Barrels 101 Questions

[Guest scarabatwork]

Oh! Well, that will make a difference. I saw the article here and assumed that you could find the .338 Lapua elsewhere as parts. If this is not the case, then I'm going to have to go back to the .458 as I really can't afford the cost of having a receiver custom made.

[Rightwinger]

I think you can get one but it will be a semi custom upper built on the AR10 platform. The closest I have seen out there is the .338 Federal that DPMS is making now.

Let me do some checking and I'll post here again when I talk to Marty Ter Weeme. If anyone knows who's building these, he does.

[Guest scarabatwork]

Thanks. The more I read, the less I want the .458

[Rightwinger]

As I stated earlier in the thread, its not a long range shooter, its a big bore alternative that still matches up with the standard AR platform.

You can also check out the 6.8 SPC or 6.5 Grendel that will match up to your standard AR lower and have a little bigger punch and ranges.

If your set on the bigger cartridges then the AR10 is what you'll have to go with. From what I have gathered so far a .338 Lapua will be a custom so your looking at over 1K minimum just for the upper!

(I don't know what your reading about the .458 but if your comparing it with "reviews" of the .450 Bushmaster and the .50 Beowulf, and liking them better, keep reading. Of the three, the SOCOM has more capabilities and better performance)

Here's mine

[Guest scarabatwork]

Hey, Rightwinger, thanks for the info. Here's what I'm looking for. I want a long range rifle capable of shooting reliably at the 1k yard range. I'm willing to put in the time to learn to shoot up to whatever the platform I choose is capable of, but I don't want to start with a rifle that isn't worth investing my time into. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong calibers. The more that I read, the better my understanding is that the .458 is a big lead round, more for delivering a gargantuan amount of force, but not made as a long range shooter. The .336 would be a great round, capable of delivering the range that I want, but I think the price is going to be way out of my range.

So, I guess this leaves me with the .308 which is a great round for distance shooting and affordable enough for my budget for this project unless you can tell me a better caliber to be shooting at those ranges. What do you think of the DPMS Panther LR-208B as a base?

Edited March 14, 2008 by scarabatwork

[Rightwinger]

1000 yards easily !

[Guest scarabatwork]

Nice!

[The Rabbi]

Hey, Rightwinger, thanks for the info. Here's what I'm looking for. I want a long range rifle capable of shooting reliably at the 1k yard range. I'm willing to put in the time to learn to shoot up to whatever the platform I choose is capable of, but I don't want to start with a rifle that isn't worth investing my time into. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong calibers. The more that I read, the better my understanding is that the .458 is a big lead round, more for delivering a gargantuan amount of force, but not made as a long range shooter. The .336 would be a great round, capable of delivering the range that I want, but I think the price is going to be way out of my range.

So, I guess this leaves me with the .308 which is a great round for distance shooting and affordable enough for my budget for this project unless you can tell me a better caliber to be shooting at those ranges. What do you think of the DPMS Panther LR-208B as a base?

Two points:

1) Do you have any place where you can actually shoot 1k yards? In my mind having to travel 2+ hours just to fire a rifle makes it not worth it.

2) If you are looking at that distance, you are looking at the .50bmg. 1k yards is outside the range for the .308. No doubt some junior Carlos Hathcock here has a .308 that he'll swear up and down is sub-MOA at 1k yards. But the reality is that the caliber wont do that. The only 2 calibers that will, to my knowledge, are the .338 Lapua and .50bmg. And neither one of those is affordable in the sense I understand the word.

[DaveTN]

So, I guess this leaves me with the .308 which is a great round for distance shooting and affordable enough for my budget for this project unless you can tell me a better caliber to be shooting at those ranges. What do you think of the DPMS Panther LR-208B as a base?

I think you mean a LR-308B. It has an 18†heavy barrel and I doubt you are going to impress anyone at 1000 yards with it. You would probably need the LR-308 with a 24†heavy barrel. Claims have been made that it can compare with a bolt for accuracy. I don’t know if that is true or not. I bought my LR-308AP4 for Hero gear and handled the LR-308 while I was there. My application was a Home Defense/plinker/target on an AR platform in .308. The LR-308 was to unwieldy for that; it is more of a long barreled target rifle; pretty useless as an assault type weapon.

