Why Bother with Short Barrels?

[A5BLASTER]

I like to hear this. I'm about to drop a PA 4-14 into a LaRue LT204 mount so I can switch back and forth between it and an Athlon 1-6, depending on the situation.

I did 600 yards with my 12.5 grendel topped with my 1-6 gen2 pst.

[jaybee1669]

I did 600 yards with my 12.5 grendel topped with my 1-6 gen2 pst.

I've not had a chance to use the Athlon at more than 100yds yet. But i have the PA 4-14 laying around.. I figure if it's in QD mount, i can swap it between my AR-10 and the Grendel upper.

[LRRPF52]

The Athlon and PA 4-14x will both be destroyed by the AR-10, and will suffer the same fate with the Grendel but at a longer round count, unless we're talking Premium line made in Japan at the LOW factory.

My best advice for people who haven't shot long range and are investing serious time and money into it is don't show up to a course with a cheap optic.

Not only will you not have a good experience in the course, you will distract from the instructors being able to provide quality instruction and feedback to everyone else while they try to diagnose what your problems are when you aren't able to connect.

Over the past 25 years of shooting long range, we were initially used to people using top-end optics that were known to work. Then as the discipline got more popular, we started seeing people try to bring imitation/bottom basement scopes to courses and the repeatability of problems is predictable before we even start shooting, to the extent that I tell people right out of the gate to not even bother with that particular optic, here's a loaner rifle or carbine with a proven optic/mount that will make it through 100 courses without ever giving us trouble.

It's far more affordable to get the best optic you can buy in the long run, and will cost you less money overall.

Once you figure in gas, range fees, course fees, ammo, time before the course going to the range to confirm zero, it makes no sense to hinge the whole opportunity on a cheap optic that is a known failure point. At that point, it doesn't matter what the company's return policy is unless you arrive more than 1 day early to the course and they overnight you a new one.

We had a guy show up early to a 3-Day long range shooting event a number of years ago. He dropped his rifle off his truck's tailgate onto the asphalt in the parking lot at the motel, falling straight down onto the top of his elevation knob, smashing it. It was a Vortex Viper PST IIRC. I've seen the same thing happen to Leupolds, Schmidt & Benders, and Hensoldts on stages in a competition where you had to have your rifles sitting over on a table right next to you while you did TGT detection with binos through a firing port or barricade. One bump and the rifles love to fall scope-first onto the hardest objects they can find.

Anyway, he called Vortex and said it was totally his fault and was just wondering if he could buy a new one and have it next-day air-mailed to him (in a remote part of Northern Idaho). They had a replacement at the motel the next morning free of charge, told him to not worry about it and just have a good course. That's if you have the luxury of breaking the scope before the course starts.

Looking at that PA 4-14x and its price point, I can tell you it will not survive long. If you read one of the main reviews on it out there from The Truth About Guns, he mounted it on a .308 but gun and has updated the review from the initial 2012 post to 2014. A .308 bolt gun is nowhere near as hard on optics as even a .223 AR15. An AR-10 is one of the most devastating platforms to mount optics on that don't have epoxied glass element modules and robust construction because of the secondary and tertiary reciprocating mass effects when the bolt slams against the breech, and the carrier slams against the extension.

Those additional impact forces on the rifle are not present on bolt guns, and will send a resonant waveform through the rifle and mount into the optic, with the optic blossoming away from the mass of the rifle in a pattern that is extremely hard on glass. The scope tube acts like a parallel tuning fork, with the ends whipping around like a bow after it has driven an arrow. While it is in this dynamic resonant harmonic vibration, the BCG slams back into battery, sending another resonant waveform through the mount into the tube and components again.

You look through the cheap optic at that point and either the reticle is canted, the elevation and windage turrets don't work anymore, or the focal plane adjustment goes wonky on you.

The only more affordable scopes I've seen that don't suffer from this are the 1-4x and 1.5-6x Burris optics, but their reticles suck for LR.

[okstatefan]

I have an 18" and am waiting for a 12" pistol upper to get back in stock. I don't want a carbine any longer than 18" in any AR platform, but that's just me.

Why don't I worry about the velocity from the shorter barrels? Because if I need more, I have a 6.5 Creedmoor.

[MasterChief]

The last post is itching a scratch I have not been able to readily find, so if you know of a clear and concise place like LRRPF52 posted on post #17 (btw thank you, exactly what I was looking for) I would love to see it. Now to the idea:


I have been thinking about making a AR-10 style pistol. I am wondering if I should build out a 7.62x51 (.308) or a 6.5 Creedmoor and looking for data for FPS and ft/lbs at different ranges. The barrel would be between 12 & 14 inches.

(If this post should be posted elsewhere, mods please move.)

[Kswhitetails]

There are several guys making short (14” I think) Creed bolt guns and running the crap out of em in PRS club matches. They’re more than enough to hit steel solid at distance beyond 1k.

[guitarhillbilly]

Personally the only reason I would want a short barrel AR is for special purpose such as clearing buildings in a SWAT situation. Also might work well if all you are doing is hunting in thick brush / cover all the time. Otherwise it is 20" Heavy Barrel all the way for me in my 5.56 and 6.5 G.

[Grendelshooter]

Personally the only reason I would want a short barrel AR is for special purpose such as clearing buildings in a SWAT situation. Also might work well if all you are doing is hunting in thick brush / cover all the time. Otherwise it is 20" Heavy Barrel all the way for me in my 5.56 and 6.5 G.

I’m not humping that lol.
Clearing buildings isn’t really a special purpose, it and other combat tasks are the raison d'être of the platform.
18” is the longest I really like. Starting to really like 16” for 5.56/6.5G.
I won’t go shorter only because I refuse to ask the Kings men for permission to do so.
Criterion hybrid profile is tits.

[FRB6.5]

I've literally taken that 12" Grendel out of the soft case, inserted a 25rd magazine with 120gr Federal Match or 123gr Hornady American Gunner, took up a magazine monopod supported position, and began engaging a 2'x3' buffalo silhouette at 800yds with 9/10 hits, the miss being a wind register after center hold on the first shot.

I haven't even explored what it will do with 123gr SMK, 123gr Scenar, 123gr ELD-M, 130gr ELD-M, 130gr VLD, or 130gr RDF from a bipod with more magnification.

That pistol of yours inspired me to build one (3rd iteration actually...) to try and do similar.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15586[/ATTACH]

Until yesterday I'd only been able to shoot it to 300 yds at a public range but that, LabRadar and Strelok Pro got me enough data to get hits from 100-600 yds at a local PRS style "AR" match. Target sizes varied but think the smallest was 4" @ 200 (part of a KYL rack and it was moving from hits on the other plates). A bowling pin shaped plate at 310 yds was also on the small side for the distance. The 90 second time limit and actually finding the targets were the difficulties for me. Provided I held where my dope said I hit and with much more impact visibility than any of the 5.56 users.

[Kswhitetails]

I have plans to do this exact thing this summer at a local club match. If I score above 60% out to 600, the chuckles will die down.

[FRB6.5]

Managed hits with it at 833 yards on a IPSC steel target this Sunday. Any misses were from wind. I was still supersonic there but nearing the end of that envelope. The little guns have amazing capability.