The old saying used to be,
"You pay a generous PREMIUM for a good barrel,
And the rifle maker/gunsmith throws in the rest of the rifle to sweeten the deal."
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I just shot my 'Junk Parts' AR yesterday afternoon,
Discarded Military 5.56 barrel, 20" long.
The guy sold it to me as 'Salvage', all the small parts were still on it, gas block flash hider, chamber nut...
Paid $50 for it.
Chamber throat was 'Out Of Tolerance' (poor chambering or eroded), Rifling on the other hand was quite crisp.
1/7 twist, which is a little tighter than I like,
And it was an H-bar barrel with no undercut between chamber and gas block pad...
I took the chamber nut off the barrel, shaved about 0.030" off the barrel at the threads, adding threads,
Cut 0.030" off the chamber end of the barrel,
And rechambered the rifle using a QUALITY chamber reamer, closing up freebore a little in the process.
Screwed the chamber nut back on it, checked headspacing,
Checked to make sure the gas tube was going to seat in the bolt carrier without bottoming out,
Stuck it in a flat top upper that was laying around here, a take off from a customer that didn't take his parts with him,
And generally went rooting through the 'Spare Parts' boxes to find enough 'Widgets' to put the thing together.
It DOES have a full, free floating barrel sleeve attached to the barrel nut,
And I am bench shooting with bags.
A $100 Simmons optic on top, 6.5 magnification,
And commenced to run some of my new hand loads through it.
This is the third trip to the range for this rifle,
The first trip, 1.1 MOA in 10 each, 10 shot groups (100 Rounds,
(not counting occasional 'Fliers' where I loose concentration, have to fart, see a pretty birdie or something shiny, hear a motorcycle going down the county road behind me, ect. where it's
OBVIOUSLY my fault and not the rifle),
The second trip, 7/8 MOA, 10 each 5 shot groups.
Yesterday, the average 10 shot group could be covered with a dime or a penny...
Shortened freebore, rounds loaded to SAAMI 2.260,
All brass fired at least twice before,
Most of it military surplus,
55 Grain Hornady V-Max, medium crimp and no cannelure,
Winchester Small Rifle Primers, some old, some new.
First set was 25.0 Benchmark,
The second was 26.0 Benchmark,
The third was 26.5 Benchmark.
Muzzle Velocities are averaging 3,036 FPS on the last 100 round set,
With a velocity spread average VERY acceptable, slowest to fastest was 136 FPS,
VERY CONSISTENT with the Benchmark and WSR primers, medium crimp.
I did swab the bore every 10 rounds or so...
This is NOT some high dollar 'Hanger Queen' that only gets out of the case for 'Competition',
This is a collection of mis-matched parts that have only been worked in enough to function together...
I don't have $300 in this particular rifle, it's mostly take off parts from other folks' rifles they left behind,
And a $120 stripped lower receiver from the local shop.
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I'm SO SICK of hearing about 'Tactical Black' rifles from everywhere, like 'Tactical Black' makes things more accurate or better to use somehow...
I think I'll paint this one bright blue...
I thought about 'Pink', but I live in Indiana, and they just passed a law making refusing goods/services perfectly legal to anyone that's not your 'Religion'...
Of course aimed a gays, but also being used for guys from different churches to crap on each other...
Bright blue or bright purple shouldn't get me cut off from the local convince store when I want coffee or smokes...
And it will be a poke in the eye for all those 'Tactical Black' guys that infest the ranges trying to figure out why their 'Tactical Black' rifles aren't hitting anything!