shot groups, that doesn’t sound out of the ordinary. Most people reporting “sub half minute” dispersion with autoloaders are cherry picking 3-shot groups. 1-ish minute dispersion is perfectly sufficient for short action cartridges. You still have a far more effective weapon than any .308 bolt action.

I agree with what he said. Group sizes are going to open up when going from a cherry picked 3 shot group to a 5 shot group and open up more with a 10 shot group. It's the nature of the beast.

And that is part of the reason I will shoot at least 5 round groups when fine tuning my scope zero. 3 shot groups are fine for getting on target and zeroed but a 5 shot group is better.

This is odd indeed however, generally anything <1.5” is typically acceptable for gas gun accuracy.

Honestly, gas guns are harder to shoot than bolt guns as they will exploit any error in your fundamentals, but some are ammo picky too. My LMT 7.62 will shoot disgustingly large groups with some lighter grain ammo but will run 168 & 175gr smk sub MOA all day long.

How many rounds do you estimate the barrel has on it?  Are you cleaning after each range session or only until accuracy drops off?  Some barrels shoot better fouled.

The positive is that it seems to be shooting great with hand loads good job!

It could be as simple as some different specs between factory loaded ammo.  I've experienced this with several factory loads including FGMM 168gr. Could also be a change in the shooting conditions depending on where you live.

I am not an expert reloader (lot to learn) but you can basically get anything to shoot fairly tight groups consistently with precise hand loading once you figure out what works best with what (bullet, brass, powder, etc...). What your rifle likes with factory loads may or may not translate to the hand loads. But I did the same as you have, shot a bunch of different loads just to see.

All the barrels I have shot, have specific preferences as far as factory ammo. So don't give up on your barrel yet.

No idea on round count I traded for it and it was used although looked in decent shape, could have had thousands though. I have personally fired 500-1000 through it.

All my groups are 5 shot groups.

Just because you can consistently shoot .5-.75 groups with your bolt gun does not mean you have the skill necessary to achieve the same result with a semi-auto (ask me how I know).  When you move up from an AR15 to an AR10, the task becomes even more difficult.  And if you are shooting 10 shot groups achieving similar results becomes more difficult still.

So unless you are among the gifted few, it becomes difficult to ascertain how much is attributable to you and how much is attributable to the gun.  Unless you are very confident of your skill set, I would not give up on this gun.  Spend a little more time behind the trigger.  And honestly, even if you are shooting 5 shot groups, there's nothing wrong with averaging approx. 1.25 MOA.  I'd be more than happy with a semi-auto that can get consistent hits on 3" steel at 200 yards.  And once you get out to 400 yards and beyond your ability to get accurate hits on small targets is going to depend more on your ability to read the wind than on whether your rifle is sub MOA or 1.25 MOA.

Fair enough.

I cleaned down to bare steel removing as much carbon and copper as possible. Next time I get a chance I’ll shoot 50 rounds (letting the barrel cool between groups and see where I’m at)

I do like the rifle other than the accuracy. It’s been super reliable and of course .308 is an awesome round.

Assuming both rifles weigh the same, have similar optics and have similar triggers, a bolt action shouldn’t be any easier to shoot.

I can only tell you my personal experience, having put a lot of rounds through bolt guns and AR's.  With an AR you have to be perfectly consistent every shot - i.e get behind the rifle exactly the same way, rifle in your shoulder pocket and on the rear bag exactly the same, same cheek pressure on stock, same slow pressure on the trigger with follow through, etc.  My bolt action guns are more forgiving.  Maybe it has to do with the chassis/stock.  Maybe it's the fact that there's no reciprocating mass in a bolt gun.  IDK.  

But much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I do think it's the shooter not the gun (although I don't dispute that it's easier to get a sub MOA bolt gun vs sub MOA AR).  Why?  Because when my groups open up with a "flyer" it's usually the result of vertical stringing, which I attribute to poor recoil management.

However, I'd love to hear others experience.  Do you feel you can shoot your AR's with the same level of consistency/accuracy as your bolt guns and that any difference between the two is attributable to the gun, not the shooter?

