I have a ddm4v11 that is very accurate but after 3 shots tends to wonder poi unless i give it 20-30 seconds between shots. I use a 762 titanium suppressor with this rifle for varmints. I am shooting 50-55 gr vmax. I am curious what your opinions and likes are for a new barrel. I would like something accurate with minimal poi shift for this rig. Also prefer 16” -18” barrel. Thanks
Best barrel options?
- Thread starter Coltsp1
- Start date
I have a compass lake engineering barrel and it is very accurate. Does not seem to wander. At least for 10 shots. 2/3 MOA
I'm really happy with my PRI Bergara 18" SPR barrel. The extra meat of the SPR profile keeps POI consistent throughout strings of fire. They are all 1-8 twist, with 16" and 18" options available. If you have a bit more to spend, they have Douglass 18" barrels back in stock with 1-7 or 1-8 twist, too. If you're on a budget & only shooting the 55 grainers, the 1-9 twist 17" barrel might be a good option, too.
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Then it is not "very accurate".
Observations on the Points of Impact of Statistically Significant Shot-Group Sizes
The Set-up
For this ballistic exercise I used a semi-automatic precision AR-15 with a 20” stainless steel Lothar-Walther barrel. This barrel has a 223 Wylde chamber with a 1:8” twist rate. This Lothar-Walther barreled AR-15 has produced 10-shot groups with extreme spreads measuring in the “sixes” (0.6xx inches) when fired from the bench at a distance of 100 yards using match-grade hand-loads. Prior to the beginning of this exercise, this barrel had approximately 2,040 rounds fired through it.
The ammunition used for this exercise was factory loaded Black Hills red-box 223 Remington ammunition seated with the 69 grain Sierra MatchKing with a cannelure. Since I had been testing other ammunition with the Lothar-Walther barreled AR-15 prior to the beginning of this exercise, as well as throughout this exercise, I fired three “seasoning rounds” of the Black Hills 69 grain Sierra MatchKing ammunition to condition the bore of the Lothar-Walther barrel with the powder used in this factory load. This process was repeated immediately prior to shooting each of the groups evaluated for this exercise.
All of the shooting for this ballistic exercise was conducted from a concrete bench-rest at a distance of 100 yards (confirmed with a laser rangefinder.) The Lothar-Walther barrel used in this exercise was free-floated in a LaRue Tactical railed free-float handguard. The free-float handguard of the AR-15 rested in a Sinclair Windage Benchrest (with the help of a Sinclair forend bench-rest adaptor) while the stock of the rifle rested in a Protektor bunny-ear rear bag. Sighting was accomplished via a Leupold VARI-X III set at 25X magnification and adjusted to be parallax-free at 100 yards. A mirage shield was used. Wind conditions on the shooting range were continuously monitored using a Wind Probe. The set-up was very similar to that pictured below.
The Wind Probe.
Some of the variables that I purposely did not control for during this exercise were barrel temperature, ammunition temperature and the amount of barrel fouling present at the time that each group for this exercise was fired. I also did not make any sight adjustments to accommodate the changes in the ambient temperature and humidity that occurred during the elapsed time between each of the groups fired for this exercise.
The Groups
After firing the three “seasoning rounds” of the Black Hills 69 grain Sierra MatchKing ammunition, I settled-in and fired a 20-round group of the aforementioned ammunition. The group is pictured below. The center of the 20-round shot-group is located in the lower-right quadrant of the two inch circle on the target. After shooting this group, I continued testing other ammunition from the same Lothar-Walther barreled AR-15.
A little later that day, I fired a second 20-shot group of the Black Hills 69 grain Sierra MatchKing ammunition. The second group is pictured below.
As you can see, the center of the second 20-shot group showed no significant shift whatsoever in its location on the target as compared to the first 20-shot group. The next image shows the first and second 20-shot groups over-layed on each other using Adobe Photoshop with the blending opacity set at 50%; further illustrating that the centers of the two 20-shot groups showed no significant shift in their locations on the targets.
On an additional trip to the shooting range, I repeated the entire ballistic exercise, just as described above. The findings were the same; the centers of two 20-shot groups fired from the Lothar-Walther barreled AR-15 using the same lot of Black Hills 69 grain Sierra MatchKing ammunition showed no significant shift in their locations on the targets. Nor did the centers of these third and fourth 20-shot groups show any significant shift in their locations on the targets as compared to the first and second 20-shot groups fired in the previous ballistic exercise.
The graphic below shows all four of the 20-shot groups over-layed on each other, forming an 80-shot composite group. Of those 80 shots, 95% of them are contained in a covering-circle that has a diameter of 0.97 MOA. All 80 shots are contained in an area-of-dispersion (bounding rectangle) that measures 1.08 MOA wide by 1.09 MOA high.
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I feel the weight of the suppressor affects the thin necked down section between the gas block and the chamber. This rifle shoots much better without it when it comes to 10 or 15 shots in a row. The first two rounds out of the rifle suppressed or not are touching or very close to it. The suppressor is a must for this rifle. Im looking into compass lake now. Any opinions on the douglas vs the krieger
