Ideas for my 2nd Ar in 223.

primer1 said:

As far as barrel length, I would keep it at 16 inches. That is, unless you want to get a shorter barrel, which would include a tax stamp and a longer wait. If going this route, get another tax stamp and put a can on it too.

Click to expand...

I second the 16 inch barrel lenght.
Its the shortest you can have without an NFA tax stamp and investigation (actually there is a flashider perm pinning/welding workaround, but lets keep it simple and save that for another time)

The 16 inch barrel is a good lenght for an all around tactial rifle IMO.
Compared to the classic M16 the 4 inches less barrrel lenght really adds "handiness" but without giving up any significant ballistic performance.
The Soviets who know a thing or two about Infantry Combat seem to agree when you examine AK barrel lenghts.

Also nowadays 16inch barrels come as default with the proper lenght gas system for the barrel lenght ( 10 years ago companies would just use Carbine lenght gas systems optimized for 14.5 inch barrels and as a result many rifles were overgassed).

So in summary this is my recommneded configuration based on 22 years Army and 10 years as civilian shooter (shooting 80,000 rounds or so in thta time thru various ARs):
-16 inch barrel

• 4150 barrel steel or better (the progression in materails quality and price usually is 4140, 4150, 4150 mislpec cert and 4145 (cold hammer forged)
• Adjustable stock, B5 system SOPMOD are among the better ones but other ones are fine too , like the Magpul series
• Dont need a fancy competion trigger but a polished and coated versio of Milspec is a good chocie IMHO, this one is my favorite for a money/performance balance: RTB Enhanced Nickel TEFLON Plated Trigger Assembly

-I still the like 1913 Quadrails, though that is an opinion and many folks dont share it. Other attachments system are popular as well.

• No reason not to go free float with your rail whichever one u may choose
• Flat gas block for the front. Even though the human eye will ignore a fixed sight in the front in your sight picture if u use electro optics but Its "cleaner" IMO.
• Dont get a prismatic sight if your focus is quick short range shooting ( and it sounds like it sure might be). a red dot like Sig Romeo 5R, or the like will serve you well.

Both higher and lower end acceptable solutions exist as well ( covered at lenght elsewhere on here)
- I am a big proponent of the vertical front grip attached to your rail. Since none of us are full time members of a SOF team we dont get to shoot all they time and train on all types of grips ( actually even they dont have as much time as they would like)
The vertical fornt grip is good for walking/patrolling easy on the muscles and yet works well for the great majority of engagement types. Real nice for reflexive fire to rip your rifle left or right.
C grip works better for ultrashort shooting and it looks cool, but I usually recommend casual shooters to find/pick one basic grip on the rifle and train that until competency before they train additional ones.
- ARs right now are not expensive and good to fair units can be had in various price ranges.

Whats your budget?
Keep in mind you want to hold back some $s for extra mags a possble optic and ammo too

PS: Moderators we might move this into the AR subforum.

Just so we're clear, when you say CQB, to "me" that means 100 yards or less, typically less. Prior to the recent rule change by the ATF that is pretty much making all pistol braces illegal unless you register it, then I would have recommended another caliber other than 223/5.56 and build it as a pistol with a brace. Something along the lines of 300 Blackout, or if you want a fast wielding thumper, then 350 Legend or 458 SOCOM in an 8" or 9" barrel. 50 Beowulf (12.7x42) is an option too, but when I say "thumper", that's about as thumpy as it gets in the AR platform...on both ends, so maybe not the best choice if you need fast follow up shots.

If you're not interested in building an "SBR" (Short Barrel Rifle) and going through the registration process with the ATF, then stick to a 16" barrel. That's the minimum barrel length to remain a title 1 firearm. It's still plenty handy, especially if you go with a thinner barrel profile rather than a heavy barrel.

Agree with a red dot for a CQB set up, preferably a reflex sight...they have a larger viewing "window", so very fast target acquisition. You can, if you like, add some pop-up iron sights and with the right reflex/red dot sight they will cowitness, meaning the iron sights align with the dot. If the battery dies in the reflex sight, you have the irons as back up.

