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Posted: 10/7/2016 1:22:37 PM EDT
| Not taking price into account, what is a solid 14.5 to 16 inch barrel to get to really increase the value and performance of your AR? |
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Need more info. What do plan to do with the gun? This a home defense set up a longer range gun??? Do you want more of a service rifle type barrel with excellent barrel life and durability that will tolerate mag dumps, or are you looking for the most accuracy at the cost of some of that durability? What is your budget? Answer ALL of my questions the best you can and I will do my best to help you.
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Quoted:
Not taking price into account, what is a solid 14.5 to 16 inch barrel to get to really increase the value and performance of your AR? Increase the value of your weapon by a barrel swap? Not likely, at least not unless you are using a bottom of the line garbage gun, in which case it isn't worth upgrading. Without knowing what you have now, how can anyone give an honest answer as to what would make it better? |
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Currently have a PSA barrel. No issues with it. Rifle is more of a service/home defense rifle. I have an AR10 for my longer range stuff. Like I said currently have a 14.5 PSA CHF barrel. Budget is not an issue. If I can get a barrel with a little better accuracy along with good durability then great Quoted:
Need more info. What do plan to do with the gun? This a home defense set up a longer range gun??? Do you want more of a service rifle type barrel with excellent barrel life and durability that will tolerate mag dumps, or are you looking for the most accuracy at the cost of some of that durability? What is your budget? Answer ALL of my questions the best you can and I will do my best to help you. |
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PSA CHF 14.5 barrel Quoted:
Increase the value of your weapon by a barrel swap? Not likely, at least not unless you are using a bottom of the line garbage gun, in which case it isn't worth upgrading. Without knowing what you have now, how can anyone give an honest answer as to what would make it better? Quoted:
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Not taking price into account, what is a solid 14.5 to 16 inch barrel to get to really increase the value and performance of your AR? Increase the value of your weapon by a barrel swap? Not likely, at least not unless you are using a bottom of the line garbage gun, in which case it isn't worth upgrading. Without knowing what you have now, how can anyone give an honest answer as to what would make it better? |
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Quoted:
PSA CHF 14.5 barrel Quoted:
PSA CHF 14.5 barrel Quoted:
Quoted:
Not taking price into account, what is a solid 14.5 to 16 inch barrel to get to really increase the value and performance of your AR? Increase the value of your weapon by a barrel swap? Not likely, at least not unless you are using a bottom of the line garbage gun, in which case it isn't worth upgrading. Without knowing what you have now, how can anyone give an honest answer as to what would make it better? that is very solid, serviceable barrel. leave it |
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like anything you have to build the rifle as a system. you could have the most accurate 24" barrel and run a 4 moa aimpoint on it and expect it to be accurate at 600 yds, likewise if you had a 14.5" pencil barrel with standard handgaurds and nightforce beast on top you can't expect it to be a 1/2 moa gun at 600 either.
that said if your running a chf psa barrel now I think would be better spent putting a free float on it if it's not already and a quality 2moa red dot since it's for HD on a side note I love my 14.5 larue stealth free floated with a leupold mk4 1.5-5 on top. but it's my do all rifle aka mini recce. soon to be suppressed |
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I buy firearms for my personal use and care little about what it's worth on the resale market. I have already planned my estate with the intention of passing every firearm I own to the next generation.