IMO it’s still worth it to get a precision barrel on it. It’s more money but you’ve got the best large frame platform out there and you’re a barrel away from being a tack driver and they’re easy AF to swap barrels.




That’s not how it works. Large frame gas guns are much harder to shoot accurately than a bolt gun. Tons of articles, discussion, and such on the topic.

Not quite the same with a hydraulic buffer, but a borrowed AR10-B .308 with a 20" .gov profile barrel would have shot as swell as my AR15s had the owner not installed an A2 stock and stuffed lead weight in, making it feel like a bullpup.

Regarding manual actions, bad form is bad form - it will show on target eventually. The reciprocating mass of an auto doesn't move appreciably during barrel time.

Assuming simiar grip/trigger relationship, a swinging hammer should move the rifle a tiny bit more than an inline striker. Not enough to be much more difficult.

In every discussion I can find, people aren’t comparing truly equivalent rifles. Unless you can specifically articulate why the action makes the difference, I don’t see why you’d believe that. Autoloaders generally tend to have a little more dispersion because of differences in harmonics and other mechanical factors. Nobody can explain why a skill difference would affect one action more than another.

Well, here's a thread I found after about 2 minutes research.  https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/threads/thinking-about-switching-to-a-gas-gun.6880187/#post-6993578

It's true that there's not a complete unanimity of opinion, and to your point, I don't know if anyone has done a formal study where they have compared the two platforms and attempted to eliminate as many variables a possible - i.e. rifles have same barrel length, same weight, similar stocks, same scopes, same trigger, etc.

All I can tell you, based on personal experience, is that I not only get better results, but am more consistent behind a bolt gun.  And that's across three different bolt guns, a Sig SSG3000, a Tikka CTR in an aftermarket stock and a Sako TRG; and multiple AR's I know to be accurate - a RRA National Match upper, 2 different LaRue uppers and a CLE upper on a lower with a Magpul PRS Stock.  And that with my bolt guns, even after a layoff I'm generally shooting .75 MOA or better groups almost immediately.  With my AR's it definitely takes me a couple of sessions to get my group size down.

The only other data point I can give you is that if you look at PRS competitions, almost everyone competes with a bolt gun, and the few who shoot gas guns generally have much lower scores.

I suppose none of this is conclusive proof of my point, but for me, and apparently for a number of others shooters who have a fair amount of trigger time behind both platforms, my results behind a bolt gun are not only better, but more consistent.

Until someone can provide a specific reason why bolt actions would be easier to shoot, this doesn’t make any sense. There’s already a consistent record that bolt actions can exhibit superior mechanical dispersion for an equivalent level of weight. The ergonomic characteristics of your specific bolt actions must agree with you more than those of your autoloaders. Are your shots on call? If they are, you should be able to tell what specifically is happening to cause greater dispersion. If you aren’t seeing movement in the optic that’d cause flyers, it’s likely not a skill or ergonomic issue. Your autoloaders are just less mechanically precise.

Well, the two explanations I've heard are bolt action rifles have a faster lock time and less recoil because they have no reciprocating mass.  But I'm neither a physicist nor a mechanical engineer, so I can't really speak to whether either of these explanations answer your question.

But I'm curious, you keep saying an AR15 (or AR10) should be no harder to shoot than a bolt action rifle.  As someone who has put a ton of rounds through each, that has not been my actual experience.  What is your experience?  Do you find that you can shoot an AR as accurately as a bolt action rifle?  What kind of groups are you able to consistently achieve with your most accurate AR?

And to answer your question, I find that when my groups are the tightest with an AR the gun moves exactly the same way under recoil.  In other words, my crosshairs seem to end up in the same place after recoil, whereas with a flyer the gun recoils slightly differently.

From Frank Galli

Using a semi automatic large frame rifle as a precision rifle takes a bit more understanding as the rifle will exploit any weaknesses in your fundamentals of marksmanship.

Most guys out there shooting an M4 type rifle are doing so in a dynamic fashion. Usually from a standing or alternate position, moving very dynamic on large close targets. So when these same people move to an AR10 Type rifle in a larger caliber they run into problems with accuracy. We want to look at some fundamental differences in the platform, and how you shoot them accurately.

