How accurate can an AR consistently be???

V

varminter .223

Well-known member
My woa barreled 22 nosler and bhw barreled 6.5x6.8 will shoot sub .750" with an occasional one hole sub .5 5 shot group and then the next day will be 1" with an occasional 1.25" flyer. I know wind has a bit to do with horizonal but how about the verticle. It drives me crazy. What can be expected day in and day out for AR accuracy. I can't grasp a 1 hole 5 shot group and then 5 without 1 touching and out to an inch.
 
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Another thing that is hard to admit is that there are liars everywhere. Nobody wants to admit they bought the wrong thing, they can't shoot and/or they don't even know a small portion of the variables in this fantastically hard game of physics and science.
If you can shoot 5-10 shot groups over and over inside of 1 MOA you and your equipment are dialed in to the top 5% of the community.

Ammo temp from self loading shot to shot, bullet seating change, and impracticalities of not seating bullets close to the lands make this system very finicky.

The rewards: follow up shots and high cap magazines.

Ever seen Sniper 101 on youtube?
 
What erks me is not knowing the cause. If a load will shoot under .5 almost effortlessly on a calm day than it has to be a load that the rifles likes in that temperature etc. When I go out the next day and it wont hold an inch for 5 shots and the crosshairs are dead center and the crosshairs are level then their is a cause and it burns my biscuts to not know what it is.
 
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Some days the dragon wins. Same lot, same temp and same rifle, be it bolt or auto, we see this all the time. The big thing is establishing an acceptable level of accuracy at the bench that when you degrade that for use in the field you are still happy. 0.5" at 100 yards at a bench and all the time in the world rarely equates to 2" at 400 yards off a bipod at a PD that's playing hide and seek. Too much real estate and atmospherics between muzzle and target tend to do that.

I figure for me it's the guy pulling the trigger inmost instances but as long as I'm below XXX in group size I just have to smile and call it good. At my age I'm getting plenty of gray hair and it doesn't need to be accelerated by my trigger work.

Greg

PS: Arlaunch is spot on for 90% of the guys out there. There's one guy on the 'net that claims to knock out groups in the 0.3-0.4" ranch at 100 yards shooting rapid fire with a light non-223 rifle rapid fire. That's the guy I want on my team of BS artists.
 
There's a ton of truth being told here. I can't claim 100% consistency from day to day, nor can anyone else. If they could the same guy would win every competition all the time.

I don't shoot with a lot of other people, but of those I have 3 close friends that can flat out shoot. The rest have next to no clue of how to go about shooting good groups from a bench, nor do they care to put in the time to learn. My inlaws are actually certified 4H bb gun instructors, and watching them check zero on deer rifles is comical.

When it comes to trying to teach someone bench fundamentals, give me females any day. They will take instructions usually.

Now having said that, it's entirely possible there is a flaw in your load that causes what you're seeing. I learned on here from Greg and others that vertical is usually powder charge, and I've put that to good use more than once. Horizontal is often seating depth. Another thing I've learned with AR's is to use a little more neck tension than you would with a bolt. That has helped eliminate fliers for me before. If you have to you can sand .001" off the expander ball to accomplish this, or bushing dies make it easy.
 
Cfe 223 seems to really gunk this thing up and it seems to respond well to a good cleaning. I can see black gunk in the throat and neck area. Without too many shots the bolt seems to stick and dont want to rotate and open. I dont claim to be the best shot in the land but I feel like I know if a shot is good when the trigger breaks just like when I went all OCD in archery. You might say Im a perfectionist lol.
Last weekend I cleaned and shot 3 5 shot groups...only 2 shots were beyond .5" and they were still well under an inch. 10 rounds were at 2.260" and the last 2.270" oal were 5 under .5 Something is going on with the gunk imo. Im gonna try some Varget. I appologize for my OCD ramblings lol.
 
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Clean it and tried 3 5 shot groups with varget....all 3 groups had 4 in one ragged hole and 1 out at .750 or just under. Cfe 223 shoot exactly the same but is 1" the next day. I will try varget tomorrow. Gun just likes to be clean and fouler with both powders is dead on.
 
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Originally Posted By: GLShooterSome days the dragon wins. Same lot, same temp and same rifle, be it bolt or auto, we see this all the time. The big thing is establishing an acceptable level of accuracy at the bench that when you degrade that for use in the field you are still happy. 0.5" at 100 yards at a bench and all the time in the world rarely equates to 2" at 400 yards off a bipod at a PD that's playing hide and seek. Too much real estate and atmospherics between muzzle and target tend to do that.

