Quote History Originally Posted By krez1:
Thanks everyone for the responses, the LaRue and Armalite look like good options, I will do more research on those.
Good point about the battle rifle / precision rifle disconnect; I'm not entirely familiar with the exact terminology but I assumed they were nearly identical (probably shorter barrels on the battle rifles was my thought).
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Negative. An SME can fill in all the details, but essentially it is much easy and cheaper to build a highly accurate/precise AR10 style rifle than one based on an alternate platform (such as a G3, FAL, or M14).
Additionally, as I understand it, shorter barrels are generally stiffer and have less barrel whip than the same, but longer, barrel. So, all things being equal, a shorter barrel is likely to be MORE accurate than a longer barrel. Not the other way around. The difference is that a longer barrel will give you greater muzzle velocity and extend your effective engagement range.
A battle rifle can shoot 3-4 MOA and be perfectly acceptable so long as it is utterly reliable and has effective terminal ballistics. Generally speaking, a precision rifle starts getting relevant at 1 MOA (or less).
All of the above are generalities and exceptions will exist. But the bottomline for me is that battle rifles focus more on handling, reliability, and "carry-ability", i.e. weight, while precision rifles make compromises in those areas for the sake of ultimate precision. But, then again, there are some rifles out there that straddle the line between the two very effectively....some of the LMT and KAC variants come to mind.