Accuracy?

medicsnoke

New member
If your shoot a AR off the actual barrel instead of the front arm grip, do you think their is a reduction in accuracy? Ive got a Bushmaster 16" M4 that Im having some serious accuracy issues with

Thanks Corey
 
Yes. If you rest the barrel itself on something instead of the forend it will have an effect on accuracy. Usually (in my experience) it will seriously degrade the accuracy. This is true of almost all firearms.
 
I test fired an upper last winter that way. Was waiting for the FF tube, but wanted to function test. Printed a 1/4" group at 25M, bbl directly on a bag. Not the ideal setup.

Give some more detail and you'll get better input. What are you shooting, handloads or factory? What wt bullet? What's the twist rate of your bbl? Have you checked your bbl crown? When was the last time bbl was cleaned? What type of bbl (profile/length/mfg)? If you're having serious issues w/ accuracy I doubt it's soley due to your handguard.
 
You may simply need to run several hundred rounds thru the barrel if new till it settles down. I have found that to be the case in my experience anyway.
 
Corey, More information is definitely needed, but on the other side of the coin, I had a 14.5" M4 with a 1/7 twist (not Bushmaster) that I never could find a decent load that it liked, within reason...and I tried a lot of combinations.

I chalked it up to a rotten barrel and sold it..
 
Different rifles, different fixes.

Barbara & I got identical M-4's about a year and a half ago.
Barbara's AR shot 1" groups right from the box. Mine was about 2" groups.

I freefloated the barrel and put a match single stage trigger in mine. & it went to about 1/2" MOA.

It got better about 500 rounds down the tube too.

I guess I like the freefloat tubes and what they have done for AR's.

Something about that plastic stock bolted around the middle of a barrel just gives me the willies. (Like the Mini 14 as well.)

To answer your question, I agree with NcWhitetail.

I never shoot any of my rifles off of anything with the barrel touching anything....Sandbags, shooting sticks, trees, etc. In my opinion, that messes the harmonics of the barrel up.

Barry
 
The more the barrel is isolated from outside influences the better. Having the barrel touching anything will likely have a negative effect on grouping. Anything I expect more than combat accuracy out of, gets floated.
 
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