You will need to spend about $700 to a grand for a scope to do what you want. That means you will have 2K or more in the Panther.

I also just bought a Remington 700 VLS in .308 for long distance shooting. I mounted a Leupold 6.5-20X40 scope on it. I have not tried it out yet but I expect it to outshoot any AR type rifles.

All I know is that I really want to be able to shoot pretty reliably at extreme ranges. I've never owned a good long distance rifle and having one in an AR variant is just something I'd really like to show off at the range.

We all have been on the quest that you are on. An AR that can shoot long range.

But I think you are going to find that it does not exist. You can get an AR that can shoot long range; but IMHO I doubt you will impress anyone. The AR was not designed for that. Bolts own that application.

Everything in life is application driven. In reading your requirements your application is for a bolt action rifle. So I guess you will have to do the same thing I did…… buy both.

[Guest scarabatwork]

Hey, thanks for all the great information, folks. Like I said before, I'm relatively new back to guns, although I shot a lot when I was a kid. I'll try to answer the questions to the best of my knowledge.

I think that I have a range to shoot at 1k yards. The Oak Ridge Sportsmen's Association has a 1k yard range. (Whether all of that is actually usable or not, I don't know.) I agree that the .308 is not a thousand yard rifle. Looking at the ballistics for all of the rounds mentioned above; the .308, the .50 bmg, and the .338 LM my first choice would of course be the .50 bmg. I will own one of those someday I love what I've read about the .338 LM. It seems to be the up and coming long range round of choice.

As for trying to do this with the AR platform... I'm not sure I can answer that other than to say "black rifle disease is a hell of a drug". lol! I did know what it was going to cost me to put a scope on this project, though. That has been part of the budget all along and pretty good reason why I can just step up to the AR-30 right away. (The AR-50 is still way out of my budget, but was the first rifle I looked at when I started looking at long range shooters.)

The Remington 700 is definitely on my list for this year. I had two reasons for wanting the semi-auto first, though. First, see my above comment about black rifle disease (seriously, thanks Wareagle for mentioning "you ought to get an ar15...":p). Second, I wanted to get it before we wind up with another president who feels the need to decide how I may or may not defend my home. I figured now that I have my first AR, I need a varmint version, a good shotgun, and my XD45, and my Rem 700.

So, with all that said, what kind of range should I expect with my .308 AR?

[Rightwinger]

http://www.rndedge.com/images/rifles01/rifle2500a.html

Some more to drool over Scarab.

[DaveTN]

I agree that the .308 is not a thousand yard rifle.

A lot of thousand yard bench rest shooters and Military snipers will be sorry to hear that.

[Rightwinger]

A lot of thousand yard bench rest shooters and Military snipers will be sorry to hear that.

Charles Hathcock didn't let things like 1000 yards get in his way did he!

Scarab, you might be interested to know, I talked to my brother today and he wanted me to post that 50 BMG I posted pics of is available and is for sale in the Guns for Sale section!

[Guest scarabatwork]

A lot of thousand yard bench rest shooters and Military snipers will be sorry to hear that.

Let me reiterate. The .308 AR

And yes... those are very droolable, Rightwinger. I would love to have that AR50, but its still out of my budget

[Guest FroggyOne2]

I think you mean a LR-308B. It has an 18†heavy barrel and I doubt you are going to impress anyone at 1000 yards with it. You would probably need the LR-308 with a 24†heavy barrel. Claims have been made that it can compare with a bolt for accuracy. I don’t know if that is true or not. I bought my LR-308AP4 for Hero gear and handled the LR-308 while I was there. My application was a Home Defense/plinker/target on an AR platform in .308. The LR-308 was to unwieldy for that; it is more of a long barreled target rifle; pretty useless as an assault type weapon.