The AR10 type rifle is heavier, slower, and pushing a bigger bullet with more powder behind it. Depending where the gas key is in relationship to the end of the barrel can matter, as well as how it reacts to the last round in the magazine. These issues are definitely debatable, however the end results speak for themselves. Generally speaking those who ignore the weight difference and the movement in the system fail to use them as a true precision rifle.

For the shooter, the weight and movement in the system is going to exploit any weakness in your fundamentals of marksmanship, especially Trigger Control and Follow Through. If you have a habit of "tapping" your trigger on your bolt gun the gas gun will exploit this dramatically. A great example of this problem is when a shooter experiences the "double tap" with a 308 Gas Gun. They immediately want to blame the trigger or the system but its all shooter. You must follow through completely and allow the recoil pulse to be over before moving on. You don't want to reset the trigger on recoil like with a handgun or carbine in a dynamic situation. You want to delay that reset so we have a distinct and audible click. Trigger reset is key and shows the shooter he is doing it correctly.

Ammunition will matter as well in these systems. Generally speaking they don't like ammunition going over 2650fps for a 175gr 308. The other popular calibers, 6.5mm and 6mm don't have as big an issue because the bullet is moving faster, but in a 308, try to stick with match ammo below 2650. If you are not using Match ammunition, the same you would use in your bolt gun you can't expect bolt gun like results. So be conscious of what you feed your AR10 Type rifle.

It's not your M4 and needs to be treated a bit different. Like the difference between driving an 18 Wheeler Tractor Trailer or a Porsche 911... you drive both the same yet completely different.

I personally tend to think these barrels like to be ‘dirty’ or shall we say seasoned?

Not trying to start an internet argument but I used to be a "clean the copper out after every range trip" guy.  
Bad MIL habits often die hard 🤦‍♂️.  Quality barrels, that are properly broken in don't generally benefit from total copper removal.  
I can only say “my” LMT MWS shoots more accurately and holds its zero more consistently.

I regularly clean the chamber for reliability and leave the bore alone.
At certain intervals, the BCG get stripped, mainly to remove brass shavings, crud, and inspect the ejectors and extractor springs.

When the round count intervals get high (300-400) I knock the gunk out with a bore guide/one piece coated rod but don’t get crazy with the copper solvents.  Your experience may vary if shooting 100% suppressed or shooting for matches.

I think breaking the gun down and performing a detail cleaning is probably a good idea every 500 rounds or twice a year or so.

Unless you’re comparing rifles you know have identical mechanical dispersion, I don’t see how you could make such a determination. I’m saying “should” because I’ve never tested it in a scientifically valid way, and I don’t know of anyone who has. This narrative seems based around comparing rifles that may not even have identical mechanical dispersion to begin with. The issue of the reticles settling somewhere else after firing would seem to indicate a “natural point of aim” problem rather than anything with the action.

If recoil contributed meaningfully to dispersion (beyond harmonic issues like barrel whip) we’d see groups universally tightening when people add muzzle brakes.

Gas guns are harder to shoot. Your hold has to be consistent shot to shot.  You can get away with alot of slop on a bolt gun. Not so on a gasser. I generally need more tension in my hold to make a gas gun shoot well.  The good part is you don't have to break position to run a bolt.

One thing that I did not see mentioned yet. A chrome lined barrel is usually not as accurate as a non lined barrel. I know apples to oranges here, but 3 MOA at 100 yards is the average for chrome lined military rifles.

With ball ammo.

With an index load, expect 0.4 MOA mean radii.

Isn't there a significant difference between a precision bolt gun with a longer barrel and a semi auto .308 with a 16" chrome lined barrel?  A bolt gun set up properly that the OP has probably shot more time seems like it would be better than a 16 inch semi auto especially when the shooter (if I understand correctly) is new to the rifle? If I am wrong I am wrong (usually am) but it seems like this comparison of his bolt gun to this is a bit off as does expected accuracy. I don't think his current results are great but if he got it to <1 MOA seems it fairly decent

I would consider his set up more of a battle rifle than a precision rifle. Would you really expect .4 MOA from a new to him semi auto with a 16 inch chrome lined barrel? That seems super ambitious. Now if it were a heavier barrel designed for precision, sure sub moa is expected but that isn't what this is it is an expensive very well made (I would hope) battle rifle.