I have built most of my AR's at home and they are better than almost anything I could have purchased. I could have bought $2500 rifles from Noveske and paid more money for virtually identical rifles. If you want to see how well your current barrel can perform clean the bore thoroughly and then shoot some premium ammo for groups. Federal Gold Medal Match, Black Hills etc. and you may be surprised how well it groups. FMJ bullets, especially store bought M193 is notoriously bad. Steel case ammo is even worse. If you decide you actually want (or need) a better barrel to get the accuracy you want then I would look at White Oak Armament for a new barrel. Have them blast it to a matte finish when you place the order, it's a modest upcharge. |
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You would do better to study the platform. Learn what barrels are good for what. Your PSA CHF barrel is plenty good. Unless, maybe, you are 20,000 rounds down the road and it's no longer grouping appropriately for home defense. If you want super precision, build another gun. |
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Quoted:
Currently have a PSA barrel. No issues with it. Rifle is more of a service/home defense rifle. I have an AR10 for my longer range stuff. Like I said currently have a 14.5 PSA CHF barrel. Budget is not an issue. If I can get a barrel with a little better accuracy along with good durability then great Quoted:
Currently have a PSA barrel. No issues with it. Rifle is more of a service/home defense rifle. I have an AR10 for my longer range stuff. Like I said currently have a 14.5 PSA CHF barrel. Budget is not an issue. If I can get a barrel with a little better accuracy along with good durability then great Quoted:
. I see that PSA offers more than one CHF barrel I'm going to assume that you have the "machine gun" CHF barrel. You're not going to be able step up too much on accuracy and keep the same durability as the PSA CHF "machine gun" barrel. I wouldn't discard the barrel that you have that's a good barrel. Two things you can do. Build a percision upper with a percision barrel in it since for your purposes most of the cost of the upper will be in the barrel anyway. If you want to make a worth while improvement in accuracy over the PSA you have its going to require that you go over to a stainless barrel which will not offer the same barrel life as the PSA take a look at lilja, Krieger, and JP barrels as they all make drop ins for AR15's and will have some of the most accurate stainless barrels. Next work in improving you're accuracy by improving your ammo some loads in various price ranges that others/myself have had good luck with,, blackhills 77gr smk, federal gold metal match 69gr smk, ADI 69gr smk, some less expensive stuff, geco 55gr 223, ficocci 55 gr 223, wolf gold 55gr. The barrel you have should be capable of MOA or just under with one of those loads. Realize that when you start talking about the difference in accuracy between a good CHF barrel which you have and a good stainless barrel with both barrels shooting loads they like the improvement you're going to make will be something like going from 0.9"moa to 0.45"moa just to throw some ballpark #'s out there. |
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Currently run a Fortis freefloat rail and an Aimpoint Pro Quoted:
like anything you have to build the rifle as a system. you could have the most accurate 24" barrel and run a 4 moa aimpoint on it and expect it to be accurate at 600 yds, likewise if you had a 14.5" pencil barrel with standard handgaurds and nightforce beast on top you can't expect it to be a 1/2 moa gun at 600 either. that said if your running a chf psa barrel now I think would be better spent putting a free float on it if it's not already and a quality 2moa red dot since it's for HD on a side note I love my 14.5 larue stealth free floated with a leupold mk4 1.5-5 on top. but it's my do all rifle aka mini recce. soon to be suppressed |
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I'm guessing this is a cheaper home assembled AR. Not worth than the parts most likely, if not less because it's used in a semi-flooded market. You'll lose money on most any part in the current market, though it's not November yet...
I wouldn't attempt to go actual-precision with that gun. You're probably already pulling as much practical accuracy out of the ammo as you can with most half-decent barrels. You might want to take a step back and ask yourself if it's something you really want to do, or is it just the Good Idea Fairy trying to spend your money for little to no return. Again, biggest change will be ammunition. Even factory match should do pretty well. Going with the top shelf barrels will only make sense if you're going to hand load. Watch out for the good idea fairy! And always square away what you have first. ETA: I don't know how good our eyes are, but mine are still young and good and I doubt I'd see the accuracy of a good barrel with a red dot sight. Sticking to an Aimpoint PRO won't make sense if you buy a really good barrel. I think you need to look more into an SPR, but you said you have a .308 already. So Idk what you would need/want a 5.56 SPR for. |
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If you're looking for battle proven, this is it. Have 2 and an m4 barrel, love them to death. Quoted:
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Can pick up a 14.5" Colt SOCOM barrel from EE. Doesn't get much better then that. If you're looking for battle proven, this is it. Have 2 and an m4 barrel, love them to death. Sadly, civ's can't get mil gun stuff. Sure they're from Colt, but pretty sure everything has to be made on different machines at different locations, and any REAL specs or tech data cannot leave the factory doing the gov contract. They get close, and Colt makes good stuff overall; but we can't get mil stuff. Except maybe those old Colt parts kits from Sportsmans Guide? Idk. Same with FN, even their mil collector's series. So nothing we have is specifically battle proven. Except stuff provided on smaller contracts or to different militaries. Like my LMT's 
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Quoted:
Increase the value of your weapon by a barrel swap? Not likely, at least not unless you are using a bottom of the line garbage gun, in which case it isn't worth upgrading. Without knowing what you have now, how can anyone give an honest answer as to what would make it better? Quoted:
Quoted:
Not taking price into account, what is a solid 14.5 to 16 inch barrel to get to really increase the value and performance of your AR? Increase the value of your weapon by a barrel swap? Not likely, at least not unless you are using a bottom of the line garbage gun, in which case it isn't worth upgrading. Without knowing what you have now, how can anyone give an honest answer as to what would make it better? Pretty much what Stick said. If you're looking at keeping it for pleasure shooting we could give an answer. For an investment you got to go name brand. Most fudds only see names they don't see what you have in it. I know a guy that has $2000 in an AR but it has spikes on lower and lots-o-people would look at it and say "spikes? I can get a spikes for 700 bucks. Why should I pay 2k for that?" So what barrel would make it more valuable to you is more like it. |
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