I recently purchased a Bushy Varminter, but being how I will shoot mostly FMJ, possibly a little wolf (please, not artillary fire yet), and the rifle will see some "unpleasurable" conditions.  I swapped the varminter un chromed for the their 24" National Match barrel.  

I've been "nervous" ever since I put in the order that I might have compromised tons of accuracy.  I recieved the rifle, but it had some flaws so I had to ship the upper back, so I'm STILL worrying myself about my choice in barrels.  Anyone have this barrel, I'm sure it's the same one they use on all the v-match ect.  Any thoughts on the accuracy they have found?  I know at gunblast.com, the guy was shooting 1/4 inchers with moly bullets.  I know it probably won't be that good with the chrome, but I was hoping it would be close.  Maybe .5 - /75 MOA.  

Gundraw

Happy Holidays

Just having bought a varminter, I've been nagging Bushmaster tecnical about lots of stuff, the answer I would have is that the non-chrome barrel is machined to the same tolerance as their DCM barrels, twice as tight as their national match stuff (chrome).

I've had a BM A3 24" barrel, I didn't get too crazy with my hand loads, the best I usually got out of it was .75-1MOA ( <300m, w/55gr. )

GunDraw,  I have a 24 inch Bushy NM with FIRSH, bipod and 3x9 Leupold vari-x II.  I have popped prairie dogs at 350+ yards with it and can hit 20 guage shotgun shells with regularity at 100 yds using good reloads.  This setup is fine for me, and the results are well within what I expected from the rifle and my skill level.  Of course if you are a competitive shooter (in skill not just the name) and will be using premium optics and precision ammo you may not be happy with the switch.  The uphot here is that you will lose some ultimate accuracy by switching barrels, but in practicality it probably won't matter much.  

So are these rifles chambered for NATO or .223 rem.?

RMK,  The Bushmaster NM barrels are chambered for .556 NATO.

I'm not a competetive shooter, but I'm working on it.[;)]

That's mostly why I bought this rifle, was to hone my skill with something that could shoot better than I could.  

I guess my thoughts were, I'm new to AR's, want to get tons of range time in, including plenty of plinking with bore scraping FMJ.  So, if this chrome lined barrel had "great" accuracy, I could really get good with that, and if I find down the road, I wanted a AR that I can set aside only for my varmint rounds and nice handloads, I'd buy the nice barrel to do it.  

From the sounds of it, though, this National Match should puts out very good results.  If I can plant holes under .75 MOA, I'd be happy with that.  Although I'm still gonna think, you know, if I would have...

Gundraw


Thanks for the input, anymore is definitely welcome.

BTW. RMK, I BELIEVE ( not positive) that ALL bushmaster barrels are NATO except for their DCM.