My 16" SR25 shoots around 1-1.25 MOA at 100yds.  AR10's like the MWS and SR25 are battle rifles meant to put more rounds down range quicker than a bolt gun.  They typically shine more in closer/urban combat. Their tolerances are not as tight as a bolt gun.  Their chambers have to be able to handle more grit, heat, and weather conditions.  The manufactures have to make a reliable gun to win a contract, they will sacrifice a little bit of accuracy to get there.

Even shooting 1 MOA with Federal 175 factory ammo, I can hit a 100% IPSC at 950yds in low wind conditions very reliably.  

I wouldn't be angry with 1" groups.  It's very common for custom made bolt guns shoot .5-.8" groups at 100 with factory ammo, so don't sweat it.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Mean-Radius/16-512887/

Turnbolts should be in the 0.2-0.3 range.

The problem OP has is due to the barrel, plain and simple. Get a better stainless match grade one. Sacrifice the barrel extension on your current barrel if necessary to have one built.

Is a bolt gun easier to shoot accurately than an AR platform? Yes.

Why? The AR has less desireable lock time, heavier reliable trigger weights, often an inferior grip width or grip angle, will bump fire with loose techniques that are fine used on a bolt gun, has greater optic height over bore than traditional bolt guns and thus more cant induced errors unless the bolt gun is running an AR height optic, and the big ones... shot to shot there is more going on and the semi auto will sit slightly differently in the shoulder, shot to shot, if not run with perfect technique due to the two rearward recoil impulse and the bolt slamming forward impulse, and second, the bolt gun can be set up to seat at or into the lands with less headspace slop and has a tighter lock up because it does not the clearance to be a reliable semi auto.

Then there is longer seating depth possibilities and higher velocity possibilities in the same caliber for SOME caliber bolt guns, vs. ARs, etc. All that adds up to bolt guns being easier to shoot accurately.

A large amount of the difference can be removed by using a bipod with friction locked cant, loading each rifle with a single round and shooting 5 single shots for your groups, and only comparing heavy trigger bolt guns with AR height optics to fat /vertical gripped ARs with super light triggers and using factory ammo in both.

im just going to run it for what it is i guess, 1-1.5 is plenty for what i want and it has been very reliable. I may just switch it up and use a LVPO or red dot in the future.

A few things to note:

your bolt action is probably striker-fired and the barrel probably isn't chrome-lined.  I doubt your 6.5 barrel is 16-inches long;

take the bipod off and fire your self-loader from sandbags both fore and aft;

concentrate on the trigger break and follow-through.

Get a Krieger from CLE.

I built an AR10 308 with a Kreiger barrel, 5-25 Viper PST FFP scope, LaRue trigger, etc.  With 175 SMK over 41grains of 4895 it shoots .65 (average of 5 shots).  I really think I could beat that if I could find some AR-Comp.

Could be the chrome lined barrel has not broken in yet. I have seen more accuracy problems with chrome lined barrels than stainless or carbon. You might try lapping the barrel.

Small frame, but an example of a non-match barrel shooting within 0.4 MOA.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/BRT-Optimum-Accuracy-Evaluation/118-778084/?

I have never been able to shoot consistently .2" to .3" ten shot groups in my life with a bolt action. Even world class benchrest competitors running custom rigs rarely shoot that well consistently.

I have put 10 shots inside a 1" circle at 100 yards a couple of times with a .308 bolt gun, .223 is a lot easier to do IMO, even from gas guns. Recoil is a thing.

That 10 shot group at 0.39 MOA shown in that post was a Krieger heavy stainless match barrel. It is not the non match barrel being evaluated which was over 1 MOA. 3 shot groups are not groups.

Additionally, all my 1 shot groups are 0.0 MOA... about as useful as a 3 shot group.

Attached File


Shooting 10+ shot groups and judging by 2 shots is weird. "Within" wasn't the best word to use.

Other possible considerations would be what set up are u using?  Bipod and rear bag?  bags front and rear?  Does the portion of the stock have an easy steady plane to recoil in?   Other possible consideration is hand/grip placement. Am right handed and concentrate on rotating hand in horizontal plane slightly to right to "square" of the recol.  aka keep recoil moving straight back.

