New 16" bbl recommendations?

[striped1]

Thanks. I am trying to decide between the melonite and non and am leaning toward the non at this point. My set up will be similar except I won't have a ti bcg. It will be low mass but Ti is just not in the budget.

[MarkCO]

I will have rounds through the melonite one this week using a LMOS. I am going to keep the ULM for specific applications. I think you will be happy skipping the Ti, not just for the price, but because of the tune and the increased wear.

[striped1]

Mark

Definitely interested in your tests with the melonite barrel. If the accuracy is a good as the non, I will likely go with that.

[MickB]

Interesting comment on the Ti carrier.

Not to derail the thread, but the Ti carriers wear faster?

Can you maybe start a separate technical thread when you've got enough testing under your belt on the new Ti and Al ULMOS carriers?

Mick

I will have rounds through the melonite one this week using a LMOS. I am going to keep the ULM for specific applications. I think you will be happy skipping the Ti, not just for the price, but because of the tune and the increased wear.

[MarkCO]

Ti carriers don't wear much, but they wear out the receiver. Acceptable for some...

[dauntedfuture]

Call be a skeptic but I doubt a 8K-10K barrel shoots groups like that...any barrel. I'm not calling anyone a liar, I'm just a skeptic. Also, is this a one off group, sometimes the wind blows them together.

Interesting comment about melonite increasing velocity. Years ago molly coating bullets was the big thing. Its not very popular these days as there was not much evidence or an improvement in performance. D Tubb has his own similar process and says it helps so i'm not saying that there is nothing to it. Typically with a molly bullet you had to increase powder charges to get the same velocities as the reduced friction decreased pressures.

Some barrels are faster then others so I would think that the same barrel without melonite would be as fast or faster. Tight bores and short leads also increase pressure and velocity.

Edited February 24, 2015 by dauntedfuture

[Colodrew]

Call be a skeptic but I doubt a 8K-10K barrel shoots groups like that...any barrel. I'm not calling anyone a liar, I'm just a skeptic. Also, is this a one off group, sometimes the wind blows them together.

Interesting comment about melonite increasing velocity. Years ago molly coating bullets was the big thing. Its not very popular these days as there was not much evidence or an improvement in performance. D Tubb has his own similar process and says it helps so i'm not saying that there is nothing to it. Typically with a molly bullet you had to increase powder charges to get the same velocities as the reduced friction decreased pressures.

Some barrels are faster then others so I would think that the same barrel without melonite would be as fast or faster. Tight bores and short leads also increase pressure and velocity.

Good questions on the group size. The rifle has always shot 1 moa or better and I discovered two issues with it. The first issue was the gas block was contacting the handguard during the shot. The second issue I discovered by reading a post by Kurt Miller. I unknowingly mounted the SLR handguard butted up tight against the upper receiver thus not really letting it free float. It showed up by causing shot stringing as the rifle heated up during longer periods of fire.

I installed a gas block that would not hit and I slid the handguard forward about .030. Saturday morning I headed to the range to see if the modifications made any difference in group size. When I arrived at the range it was dead still, 34 degrees and snowing. I loaded six rounds in my mag, burned one into the berm, and quickly shot the group posted above. I drove down to inspect the target, giggled like a little kid upon inspection of the group and packed my stuff up because shooting in the snow kinda sucks. In my experience that was a lucky group but it still came out of a 16" AR with 8-10k through it. That's about as good as it gets in my book.

[Therealkoop]

Picked up one of the last melonite/fluted stretch 16's around for the moment. Ill be running with an adjustable gas block so the port size doesnt matter too much as far as felt recoil is concerned. Ill test it side by side with an identically setup nordic 18".

[ryan77]

Interesting reading in the tread. I am trying to pick out a 16" for 3 gun also and not a huge fan of the most popular choices here. A couple years ago I bought a 16" middy Blackhole and Nordic for this purpose really unimpressed with either. We had got together and ran a range test on M193 and Prvi 75gn with these and several other barrels all with a 4-14x scope mounted. The most accurate was a 11.5" Lightweight DD barrel. Not sure how that happens, after that RRA and Noveske 16" Middys, a 16" DPMS carbine, then the 16" Nordic and 16" BHW and a 10.5" BHW. The 10.5" BHW was keyholing, the "16" BHW was actually cut to 15.2" or so, looks like the person doing the cutting measured from the extension to the muzzle not chamber to muzzle. The Nordic was actually 16.5". Every 16" I have seen since has been 16 1/8". Hot sure about dropping that coin on the Stretch 16" when the last McGowen (300blk) barrel I bought was only $129. Leaning to using the 18" DPMS MK12 barrel I have in spare parts bin or trying AR-15 Performance or Integrity Barrel.