Other accessories to consider would be a light, or perhaps a laser or maybe a suppressor (which means a $200 tax fee, finger prints, photo and FBI background investigation with a long wait). But, as you add more and more, that rifle gets heavier and heavier and longer (most suppressors suited for 223/5.56 will add 6" or 7" to the length).

Be careful not to get caught up in all the gadgetry available for the AR. They're not called the "Lego" rifle for nothing. There's a ton of useless take-your-money gizmos that claim to be the bees knees and all they do is add complexity and failure points.

With that said, if you're still set on 223/5.56, there is nothing wrong with that, it'll certainly get the job done.

As for stainless vs steel vs chrome lined. Lots of info out there, and a lot of arguing and controversy too, but I believe the general wisdom is stainless barrels for accuracy, steel for longer life and chrome lined for high rates of fire/abusive shooting. Unless you plan to fire thousands and thousands of rounds in a year or two, then really, any one of them will be fine and will probably out live you.

Your first consideration though, should be budget. Next is this going to be a "range toy" or "gucci gun", or do you want a reliable rifle purpose built that you can trust your life to. Once you decide that, then we can point you in a better direction.

Depends on what you will do with the gun. If you are going to put lots and lots of rounds thru the gun, or if you play games like mag dumps getting the barrel hot, then go with the stainless barrel first choice and chrome lined barrel second. Some reports say they will last twice as long before losing accuracy. If you shoot like a normal person, not getting the barrel too hot to touch it does not matter. Barrels are fairly cheap, so do not get excited about it.

You say a close combat gun. I am retired military, that has a meaning to me, that means M4 with night vision. I assume that is not what you mean. The 16 inch barrel is the best length of all. I have them in 10.5 inch, waste of money, the shortness does not really matter when clearing buildings, the way you clear corners is not really affected by barrel length or carbine length. The length is only a convenience for carry especially in vehicle. In a case where quarters are truly tight, you are going to use a handgun, not an AR pistol, they are too unwieldy, but a traditional gun, M9, 1911, Sig or whatever. So, the 16 inch barrel with a collapsible stock is the best length.. The shorter barrels increase the flash so much you lose vision so don't sacrifice barrel length.

Barrel brands. Brand is a worthless decision for close combat gun. If you are building a varmint gun to shoot at 300 yards, the barrel matters, but any of them will shoot 1 inch groups at 100 yards, everybody makes a good barrel for that use. Even the cheapies, DPMS, Anderson, Model 1 Sales, etc.

Bolt carrier group. Be sure to get one that is mil-spec. Brand does not matter as long as it is the heavier full auto rate bolt carrier group. Boron or chrome or other coating is worth any added cost, any coating will help keep the gun running longer between cleaning, so don't buy into the hype that you need a $300 BCG, but an extra $40-$50 for a coating is worth the money.

Triggers. This likely the most important single addition to a mil-spec AR. Mil-Spec suck, I have several. I tune my own, but I can never get close to an aftermarket trigger. Expect to spend $99-$150 on an after market trigger. Try to test some on other folks guns before you decide. If you shoot competition, or varmints, a lower pound trigger is worth extra, if not any 3.5 trigger on the market will beat the mil-spec by a mile.

Cerekote is fine, or any coating. I actually spray painted a gun with OD green paint for Desert Shield, it was a blue steel gun and I did not want to rust when carried while sweating heavily. Whatever works. Grey is a great color, I have a couple dull or battleship grey.

Optics are a personal choice. In a real close combat scenario or my past, I want open sights and a laser on a pressure switch. Of course, in a real military scenario, close combat ops are almost always with night ops gear. But if it is for 3 gun or just fun, what ever floats your boat. I like short 3 x 9 x 40 scopes with an illuminated reticle. I have them in 5.56, 300 BLK and 7.62 x 39. That gives me the option to hunt deer, hogs, or coyotes with them. Just depends on your use. If you are considering another caliber since you have one 223 and 308, the 7.62 x 39 is the best of the bunch. Several other countries are gearing up and producing the cheap steel cased ammo in case they ever shut down the Russian ammo.

