Taccom ULW barrel/Light weight PCC. Is there such a thing as too light?

[jtrump]

Run a bill drill with that ulw @ 25 yards  and check your hits hehe.   I know  I can personally see the sight picture with a .14-.15 split, it might not be clean but I can call it a good hit;  in the .10 split range I'm just romping the trigger but the bullets are snake eyes at  10-15 yards with my heavier barrel.   I am much younger than flat and L9 but like mentioned when you hold that card  it says you know a little something.    I loved the feel of the ULW barrel and I think it could be great for steel challenge, but a 6lb gun with a 14.5 with a comp gives me much better results in uspsa,  flat shooting no dot wiggle no waiting on the dot.

[Flatland Shooter]

20 minutes ago, longbeard said:

 

147/3.2 Titegroup

 

 

That's close to my load (147/3.3 N320) and it gives a 145 PF on my 16" barrel.  Last season I was loading lighter (147/2.9 N320) and found the hotter load gives me almost no dot movement.   Have not tried it with the Blitkrieg buffer.  Still running 5.2 ounce buffer with standard M-4 buffer spring.  Your's may be a bit higher PF.

[longbeard]

1 minute ago, Flatland Shooter said:

 

That's close to my load (147/3.3 N320) and it gives a 145 PF on my 16" barrel.  Last season I was loading lighter (147/2.9 N320) and found the hotter load gives me almost no dot movement.   Have not tried it with the Blitkrieg buffer.  Still running 5.2 ounce buffer with standard M-4 buffer spring.  Your's may be a bit higher PF.

Yeah.  I'm in the range of 155.  I tried lower charges, but anything under 3.0 grains feels sluggish, and the dot doesn't return making for larger spreads.

That load out of the ULW is in the 130-135 range.   It could come down some, but I leave it because I load 125 with the same charge.  Surprisingly the velocity barely changes.  Not surprisingly the felt recoil is different.  I chrono'd this mulitple times as I was surprised.  I felt like the 147 may have had a marginally better return.  I am still experimenting.

 

125/3.2 Titegroup = about 132 out of the 16". 

125/3.2 Titegroup = About 120 out of the ULW which I use for steel

 

[alvinsmith75]

Definitely will be doing some load testing. Currently I like 135 grain BBI bullets in my CZ spo1. The projectiles that work best in my 16 inch PCC is the 125 grain. Definitely curious to see which weight projectile the ulw barrel will like. I use N320 powder.

[alvinsmith75]

3 minutes ago, longbeard said:

Yeah.  I'm in the range of 155.  I tried lower charges, but anything under 3.0 grains feels sluggish, and the dot doesn't return making for larger spreads.

That load out of the ULW is in the 130-135 range.   It could come down some, but I leave it because I load 125 with the same charge.  Surprisingly the velocity barely changes.  Not surprisingly the felt recoil is different.  I chrono'd this mulitple times as I was surprised.  I felt like the 147 may have had a marginally better return.  I am still experimenting.

 

125/3.2 Titegroup = about 132 out of the 16". 

125/3.2 Titegroup = About 120 out of the ULW which I use for steel

 

I found the same thing with heavy projectiles in the PCC. My 135 grain production load shoots 155 power factor out of my PCC but it feels pretty good. I downloaded it to 135 power factor and it felt slow as hell. When I went to the 125 grain projectile at 130 to 135 power factor it's money.

[alvinsmith75]

7 minutes ago, longbeard said:

Yeah.  I'm in the range of 155.  I tried lower charges, but anything under 3.0 grains feels sluggish, and the dot doesn't return making for larger spreads.

That load out of the ULW is in the 130-135 range.   It could come down some, but I leave it because I load 125 with the same charge.  Surprisingly the velocity barely changes.  Not surprisingly the felt recoil is different.  I chrono'd this mulitple times as I was surprised.  I felt like the 147 may have had a marginally better return.  I am still experimenting.

 

125/3.2 Titegroup = about 132 out of the 16". 

125/3.2 Titegroup = About 120 out of the ULW which I use for steel

 

So about 12 power factor difference. Which 16 inch barrel are you shooting? I'm shooting a Faxon and from what I hear is a pretty darn fast shooting Barrel.

