Anyone shot the LMT 20″ SS in 5.56?

[renegadeGDI]

I am really curious as to how accurate the stainless LMT 5.56 barrels are? They seem pretty hard to find and nobody seems to talk about them.

I love my stainless LMT 308 barrel, but really want to hear from someone that has shot the small frame version.

 

[michealj88]

I’ve got a SS 18” 5.56 MRP barrel that will occasionally shoot 1” groups, and shoots consistent 1.25-1.5” with my 77 gr. hand loads. This is pretty much what I get with the majority of my accurized 5.56 AR’s.

 

[Jsp556]

5.56 NATO chambers aren’t going to give you what a CLE or Wylde chamber will.

I have one of the old 18” rock creek cut rifled LMT 5.56 barrels. I have a LW, Krieger, and a bunch of ARP’s that shoot better.

Maybe the in-house barrels shoot better than the old Rock Creek ones. The stainless 308 I have shoots really well.

I’d expect MOA’ish results.

 

[Dogtown]

I’ve got a number of LMT 5.56mm barrels and they’re surprisingly average. Even with my own tuned loads, I could rarely get them to group smaller than 1MOA, with the average across various loads being 1.5MOA. Good enough for the Army, I guess.

One build I ultimately wanted to see if I could improve it with a 3rd party barrel. Craddock spun up a Bartlein 16” rifle gas barrel and I had it converted to the LMT extension and profile. It’s holding well inside an inch, so it’s precise enough.

 

[GUNNER10]

5.56 NATO chambers aren’t going to give you what a CLE or Wylde chamber will.

I have one of the old 18” rock creek cut rifled LMT 5.56 barrels. I have a LW, Krieger, and a bunch of ARP’s that shoot better.

Maybe the in-house barrels shoot better than the old Rock Creek ones. The stainless 308 I have shoots really well.

I’d expect MOA’ish results.

This "feels" right.

I think the chambers are going to be the limiting factor. while I don't have any SS 5.56 barrels for any of my MRP's, my SS 6.5cm is more consistent and groups better than my any of my SS Nato/308 Barrels.

I feel like my 6.5cm most groups will fall in that .5 to .75 MOA range the 308's will group in that .75 to 1 MOA range. If people want pure accuracy, I recommend having a DWilsion mod a Krieger, Bartlein or Proof. and have it chambered for a specific load and call it a day.

 

[renegadeGDI]

I’ve got a number of LMT 5.56mm barrels and they’re surprisingly average. Even with my own tuned loads, I could rarely get them to group smaller than 1MOA, with the average across various loads being 1.5MOA. Good enough for the Army, I guess.

One build I ultimately wanted to see if I could improve it with a 3rd party barrel. Craddock spun up a Bartlein 16” rifle gas barrel and I had it converted to the LMT extension and profile. It’s holding well inside an inch, so it’s precise enough.

I'm interested to hear more about the craddock build, do they convert it to LMT or did Dwilson do it?

At this point I just want a top tier accuracy upper and I am between an LMT / bartlein conversion vs a mega MML / bartlein which is roughly $400 cheaper. Is a true monothlic LMT upper going to be that much better than MML... That is the question.

 

[Dogtown]

Craddock cut the barrel and DWilson did the conversion. It’s not bolt gun accurate by any stretch, but it’s an improvement over the LMT barrels (which were a little disappointing considering the cost). The whole process took a while but I’m glad I did it.

The LMT setup in general is pretty versatile, but with the slick MLok uppers you lose the “quick” part of the quick change barrel system because the mounting hardware can block extraction (not touching barrel, but blocking it). The monolithic design though makes it easy to mount a bunch of shit in-line though.

 

[ELCO82]

I am really curious as to how accurate the stainless LMT 5.56 barrels are? They seem pretty hard to find and nobody seems to talk about them.

I love my stainless LMT 308 barrel, but really want to hear from someone that has shot the small frame version.

My stainless lmt 20" 5.56 holds a little under an inch. I love mine.

 

[renegadeGDI]

Craddock cut the barrel and DWilson did the conversion. It’s not bolt gun accurate by any stretch, but it’s an improvement over the LMT barrels (which were a little disappointing considering the cost). The whole process took a while but I’m glad I did it.

View attachment 8207388

The LMT setup in general is pretty versatile, but with the slick MLok uppers you lose the “quick” part of the quick change barrel system because the mounting hardware can block extraction (not touching barrel, but blocking it). The monolithic design though makes it easy to mount a bunch of shit in-line though.

View attachment 8207390

Looks awesome, lmt is definitely the way to go if you want to mount important stuff up front

 

[ToKeepAndBear]

77 TMK handloads 5 shot group

53 Vmax handloads 3 shot group

This is the older 18” SS LMT factory barrel, sometimes better and sometimes worse but pretty close to average groups in a barrel that isn’t too dirty.

 

[redneckbmxer24]

I guess I’m lucky because I’ve had no less than a dozen samples of SS LMT barrels for both the larger frame and small frames older rock creeks and newer in house barrels and they all shot very well. 3/4moa I’d say was average with good match ammo like BH, FGMM, IMI Razorcore.

With that said if you’re on the fence whether to go LMT or not these days I’d just get a top quality receiver and hand guard set that’s semi monolithic add a great barrel and put it together. LMT’s quality control has slipped some and the market has gone through the roof to the point it’s not worth what they cost. $800-$1000 for a receiver plus all the guts and a barrel just isn’t worth it to still have a gassy rifle that’s not easy to fix since it’s all proprietary.

 

[renegadeGDI]

I guess I’m lucky because I’ve had no less than a dozen samples of SS LMT barrels for both the larger frame and small frames older rock creeks and newer in house barrels and they all shot very well. 3/4moa I’d say was average with good match ammo like BH, FGMM, IMI Razorcore.

With that said if you’re on the fence whether to go LMT or not these days I’d just get a top quality receiver and hand guard set that’s semi monolithic add a great barrel and put it together. LMT’s quality control has slipped some and the market has gone through the roof to the point it’s not worth what they cost. $800-$1000 for a receiver plus all the guts and a barrel just isn’t worth it to still have a gassy rifle that’s not easy to fix since it’s all proprietary.

TBH this thread had already convinced me I'm better off with a Bartlein in a mega set. I love LMT, especially in 308, but I think the 5.56 chamber will limit it's accuracy too much for what I'm trying to do.

 

[renegadeGDI]

View attachment 8207990

77 TMK handloads 5 shot group
View attachment 8207992

53 Vmax handloads 3 shot group
View attachment 8207993

This is the older 18” SS LMT factory barrel, sometimes better and sometimes worse but pretty close to average groups in a barrel that isn’t too dirty.

Great looking rifle, thanks for the info.

 

[RUTGERS95]

I’ve got a number of LMT 5.56mm barrels and they’re surprisingly average. Even with my own tuned loads, I could rarely get them to group smaller than 1MOA, with the average across various loads being 1.5MOA. Good enough for the Army, I guess.

One build I ultimately wanted to see if I could improve it with a 3rd party barrel. Craddock spun up a Bartlein 16” rifle gas barrel and I had it converted to the LMT extension and profile. It’s holding well inside an inch, so it’s precise enough.

are those barrels ss or cl

my experience has been the opposite in that I'm surprised at how accurate they are given they are not really 'match' barrels

 

[Dogtown]

Two SS and the one CL the upper initially came with.