Alright so I have wanted an AR for a long time I just never really new what I wanted. So I really like punching paper and have been doing that my whole life. It has always been with Bolt Action target rifles. Mainly centerfires but also alot of .22's. I have always shot Bench Rest so that will mainly be what this gun is for. I am wanting to go out west and shoot prairie dogs and most likely will as soon as it warms up. I am just not sure which root I should go. I have been checking them out on Websites. Such as RRA, Bushmaster, DPMS, and Colt. I have found that all of them have a varmint line of gun. To me it seems as though they would carry the accuracy I am looking for with out having to break the bank to say. The have the Free Floating Barrel, Uprgraded Triggers, and The heavy barrell. I am just mainly wanting some guidance as to which rifle you might point me towards so that I can get the accuracy I am looking for. Now I do understand I may have to upgrade or change out parts to get me even closer to the accuracy I am wanting. For instance I am not sure whether to go with the 24" or 20" barrell. Which twist to go with 1:8, 1:10, 1:12 and so on an so forth. Iunderstand that is the Rifling but I am not sure which to go with. I also understand that has to do with which Grain bullet I will be shooting. Realisticaly I will be shooting wolf or whatever else cheap stuff I can get my hands on unless I am shooting for money, Match or some other reason I would need to use qaulity ammo. I will definately be shooting paper but I also want it to be versatile enoguh to do whatever may need to be done. This gun will not be for home protection I have plenty of Pistols for that. I have just never been interested in something as vesatile and that has such a wide array of parts available. I have always just had centerfire rifle built with a Remington action and a MCmillan stock. So this is a completely different animal for me. I would like to stay reasonably priced and I have been looking so I do have and idea of what it will cost me. Also I would like to throw in that I am not completly against building a rifle. thanks for any input.

set-up looks like you are starting out right.

The down fall to your desires is everyone is minimum (12) weeks or longer wait time for a Rifle unless you find one in stock at a Gun Shop, Gun Show, heck the guy next door.
The obama panic has placed the gun-owners into defcon 2 and everything is being bought at a alarming rate.
My best advise is start buying the parts and build one, that will be the fastest way for you to obtain you AR.

Manufacturers I would recommend are:
Charles Daly
DPMS
RRA
Double Star
CMMG

With the heavier bullet you are wanting to shoot I would go with the 1/7 twist.

I just found this upper does this look like a good starting place to your or am I going in the complete wrong direction. Also I should have mentioned I would likt to be able to shoot in excess of 200 yds. http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/...&t=11082005 After I posted this I saw where it said out of stock no back order. So do you think you might could give me some advice on where else to look

This post has been edited by stepup: November 27th 2008 11:03 PM

After you said that I went and checked out double star and you have really got me to thinking. They look like very good rifles. Now if I want to change out the trigger on a Double Star will it interchange with every thing else just like a bushy or RRA. I am haveing a hard time wrapping my head around everything being interchangeable with these guns. That goes againts everything you ever learned about guns.

Yes Sir they will, AR is probably the most versatile platform for a weapon there is.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, I bet you this one is a Tack driver.
Charles Daly

I'm sure. To me that is a nice clean looking gun as all of the AR's are. I guess that is why I have fell in love.

The same principles and rules of thumb for guns apply to ARs. The longer the barrel the better the accuracy and higher the twist ratio lower the bullet weight.

One of the major advantages of the AR is its light weight. Its that same light weight that often gets thrown to the wind when someone wants to build a nail driver. Items such as 24" bull barrels and bipods are very common in these applications as well as anything that would eliminate any variance or movement to the rifle such as fixed stocks.

Some people put great stock in two stage /precision triggers and others do not. How much emphasis you place on it depends a lot on your shooting technique, things like trigger pull or shooting from a rifle fixed position or not.

Rifle twist ratio is really like taking out your crystal ball and predicting which ammunition you plan to use. Some people build rifles for one grain weight and others for as many as they can. Its good to keep in mind when discussing this that the 5.56mm is pretty light bullet. Even with a good ballistic coefficient, its going to have some pretty good windage impact over distance.

The M16 with a 20" barrel and 1:14 twist (not standard issue now) with 55 grain ammunition was considered to have a 650m effective range to hit a half silhouette. It was later found due to air density in cold weather at 1:14 the round lost ballistics and that was lowered to the 1:12 we see more common today. Pretty much the AR is a weapon designed for 300m and most barrel lengths with match twist to round do that very well. Obviously the heavier the bullet the farther you can reach with some precision. The 1:7 is very popular for heavier rounds either due to short barrels or grain weights above 62 grain. There's some fantastic bullets with great ballistic coefficients in the higher grain sizes. The twists in between the 1:7 and 1:12 are pretty much compromise twists capable of handling different grain weights fairly well. The 1:8 and 1:9 are becoming far more common in recent years due to this.

Now to be honest due to its small bullet size when you are really reaching out there, putting it where you wanted to is much more call for jubilation than say with a .308. The 5.56mm does though offer a unique challenge for the distance shooter which can be quite exhilarating. So much so, I caution new buyers that it is very addicting and the temptation to experiment with different bullets and weights very strong.

Anyway I hope this helps some.

Tj

hsracer is getting his new Charles Daly Defense DV-24 Upper this week. If you click on the link, scroll down until you come to the DV-24 upper image. This one has the 24" stainless steel bull barrel with a 1:8 twist. Perhaps hs will let us know how it shoots...

as soon as i get it i will be test firing it.

Congrats!



TS