You will need to spend about $700 to a grand for a scope to do what you want. That means you will have 2K or more in the Panther.

I also just bought a Remington 700 VLS in .308 for long distance shooting. I mounted a Leupold 6.5-20X40 scope on it. I have not tried it out yet but I expect it to outshoot any AR type rifles.

We all have been on the quest that you are on. An AR that can shoot long range.

But I think you are going to find that it does not exist. You can get an AR that can shoot long range; but IMHO I doubt you will impress anyone. The AR was not designed for that. Bolts own that application.

Everything in life is application driven. In reading your requirements your application is for a bolt action rifle. So I guess you will have to do the same thing I did…… buy both.

With a 24" barrel, your going to have to drive the bullet pretty darn hard to get there at 1K. Let me put it this way, a friend of mine, Spike Forsythe of Ga. in I believe 2004 won the Farr Trophy at Camp Perry, he was using the loveable M1A, which was built by Hook Bouton. Now Hook worked for Springfield Armory for 30 years and then also did some work for the USAMU. Now Spike won that match shooting 190's and a heavy dose of powder, to which I will not repeat the amount here.. needless to say, after the match, Hook had to totally rebuild that M1A due to the abuse it had to endure on that day! The Far Trophy is shot on the same day as the Wimbleton at the Nationals at Camp Perry.. if You want to know the history of the Farr Trophy, you can read it here http://www.bobrohrer.com/sea_stories/end_of_an_era.pdf

I would suggest that if you want to shoot at 1000 yards and get there effecently and with the least amount of money, get a Savage F-Class rifle in .308, or better known as the F-T/R class.. in F-T/R you are limited to either .223 or .308.. you use a front bipod and can use a rear bag.

Frog

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Charles Hathcock didn't let things like 1000 yards get in his way did he!

Please be advised that Carlos Hathcock II did two tours incountry, the whole time his tools were 1) 30-06 2) 300 Win Mag 3) 50 BMG with an Unertl scope on top of it.

[Rightwinger]

yep

[towerclimber37]

30-06. all the fun of a long range and not all the cost..... and you can shoot .308 too! kinda cool!

[Guest Mugster]

I've had good luck out to 500 yards or so with an off the shelf remington sendero in 7mm. Using handloads I can get around 2.5" at 300 meters with a 5 shots with sierra 100gr fbhp's, and thats an off the shelf gun. I used to go shoot bowling pins at 500ish, but that range closed down.

For fooling around, a savage in .308 with the accu-trigger or a remington sedero in .270 or better are nice rifles. They'll get out there a little better than an off the shelf ar unless you really spend a few bux.

I don't know that you need a $1000 scope. I have an old redfield 4x12 5 star on mine that works like a champ. I believe I paid $300 for it, but that was quite awhile ago. You do need adjustable parallax out to whatever range you are going to shoot though. One thing you really will need is a 60-80 power spotting scope, and those things are not cheap.

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Well, I don't really know. I would just shoot target with it. I would like to shoot at at least 800 yards (if I could find a range for it). You probably know better what I should shoot at that range.

Since you are in Knoxville you need to come to Oak Ridge on June 15th for the 3x600 yard match that they are going to have there.. http://orsahp.com/Documents/2008%20Approved%20600%20yard%20matches.pdf there will several shooters there with AR's that will give you a wealth of information for you to base your decision on.

Personally if I were going to shoot an AR based rifle for target shooting out to 800 yards.. I would go with the 6mmAR http://www.6mmar.com/ or the New BR15 6BR upper http://www.bratrifles.com/ These would both be fine choices..

[Guest FroggyOne2]

If I were buying and/or assembling a long range match gun on an AR platform, I would either buy or mimic the AR10(T) by Armalite. I've had the opportunity to shoot one before the barrel was even fully broken in and it shot one of the nicest groups I've ever shot. I really like the LAR10 varmit model, but apparently Rock River is having all kinds of problems getting it out on the market.

The problem with AR-10's is that you can not get the trigger light enough for true target work. Plus they are very heavy..