Building them is not really building them, they are just like tinker toys, and if you do not tune your own trigger you just put them together like a toy. Just follow any of the UTube videos and it is pretty easy to slap all the parts together.

Give us a report of your choice and final product.

Diesel.
If you are thinking about a Left Handed AR-15 I would suggest you at least look at Rock River Arms Inc. They make standard designed Left-Handed ARs. That are simply a mirrored image of the Right-Hand Model. But do I like Stag Arms ARs, but that ejection port door flipping up on the Left-Handed Models has always freaked me out. The RRAs Rifles the door flips down IMO like they should. But nothing wrong with the quality of Stag Arms. For CQB I would recommend the 16" Barrel Rifles. A lot of the Stainless-Steel Barrels have the 1:8 Twist Wylde Chamber which is an excellent chamber. And shoots 223 and 5.56 Nato rounds exceptionally well. I am an accuracy freak far beyond the normal person. But for a tactical AR honestly you will never shoot enough probably to wear out even a Chrome Molly Barrel or Stainless Barrel. The reason I say that is Chrome Molly Chrome Lined Barrels will last longer but we are talking about "thousands" of rounds. But for me being an accuracy freak not as accurate in shooting tighter MOA Groups than the bare Chrome Moly or the Stainless Barels. We are not talking about any concern being for CQB. And if you live in an area where salt water and air are prevalent Chrome Moly Chrome Lined Barrels in a tactical type of rifle is a good option depending on your "cleaning habits". Like a vehicle or trunk gun for example. IMO also I prefer the 1:9 or 1:8 Twist Barrels. and for a precision AR I prefer the Stainless 1:8 Twist Barrel with the Wyde Chamber. I have a Rock River Varmint Rifle with the Wylde Chamber and 1:8 twist that will shoot sub 1/2 to 1/4 MOA groups. 1/4 MOA from the Bench at 100 yards when I am having a good day. And my 1:9 `16" Barrels will shoot 3/4 - Sub 1 MOA groups. All the above shot with 55 gr. Federal Gold Medal Match BT HPI factory ammunition. IMO I do not prefer Stainless in a tactical rifle. Because, generally they are not as durable if shooting large amounts of ammunition over time or where the barrel gets excessively hot for prolonged period of time. But just a thought should you like the RRA AR Left handed or other Rifles and order it through a Dealer. I would also highly suggest you order it with the RRA 2 Stage National Match Trigger.
Just some thoughts!
03

Notrighty said:

Old lawyer, most normal people smoked an AR barrel at least once. Do 2 mag dumps, and I don’t want to touch it.

Click to expand...

LOL. Once I fired 7 mags full auto thru an M14, the barrel was red and glowed. We fired 3,200 rounds thru 2 M60s in about 30 minutes, of course each 60 has a second barrel changed every 100 rounds, fast and furious that day. Normal people do not do that.

My range never allowed bump stocks or full auto but there are still young guys who think there is something macho I suppose or running several mags thru the gun as fast as they can. They are not allowed back on the range after one warning. I have fired a fair amount of full auto and fast fire, there is nothing to be gained by holding a trigger until a mag empties. I watched the famous Dan Combs, allegedly the fastest gun alive in the early 70s. Dan set up a playing card at about 30-40 feet and fired a 50 round magazine of 45 acp thru a Thompson submachine gun, every round in the playing card and not one on the target surrounding it. That was a wise use of full auto. Burst fire is fine, but mag dumps teach nothing. But like snorting cocaine or jumping out of airplanes, if it is your and you wanna do it, fine by me. Just do it somewhere else.

Just my opinion of course.

My friends,

Not sure how we got to discussing "mag dumps".
Is it in Reference to my recommending chrome lining?

