20” lightweight barrel?

[Grendelshooter]

GS,
I've been quite happy with my 20" Faxon Gunner

https://www.armorally.com/shop/faxon-6-5...er-barrel/

I put the upper together myself and used Locktite 609 if i recall.

with a 9x scope on and tweaking loads I was able to get the Sierra 85gr. HP to under 1 MOA

now I've got a 4X scope on it. Most loads shoot between 1 and 2 MOA. Some factory loads only do 2.5 MOA

Some of my handloads didn't work out well at all, about 3 to 4 MOA. but that's why one tweaks the handload, to see if there are better results lurking in the barrel.

These "rack grade" barrels are the luck of the draw so it seems.

make sure the barrel is secure in the upper and is free floated.

i was trying to get the weight down without sacrificing ballistics. So this 20" Faxon Gunner does the job for me.

I'm sure a brux or other top self match barrel would group everything well.

it doesn't seem to me that your faxon group buy is the same thing as the faxon gunner, is it?

do you hand load or do you only shoot factory loads?

I'm not sure that Wolf is capable of match grade accuracy, so I would not judge a barrel based upon results shooting Wolf myself.

If you hand load, you can probably play around with the variables (bullet, powder, primer, case, COL, etc.) until you get a load that will group through the tube you now have, though it might take awhile, and coming up with components these days, or for that matter even loaded ammo, is not so easy.

Good luck.
-tdbru

I don’t want a match barrel, because I largely won’t be shooting match ammo out of it, hence my stated desire for a 2-3 MOA barrel. Rack grade is just fine by me. This is a service rifle not a match gun.

I do reload, but I have tens of thousands of rounds of steel case because it suits my needs very well.

I’m pretty wary of faxon at this point. I’ve never had an AR shoot 6 inch groups from a rest. Even my dads old blackthorn uppers never shot this badly. The Gibbs side charging upper/ALG handguard it was mated with had a larue 20” .223 barrel prior to this build and was an absolute (boat anchor) tack driver. Honest .5 moa gun with 77gr Nosler CC hand loads over AR Comp. Only change was the group buy barrel which shot nothing well. I figured it might just be the ammo but it didn’t shoot handloads, Mexican match, Hornady or Berger factory loads much better. Uniformly bad barrel.

Used to be I would just buy ARP barrels without thinking twice. They always shot well no matter the round or load. I have an 18” SPR profiled barrel in my thermal rifle and a 16” lightweight in my SPR (both Grendel of course) that shoot wolf routinely into 2 inch groups, and hand loads sub-MOA. Unfortunately he’s not making Grendel barrels anymore.

If faxon is the only game in town I’ll give it a shot, but damn I wouldn’t think a run-of-the-mill Grendel barrel with a profile lighter than a fence post would be so rare.
Even the barrel you linked is out of stock lol.