11-24-2018, 01:05 AM
Klem Wrote:Someone's got to say it...Not everyone glues (beds) their barrels to the extension. Gluing an AR is a different situation to bedding a bolt gun. It would be equivalent to gluing the join between the barrel, recoil lug and receiver on a bolt gun. Bedding refers to an intimate surface area contact between the receiver and stock. There is no equivalent to this in an AR. It is false logic to transfer the sensible reasons we bed a boit gun to the practise of gluing a barrel to the receiver in an AR.
I tried gluing the barrel to receiver a while back using Loktite 641 and it did not improve scores. The fit was already tight however with the glue being forced out as the two parts were tapped together. My thoughts are it depends on how loose the join is and if you have a tight fit then replacing grease with glue is no guarantee of tighter groups. I can see the benefit however if the fit is loose.
My advice on accurising an AR is to buy the best barrel you can afford. Even skimp on other parts if you're on a budget. Then scope, then trigger. Then consider the barrel as a consumable item that you replace, perhaps every year depending on the round-count. Gluing barrels just makes that job more difficult and tedious as you go to some effort to release the old barrel and clean-up the mouth for the next barrel.
That's my experience with gluing, and I'm sticking with it (pardon the pun).
Some shooters will glue their barrels religiously and this gives them peace of mind that they have done something more than MILSPEC that hopefully improves accuracy. I can see in this context the cost of the effort might be worth it. At the end of the day you've got to be confident with what you've got.
This... It's stupid and I hate it.. I haven't bedded any of the AR's I've built for myself or buddies, close to 12 now. All used a well made upper and a good barrel, ALL of them shoot under or damn near MOA after finding a load it likes...