I assure everyone, I do not do mag dumps nor do I know anyone who does, but if you use your rifle as designed, it WILL get very hot.
I have shot enough civilian courses with civilian AR15s (none of which involved mag dumps), that I was able to obsrserve the differences between chrome lined barrels of ym Army service (milspec) and those that were merely nitrited ( a common civilian spec).
This was when using your rifle repeteadly over the months in realistic courses of fire.
For example I was on my 3rd barrell in only 20,000 rounds with a very major name brand rifle, when I sold it with full disclosure of its round count.
This rifle's barrel was only nitrited, but the rifle was very high end (MSRP of approx $2500) and of a type many security contractors would use in the middle east.
I dont want to specify the brand because this weakness is shared by all that skip chrome lining and the company was real good about replacing each expensive CHF barrel for free with no questions asked whenever the previous one wore out.

My Sig 516s on the other hand (which are the versionCHF steel with chrome lining), I have never been able to wear a barrel out even though I take them through demanding courses of fire.
Its not all about the high end brand though.

A buddy of mine had a Del-ton an entry level brand that cost $700 or 800, but he had a option box ticked version that came with a chrome lined CHF barrel. This added about 10-15% to the price of the rifle if memeory serves.
He had no issues despite wringing it out with other folks with rifles that cost 2 to 3 times as much.
He did eventually burn through the barrel but I think that was at a round count of approx 18-20,000 which is the proper life expectancy of a milspec or near milspec barrel.

Bigcat said:

My friends,

Not sure how we got to discussing "mag dumps".
Is it in Reference to my recommending chrome lining?

I assure everyone, I do not do mag dumps nor do I know anyone who does, but if you use your rifle as designed, it WILL get very hot.
I have shot enough civilian courses with civilian AR15s (none of which involved mag dumps), that I was able to obsrserve the differences between chrome lined barrels of ym Army service (milspec) and those that were merely nitrited ( a common civilian spec).
This was when using your rifle repeteadly over the months in realistic courses of fire.
For example I was on my 3rd barrell in only 20,000 rounds with a very major name brand rifle, when I sold it with full disclosure of its round count.
This rifle's barrel was only nitrited, but the rifle was very high end (MSRP of approx $2500) and of a type many security contractors would use in the middle east.
I dont want to specify the brand because this weakness is shared by all that skip chrome lining and the company was real good about replacing each expensive CHF barrel for free with no questions asked whenever the previous one wore out.

My Sig 516s on the other hand (which are the versionCHF steel with chrome lining), I have never been able to wear a barrel out even though I take them through demanding courses of fire.
Its not all about the high end brand though.

A buddy of mine had a Del-ton an entry level brand that cost $700 or 800, but he had a option box ticked version that came with a chrome lined CHF barrel. This added about 10-15% to the price of the rifle if memeory serves.
He had no issues despite wringing it out with other folks with rifles that cost 2 to 3 times as much.
He did eventually burn through the barrel but I think that was at a round count of approx 18-20,000 which is the proper life expectancy of a milspec or near milspec barrel.

Click to expand...

I mentioned mag dumps based upon an occasional trend that I have observed. I think the bump stock was the reason we saw them for a while. A group of young guys would show up with a case of steel cased ammo and try to shoot it up all in one afternoon. Perhaps trying to mimic a John Wick movie the shooting was putting rounds down range as fast as they could. I have actually suggested to guys that they might want to cool the barrels between such mag dumps.

There is a difference between getting a barrel hot and getting a barrel to turn red. I have seen that done. Foolish in my book but I think it can be done in 6 or 7 mags with a bump stock. No gun will shoot forever. The Army says the M4 can sustain a rate of 12-15 rounds per minute. However, 200 rounds in one minute will get the barrel to 1,100 degrees and will likely induce cook-offs. The new Heavy M4A1 barrel will get to 925 degrees but even then it is not safe from a possible cook off.

My comment simply was a comment that people do that and a stainless of chrome lined barrel would likely last longer with any such heavy use. I do not recommend any brand over the other because like you I have seen DPMS and DelTon and Anderson that seem to last forever. I have seen a Rock River $2,500 gun with the Bolt Carrier .actually crack and it was not being abused. I do not shoot any one enough to have worn one out ever that I recall. I usually take 2-3 when I go to shoot and let them cool down while shooting others. So, my guns likely will never wear out a barrel.

