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Posted: 2/27/2013 3:42:48 PM EDT
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For the first time since I have owned my Stag 2t with 16inch barrel, I have been testing its accuracy. Today at the range with a good rest and 10 power known scope, I was getting 3 inch groups at 100 yards with 3 different precision loads. My question is: Is this normal for a 16 inch barrel and if it is not, how do I go about improving the accuracy? I use this rifle to shoot 3 gun occasionally and my club likes to have targets up to 250 yards distance and I have been getting my a$$ kicked.
Would it be a waste of my time and money to go the new barrel route or maybe the new upper route is uppers ever become available again? If its the new barrel route which one would be best? Thanks, zdog |
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When talking auto loaders, you have to get past the bolt action type thinking.
In the auto loaders, we do a min of 10 shot groups, with some groups even up to 20 rounds for match type guns that will have 20 round strings. Here, we want to know how the barrel reacts to that amount of rounds in both fouling/ copper build up, and heat build up to the barrel. Now to take you question back to how you can make the rifle more accurate, you first need to put down some 10 or 20 shot strings. When looking at them, is the group uniform as a whole, or do you have flyers. Also alone the way of the string, did the barrel get so hot at a certain point that the harmonics on the barrel was disturbed, and the groups starting upping up at that point. Same goes for fouling during the shot string, and at what point in the string did the group begin to grow as well. Simply, in a well built production rifle with M-193 ammo, you should be just under 2MOA as common area for a 10 round strings. With tweaks, free floating the barrel,and hand loading, should be able to get the string down to around 1.5MOA. So on that note, go shoot some 10 to 20 round strings, and post the photo's of the groups. If you can number the shots on the targets, even better since it gives us the needed information on what is really going on with the groups, and what on the rifle needs to be improved to get to to as least what is considered a base line for a production rifle. |
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All depends,
If just factory type M-193 or M-855, 100 yards should be fine. If 69gr loads for long range shooting, might have to group at 300 yards to give the bullets enough yardage to sleep before they hit the target. Also, when posting the targets, if you end up with a know pulled/ jerked shot, mark that shot so we don't just count it as a flyer by the rifle instead. Something like this will work fine, since these are both 10 shot groups at 300 meters in 308, and as you can see in the left target, the barrel was getting a tad hot, and starting to chew/shift impact more left out of the grouping hole as the barrel stated to heat up/ get a tad more fouling through it on the second 10 shot string without the bore being cleaned between strings. 
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It was a nice day in AZ so I went to the range and shot some test groups. I don't have a camera to post photos but the bottom line is this.
Using 55 VMax and shooting a 10 shot group at 100 yds the group was 1.25 inches. Using 69 smk the group was 2.5 inches Using unknown hollow point 2.5 inches Using unknown fmj 2.5 All rounds were hand loaded. Looks to me like this is just a run of the mill AR with a 16 inch barrel. If I want a tack driver I guess I will get my Savage out or buy a new upper with a match barrel. Good luck, zdog |
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