[longbeard]

5 minutes ago, alvinsmith75 said:

So about 12 power factor difference. Which 16 inch barrel are you shooting? I'm shooting a Faxon and from what I hear is a pretty darn fast shooting Barrel.

A KV pencil barrel.  It's generally good for another 100fps over the ULW.

[Flatland Shooter]

3 minutes ago, longbeard said:

A KV pencil barrel.  It's generally good for another 100fps over the ULW.

 

What bullets are you using? Jacketed, plated or coated?

[alvinsmith75]

3 minutes ago, longbeard said:

A KV pencil barrel.  It's generally good for another 100fps over the ULW.

Thanks.  From my experiences so far when I Chrono the same ammo in my spo1 and my PCC I get on average 20 power factor difference

[longbeard]

7 minutes ago, Flatland Shooter said:

 

What bullets are you using? Jacketed, plated or coated?

Coated

[alvinsmith75]

Complete!  4lbs 12.5oz w/o optic.

[jkrispies]

Good looking piece!

[alvinsmith75]

44 minutes ago, jkrispies said:

Good looking piece!

Thanks!

[alvinsmith75]

Did some testing today.  First time shooting with the ULW barrel.   Gun is sub 5lbs without optic and I'm super pleased with the results.  This is with my production loads which are 135 power factor through my 4.5" barrel CZ SP01.  I will get around to doing some Chrono work maybe this weekend and testing both 125 grain and 135 grain projectiles.  Shots we all double taps on the circles then 6 shots each rapid fire on the bottom 2 circles.  All shots at 10 yards.  

[Xanatos903]

I shot a match with my ULW barrel for the first time on Sunday and here are my impressions of it:

 

1. It's much easier to settle on steel when stationary. Moving the center of gravity back to ~trigger guard makes it very quick to transition and stop. 

2. It's much easier to move off target when moving. Any time I wasn't perfect with my footwork the barrel jumped around. My old heavy barrel and HG resisted that movement a lot more than just the Taccom barrel. However, this is more of a symptom of my lack of finesse during shooting on the move and can be fixed with a few range sessions. 

3. It's much easier to navigate a stage when all the weight can easily be supported by your firing hand. We didn't have a lot of movement-intensive stages, but it was clear to me that it's going to be very nice. 

4. With a good load, it really doesn't jump around during splits that much more than my old barrel. I shot The Roscoe Rattle as the classifier, and I was able to hammer out quick splits on the center target without worrying that I was going to plug the NS. I made sure to watch my dot to study how it moved around, and it just kind of hovered in the A zone without any correction. 

[alvinsmith75]

2 hours ago, Xanatos903 said:

I shot a match with my ULW barrel for the first time on Sunday and here are my impressions of it:

 

1. It's much easier to settle on steel when stationary. Moving the center of gravity back to ~trigger guard makes it very quick to transition and stop. 

2. It's much easier to move off target when moving. Any time I wasn't perfect with my footwork the barrel jumped around. My old heavy barrel and HG resisted that movement a lot more than just the Taccom barrel. However, this is more of a symptom of my lack of finesse during shooting on the move and can be fixed with a few range sessions. 

3. It's much easier to navigate a stage when all the weight can easily be supported by your firing hand. We didn't have a lot of movement-intensive stages, but it was clear to me that it's going to be very nice. 

4. With a good load, it really doesn't jump around during splits that much more than my old barrel. I shot The Roscoe Rattle as the classifier, and I was able to hammer out quick splits on the center target without worrying that I was going to plug the NS. I made sure to watch my dot to study how it moved around, and it just kind of hovered in the A zone without any correction. 

Great info thanks.  I look forward to tuning my loads to this new barrel.

[RaylanGivens]

New to PCC...  These ULW barrels are interesting...  I don't see any information here or on the Taccom web site about requiring an NFA  Class 3 SBR license for rifles with these barrels...  I assume that the welding of the aluminum sleeve negates the requirement for the Class 3 license?  Similar to pinning and welding a brake to a 14.5 inch standard .223 barrel?

 

Do those of you buying the Taccom ULW barrel also purchase their bolt designed to work with it?

[stick]

5 minutes ago, RaylanGivens said:

New to PCC...  These ULW barrels are interesting...  I don't see any information here or on the Taccom web site about requiring an NFA  Class 3 SBR license for rifles with these barrels...  I assume that the welding of the aluminum sleeve negates the requirement for the Class 3 license?  Similar to pinning and welding a brake to a 14.5 inch standard .223 barrel?

