Dirt poor rifle build shoots pretty well.

3-0-hate

Captain Nimcompoop
Full Member
Minuteman
Jun 13, 2011
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Lost in Idaho...
So I put this rifle together on the absolute lowest budget that I thought was feasible. AR Stoner barrel from Midway (20" Stainless, fluted, 1/8"), Anderson lower, M&P Sport upper, Aero M-Lok hand guard, Herters cantilever mount, CMC trigger, A2 stock, etc, etc.

Before today, this rifle wouldn't hold a 1.5" group, no matter what I did loading wise. I was trying to figure out what to do with it when I came across the "True and Glue" thread in here. Well, I ordered the parts and proceeded to "True and Glue" the receiver and barrel extension. The results are surprising. This M&P Sport receiver was all kinds of terrible and took forever to get a nice even shiny ring on. Well worth the effort.

80gr Bergers over 24.3gr of Varget with a CCI 450 seemed to be a good match for this combo.

48268513857_5305abeb45_b.jpg
 
Trueing the receiver extension is a pretty important step. If the barrel is wonky from the start then it’s not gonna get better further down the line. I don’t understand why this is a difficult step for manufacturers. It seems like you could make a very simple device to true up that extension.
 
AR Stoner barrels can be an unknown quantity, albeit that all my experiences with them came out all smiles.

Midway outsources their AR Stoner stuff, barrels included.

I can't say it with certainty, but my ear to the ground says that at least two sources provide AR Stoner Barrels; Bear Creek (I hear all sorts of things...), and Liberty (Satern's Button rifled entity, and this is very likely to be great news).

I limit my 5.56 heavy bullet weights to 75gr HDY HPBT-Match, but I also shoot them out of 1 24" 1:9" Savage, with fine results.

Right now, my buddy has a 24" 1:8" heavy AR Stoner 5.56 barrel; he built on it, and it's great shooter.

My barrels are a 16" 1:7 complete AR Stoner Upper, and two 6.5 Grendels.

The Grendels are a 20" 1:8" complete Heavy barreled Upper, and a 24" 1:8" heavy barrel that I assembled into an Upper (trued and glued) using AR Stoner parts exclusively. Cheaper for sure, and I have hope...

Due to sucky health issues and triple digit local daytime temps, they are unfired; but I'm sure by mid-late August the temps will be back into reasonable territory, and it looks like my health issues are doing better.

Great job on yours; wish me luck on mine.

Greg
 
AR Stoner barrels can be an unknown quantity, albeit that all my experiences with them came out all smiles.

Midway outsources their AR Stoner stuff, barrels included.

I can't say it with certainty, but my ear to the ground says that at least two sources provide AR Stoner Barrels; Bear Creek (I hear all sorts of things...), and Liberty (Satern's Button rifled entity, and this is very likely to be great news).

I limit my 5.56 heavy bullet weights to 75gr HDY HPBT-Match, but I also shoot them out of 1 24" 1:9" Savage, with fine results.

Right now, my buddy has a 24" 1:8" heavy AR Stoner 5.56 barrel; he built on it, and it's great shooter.

My barrels are a 16" 1:7 complete AR Stoner Upper, and two 6.5 Grendels.

The Grendels are a 20" 1:8" complete Heavy barreled Upper, and a 24" 1:8" heavy barrel that I assembled into an Upper (trued and glued) using AR Stoner parts exclusively. Cheaper for sure, and I have hope...

Due to sucky health issues and triple digit local daytime temps, they are unfired; but I'm sure by mid-late August the temps will be back into reasonable territory, and it looks like my health issues are doing better.

Great job on yours; wish me luck on mine.

Greg

Good luck Greg, and Im glad your health issues are improving. I was very pleasantly surprised after I trued the receiver extension and glued the barrel in place, with how much the accuracy improved. The barrel has proven to be a shooter for sure, and the group I posted, likely would have been better, if I didnt think that it put one shot on paper and the others over the top and into the ether.

In comparison, here is a group I put downrange with a brand new Daniel Defense M4v7.. Not impressive to say the least.. I have been tinkering with this Daniel Defense for a while now, for a buddy of mine (he wanted some parts swapped to make it Cali legal) and I just cant get it to shoot better than a rack grade M4, which is a little disappointing. I tried to get the barrel off so I could true and glue it for him, but of course DD has to use a proprietary barrel nut that I ultimately didn't want to futz with.

48268434116_e8a8edc7c3_h.jpg
 
Pretty satisfying to see an improvement like that.

Enjoy the inexpensive "home brew" precision improvement.