The reason why you are probably having difficulty with a semi auto is due to the extremely long lock time on an AR.

When your trigger releases, any axial pressure on the trigger shoe will cause a jarring motion into the frame of the gun which occurs before the hammer has had time to swing to the forward position and ignite the primer.

Finding a way to ENSURE a trigger press that is straight to the rear is key, while on a bolt gun the lock time is significantly lower which lets you get away with different trigger presses.

This doesn’t come down to you being a bad shooter (1.5 moa isn’t bad) it just comes down to you having to learn how to pull the trigger in a way that works for this specific gun

Read my previous comment, this will explain the difference

I'm not even sure why this is a topic of disagreement.  Bolt guns are both easier to shoot, and in my experience inherently more accurate.  I own 4 what I consider to be precision bolt guns - a Sig SSG3000, a Tikka CTR that I put in an XLR stock, a Sako TRG and a Tikka TAC A1.  Shooting commercially loaded match ammo it is very rare for me to shoot a 5 shot group that's larger than 1" at 100 yards.  Most tend to group between .4-.8".

Of the 8+ AR's I own, including 2 LaRue's, and RRA with a National Match barrel, my most accurate gun is a CLE with a 18" Krieger barrel and a Magpul PRS stock.  Every one of my bolt guns is consistently more accurate than my CLE, which tends to average about 1.2-.3  MOA. I don't think I've ever shot a group under .7 with this rifle and 2 MOA groups are more frequent than I'd like to admit.  I attribute this difference to both the fact that AR's are generally more difficult to shoot requiring better technique and the fact that bolt action rifle tend to be inherently more accurate.

Finally, if you look at the 1 MOA challenge thread on this website you will see that my experience is not alone.  This challenge has been going on for years, and there are frankly not a lot of people who've been able to post five 5 shot groups that average 1 MOA or less with their AR's.  I know it would be a challenge for me.  But with any one of my precision bolt guns I have no doubt I could literally best this challenge pretty much every time I go to the range.  I mean today I shot my Tikka TAC A1.  Only shot three five shot groups because I somehow left my mags. at home and had to hand feed each round.  These three five shot groups were .9", .7" and .5".

I shoot MOA challenge targets frequently and find I can get a pretty consistent .6 to .8 with my AR’s.  This is with a AR10 308 with a. 20” Kreiger barrel and a AR 15 with a 18” LaRue barrel.  All using hand loads.  Here’s a sample of what the AR10 can do.  

Attached File

That's good shooting Blackdog.  I guess you're "doing your part".

Also helps that you hand load and have two rifles known for their accuracy.

Haven't looked at the 1 MOA all day thread recently, and there are certainly people who have completed the challenge with some pretty impressive groups.  But when you compare the number of people who have posted targets since this thread was started (which I believe was many years ago) vs. those who have claimed their AR is "1 MOA all day" there will be quite a disparity.

And since we're talking about people who make difficult to believe claims about the accuracy of their guns and their ability to shoot them, you might enjoy this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5UOjxyZiIE

Isn't the LMT MWS a combat style .308? I have two custom barreled (Noveske) AR-10's and they shoot at, or just over 1/1.25 moa @ 200 yards. I am happy with that. My M1-A Super Match rifles shoot around 1.5/2.0 moa. That pleases me as well.

I'm currently shooting:

IMI or Lake City 7.62x51mm brass
Winchester standard large rifle primers
168 grain SMK's seated @ 2.800"

40.0 grains of IMR-4895 or

40.7 grains of IMR-4064 or

41.5 grains of VihtaVuori N150

All of these loads are within .5 grains of maximum. The N150 load may be able to go higher.

Ejection is close to 3:00 o'clock on all loads. I'm running Slash's Heavy Buffers. I use an Uncle Buds Bull Bag up front and a Protektor rabbit eared bag in the rear for load development. I have never been able to shoot off a bipod as well as I can with these bags. YMMV.

H4895
Varget
RE-15
VihtaVuori N140 all work well too.

Recoil is the price we pay for more power, and .308 has a lot more power than .223. A lot more.