Why Your AR15 Isn’t Accurate
A lot of people have decided to rush and buy their first AR15. Despite spending thousands on “High End AR’s” many are finding that they are getting 2-5+ MOA results and needing to clean or lube their guns often. This comes down to a dozen factors but most often its that mass produced off the shelfs rifles do not get the propper fitting with parts that they deserve.
AR-15s can be obscenely accurate. The design lends itself to consistency, making it an anomaly in the semiautomatic rifle world.
Perhaps the primary reason is that unlike other semiauto rifles, the standard gas-impingement AR-15 doesn’t have a bunch of moving piston parts hanging off its barrel – meaning it can effectively be free-floated.
However, a lot of AR-15 rifles and carbines aren’t all that accurate – certainly not as accurate as their owners hoped. Several things can be done about that.
- Choosing the right parts (Barrel, BCG, Upper, Lower, Handguard, Trigger)
- Getting the right fit in each part (A lot of shops now and days do not properly fit their rifles from the factory. This leads to small imperfections that make parts fit improperly and are not corrected.)
- Choosing the right ammo/caliber. (AR15’s are multicaliber platforms. Maybe the standard .223/5.56 arent the best caliber for you. If you’re looking for a more powerful and accurate round you might want to look at 6.5 Grendel)
I would really like you to focus on the 2nd bullet point. This is so often overlooked by new consumers that major manufacturers could be doing it so wrong and not explain properly. When your mass producing rifles, the result is cutting down costs, but often also cutting down quality. Without manually fitting parts properly you end up with a reliable but innaccurate firearm. Take 2011’s or 1911’s for example. Most high end manufacturers who make these guns for comptetion do not mass produce these types of guns because they have to be to tighly fit together to make them accurate and reliable firearms. There’s a big debate among the two larger 2011/1911 manufacturers where one is growing traction and the other has moved to mass production. SOme argue that that production style has made their product less desirable and lacks in accuracy and quality while the company who is just now gaining traction is becoming the replacement and taking a good portion of the largers companies clients. We wont name anyone here for the sake of staying out of that debate.
TLDR version, sometimes buying local means you get a better product than bigger brands.