That's all I was referencing. Unless bump stocks come back I doubt we will see much of that, and ammo cost has increased. FWIW

Stainless barrels have better heat erosion qualities than carbon steel barrels. But (there always is one), the stainless that is/has been used in barrels over the years suffers from two big disadvantages, impact resistance and worse impact resistance as the ambient temperature declines. 416 stainless barrels should never be used in ambient temps lower than 0 degrees. Part of the issue is due to the addition of sulphur to the alloy to make it machinable. Sulphur causes a problem when the barrels are heat treated and can result in "sulphide stringers" in the grain structure. Essentially, this significantly decreases the impact resistance of the stainless and can lead to failures. I believe Tikka experienced this some years ago with their early adoption of stainless barrels. The second part of the issue is due to the tempering range the stainless has to go through to reach the desired rockwell hardness for barrels. 416 stainless for a barrel has to be tempered at 1075 degrees F. The sulphide stringers occur when 416 is tempered between 700-1100 degrees.

410 stainless, which has been used for barrels, doesn't have the sulphur issue, but still suffers some impact resistance degradation when tempered for barrels.

So, what is/was the fix? Along comes a company named "Crucible" that developed 416R stainless. It is proprietary and as far as I know, they are still the only ones producing it. Essentially, they lowered the sulphur amount and added molybdenum to the alloy. 416R barrels are rated to perform down to -40 degrees F.

One other consideration is barrel profile. Even 416R is not 100% immune to temper embrittlement, so this is why you typically see stainless barrels in a heavier contour, in fact, Krieger won't even make a stainless barrel in a profile thinner than a #5.

If you know for a fact your rifle will never see freezing temps, then really, 410 would be a better choice than 416 or 416R as it has the least amount of sulphur content of the three, which translates into less chance of sulphide stringers in the grain structure.

If you really want the "utlimate" in a stainless barrel in terms of corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and strength, then seek out (or have one made) in 17-4PH stainless. It beats all of the 400-series stainless steels like a red headed step child. Just be prepared for the sticker shock. It eats tooling and is hard to machine, which is why barrels made from it tend to be quite pricey.

As for chrome lining carbon steel (or other more modern nitriding or meloniting), most will argue that chrome lined barrels are the epitome of wear resistance. Not surprising considering the chrome lining typically falls somewhere in the 70-72 rockwell hardness. So yeah, 20,000+ rounds in a chrome lined barrel is kids play. However, accuracy is often discussed when talking about a chrome lining. Most everyone I've ever seen talk about their chrome lined barrels all agree that it just isn't as precise.

Stainless barrels have found their way into combat. I've never seen or heard of a soldier that has suffered any sort of barrel life issues or problems with a stainless barrel in combat. Will they wear out sooner than chrome lined, yes, but we're still talking a lot..I mean a LOT of rounds and shooting.

So, what are your needs? Sub-MOA accuracy? longevity? sub-zero temp environments? Corrosion resistance? Combos of all of those? Truth is, with the cost of ammo today, or unless you're some operator jockey or Blackwater merc ripping mag after mag in some far away land for a living, chances are, you'll never wear out a barrel regardless of what it's made of, and will never realistically have to worry about corrosion issues, unless you just don't take care of your firearms.

HydroR said:

Well, then you ain't normal son!

Click to expand...

Your original point was valid though.
Almost no one wears out barrels these days unless you either deploy as a contractor ( and usually not even then) or you attend a lot of carbine courses and have a huge ammo budget.
And in both those cases the cost of replacement barrels will be trivial.

So yes your point is fully valid, almost no one wears out these modern AR15 barrels, as long as they are either quality nitrided or chrome lined ( my favorite) or the modern stainless.

On that note there are some barrles on econmy rifles I would stay away from.
(this is a note to our newbs not to you)

When barrels onyl state "phosphated" under "treatment" specs.
Thats what the army specs on the outside of the barrel for rust protection/oil retention but it offers nearly no hardness protection for the bore.
And if its combined with 4140 barrel steel (=entry level ordnance steel like we had in WW2) then you dont have what I would consider a quality barrel/chamber.

But again the above paragraph is for our newbs benefit, not for you Hydro.