 

Do those of you buying the Taccom ULW barrel also purchase their bolt designed to work with it?

To answer your first question.  The aluminum shroud is pinned and welded to be 16" negating the need for a NFA Tax stamp.  

I have two ULW barrels.  One is in my PCC and I use the Taccom Extreme bolt and ramped ULW barrel.  My daughter has a ULW barrel in her PCC, but she uses a PSA Bolt.

[alvinsmith75]

Been a while since I posted but I did complete my build. I have a couple steel challenge matches under my belt with the rifle now. It weighs 5 lb and 4 oz with my 8 oz optic. I absolutely love this Barrel. I'm using the non ramped barrel with the taccom Bolt.  As stated previously the gun is much easier to handle and much better balance moving the center of gravity back from the Magwell to the trigger guard. This gun is heavier than my son's M&P 15-22 but while shooting it it feels lighter because of the weight distribution. I highly recommend this barrel for sure. Haven't had a chance to shoot it in USPSA yet but that will happen soon.

[RaylanGivens]

2 minutes ago, alvinsmith75 said:

Been a while since I posted but I did complete my build. I have a couple steel challenge matches under my belt with the rifle now. It weighs 5 lb and 4 oz with my 8 oz optic. I absolutely love this Barrel. I'm using the non ramped barrel with the taccom Bolt.  As stated previously the gun is much easier to handle and much better balance moving the center of gravity back from the Magwell to the trigger guard. This gun is heavier than my son's M&P 15-22 but while shooting it it feels lighter because of the weight distribution. I highly recommend this barrel for sure. Haven't had a chance to shoot it in USPSA yet but that will happen soon.

 

Curious why you chose the non ramped barrel?

[alvinsmith75]

29 minutes ago, RaylanGivens said:

 

Curious why you chose the non ramped barrel?

Simply because I have a QC10 lower and the ramped barrel is completely unnecessary.  Quality lowers don't benefit from ramped barrels.  I've never ever had a feed issue with the 4 different barrels I've had in my gun.

[MikeRush]

12 hours ago, alvinsmith75 said:

Simply because I have a QC10 lower and the ramped barrel is completely unnecessary.  Quality lowers don't benefit from ramped barrels.  I've never ever had a feed issue with the 4 different barrels I've had in my gun.

 

I get lots of people don't think ramped barrels are necessary (and they aren't), but I would absolutely disagree that quality lowers don't benefit from ramped barrels. I've got a QC10 lower and ULW barrel, and I never had feeding issues until I did. Mine doesn't need a ramp but starts nose diving as the mag springs wear. The ramp can help prevent that. 

 

Not necessary, especially for a steel challenge gun where you use short mags, but I do believe it is a benefit to feed reliability once you start using big sticks with long extensions.

 

Once the mag springs on my big stick started to go (but still fed easily in my Glock, which happens to have a feed ramp despite having a "quality lower") I wound up with severe bullet setback (using factory ammo, no less) that led to multiple malfunctions and case head separations. I firmly believe a ramp would have helped those rounds up into the chamber instead of turning them into little grenades.

 

If you keep up on mag springs you shouldn't have a problem but my take is as follows: Non-ramped AR9 barrels were designed for Colt lowers that have a feed ramp. The Glocks that our Glock mags come from also have a feed ramp. The M4 style upper receiver that most of these guns are built on has feed ramps. Just because we can get away with running a Glock lower with no ramp most of the time doesn't mean there is no reason to have a ramp.

[Xanatos903]

I'm of the same opinion. A feedramp is cheap, easy to install, and certainly won't hurt the reliability of your PCC. There's basically no reason not to do it. 

[longbeard]

I started having malfunctions a while back.  It took a few days before I discovered the receiver-installed feed ramp from Taccom (which is great) had some wiggle in it.  If you use this device make sure you check it frequently.  Mine was epoxied in and lasted over 10K rounds.

 

 

[alvinsmith75]

I have over 7k rounds on my gun with a total of 4 different barrels.  Never had a feed ramp and never a feeding issue.  I use both 17+2 and 31+10 mags without issue.  Again, this is just my experience.