I figure for me it's the guy pulling the trigger inmost instances but as long as I'm below XXX in group size I just have to smile and call it good. At my age I'm getting plenty of gray hair and it doesn't need to be accelerated by my trigger work.

Greg

PS: Arlaunch is spot on for 90% of the guys out there. There's one guy on the 'net that claims to knock out groups in the 0.3-0.4" ranch at 100 yards shooting rapid fire with a light non-223 rifle rapid fire. That's the guy I want on my team of BS artists.

Isn't that the truth!!! Had that happen this weekend. I was able to pull off a 329 yard hit on a clay pigeon on Friday and missed a 262 yard shot on a coyote today. I just didn't lay in as much windage as I thought I needed today and it was a miss. Some days...

I am not big fan of CFE223. Had a very negative experience with it on my .17 Remington AR with overpressure on a minimum charge so I just stay away from it.

I wouldn't force the issue. If you can shoot tight groups with one powder, stay with it.

And like Greg said, not everyone is going to be able to make the same shots day after day after day. Maybe too much coffee, not enough coffee, not enough sleep, solar flares, the Russians influenced your ammo...
 
I can say that for me money/medals on the line will occasionally get my game uped a great deal. Of course if the gear's good you are 40% there.

Greg
 
A lot of it is getting your brain in the game. There are some days shooting or testing a load that I just can't shoot worth a darn and "keep trying" doesn't fix it, it just wastes ammo.

I used to compete in International Pistol on the national level in college, and I never had bad days like that. But back then I had a disciplined routine and program I followed prior to each match to mentally prepare. Visualization, focusing, quieting my brain, dry firing, etc. Coach even made us visit the university sports psychologist weekly. It's almost literally "all in your head".

Bad days are more often "in your head" than whack-o equipment that allegedly changes from one day to the next.
 
I am going to disagree with just about everyone, well kinda. My ar 15 does exactly what you describe. Shoots great groups some days lesser groups on others. But I disagree it's your fault. If you have a decent rest it's not hard to shoot .5 moa and even quite a bit below that. Most people can shoot at least that with a good rest. I would suggest you have never had a rifle capable of doing it. I have and it sure isn't an auto loading ar 15. Bench rest titles aren't won with auto loaders. They simply aren't the most reliable accuracy platform. I started a thread about barrel fitment no one seemed to listen to around here a couple weeks back. I think that is part of the puzzle. But stop blaming yourself for poor shooting. Your simply seeing the overall accuracy of the rifle.
 
I agree that the autoloading platform will never produce consistent bench rest accuracy. I agree shooting .5 moa with a good rest and trigger is not hard as long as the rifle is capable. 100% of my shots are sqeezed off and I know how level my crosshsairs are and where they are when the shots break. It seems either they suck right into one hole or they develope a mind of their own and flat out wont find the mark no matter how well the shot is executed. It will be super accurate for 15 or so and then scatter them for a while.
I also notice while loading max varget loads that some rounds compress and wont load down to the oal that the last one did. My brass is heavily mixed now and I think the brass is to blame for certain flyers as well as the effect that the auto loading process has on each round with varying neck tension as it is fed from various spring pressures as the mag empties. When you couple that with the varying degrees of human error on each shot along with wind etc there is an awful lot of variables.
Anytime all this milspec slack, slop, and movement is going on there will not be 100% consistency. The gun groups way to good when it groupings to blame it on a barrel or any one thing and it has never had the 1st speck of copper fouling.
After 224 rounds fired, aprox. half have been .5ish moa, 20 between 1 and 1.5" and the rest between .5ish and .9s. I did have 1 odd 2.8" 3 shot group after the rifle sat all night after having 3 different powders run through it the previous day. It shoots factory 55s, 55 and 60 bt's and 53 v maxes the same within 1 or 2 clicks of the same poi with varget and cfe 223.
With all this data I think my best move now would be to put the bench away and see what I can do off of the Caldwell magnum deadshot.
One thing is for sure, Im learning.
 
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I have a couple ar rifles, when I haven't shot them for 2 months or more they seem strange to shoot. It takes time to get a good shooting position, cheek weld feels funny and groups are loose. If I shoot them just a few times several days in a row that strange fit and feel go away and groups get a lot tighter. As I get older muscle memory needs more exercise.
 
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