Practical AR15 Accuracy

GymB

GymB

Picking it up slowly.
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maybe a silly question, but isn’t that what the internet is for? I asked Siri, she didn’t know.

Shooting standing, unsupported. 30 round group, 3 minute clock, 25 yards (i’m indoors, an issue to be resolved).

Couple fliers got me a 4” group, had a handful at 3” and 20+ inside 2”. Plan is to work to a 2” group and then either reduce time or go to 10 round groups and reduce time. Need to move outdoors to add distance and increase tempo for smaller groups without irritating the ROs.

Frankly my biggest issue is strength, the weight of the rifle and my flabby left arm. Need to work on that without wasting ammo.

Thoughts?
 
Iron sights?
How big of a target?

I found that, at closer range, my group sizes improve significantly with a small 3/4"dot for the aim point instead of a traditional 10x-9-8-7 ring target.
 
Target is a 2” dot on a white sheet of printer paper. Maybe I’ll try something smaller.

I was using irons, but have switched to an ACOG at least temporarily. Added it and an SSA-E trigger to my M&P AR15 PSX making it even more fun than it was the week before!
 
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That don't sound bad at 25.
I've got a 4" gong at 100 yards and I'm happy to hit it as much as I do. Nikon 3-9x40.
I could probably do better if I took the cigar out of my mouth.
I'm starting to hit that 4" more often with the AR10 here lately. Me and the AR10 are coming to an understanding.
 
Off a rest a decent AR should run about 2 MOA with decent ammo ... better ammo might drop it lower depending on the AR ... so at 25 yards off a rest 1/2” should be possible. Your 2” goal is very doable with tuning your mechanics ... stance, hold and breathing to get more steady ... repeatable sight alignment ... trigger manipulation ... in others words make sure you correct bad habits and then quality range time.

ETA: oops ... I’m thinking 3 to 5 shot groups. Your talking 30 rounds ... the human factor will be more here as well as the likelihood the barrel heating up will open up groups. I still think at 25 yards with practice you could make you 2” goal with practice.
 
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Someone more versed will fix the numbers, but practical accuracy is an equation if barrel MOA potential + ammo MOA potential + shooter skill.

Taking a class a while back I was becoming irritated that I wasn’t cutting the bullseye out of a 100 yard target. The instructor was kind enough to be explain to me that at that range a 1 MOA barrel plus the 2 MOA ammo would at best average a 3 inch group at 100 yards >if< I was shooting absolutely perfectly.

Since then, my practical accuracy for my “defense” ARs has been more akin to Center Mass at 100 yards consistently.


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For my hd ar I’m happy with a pie tin sized group shooting as you stated at 50 yards.


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I feel pretty good about 5 round groups into 2” but the arm, and to a lesser extent the abs are harder to control as I get to the end of the mag, even if I increase the pace and take a little break. I’m gonna stick to full mags to help build strength.

Side note, had 10 inside 2” and was so worried about screwing up the group that I had a flier. Doesn’t bode well for performance under pressure. Waiting for the neurologist to clear me, then I’ll take a class and embarrass myself, should be fun.

@B00ger maybe I’ll get it on bags sometime this summer so I can work the math, but for now I assume that the barrel is way more accurate than I am.

@Friday isn’t a 4” gong at 100 roughly the same as 1” at 25? I’ll try to count next time, but I think I’d be below 50%. AR10 is too heavy for me, I’m a soft pasty office worker during the day.
 
Jim I can get you some range time outdoors to 300 yds any time you like just around the corner from you.
 
3-4 MOA was going to be my answer with irons

If you’re ever back in this area, I can give you some pointers at the range (free of course).

There are a lot of unanswered questions and rationale for my response

What’s the platform? Ammo? Sights? Then more would be your own fundamentals which I could better see while you shoot than have you describe.

But with a standard 1:7 16” off the rack milspec AR with Iron sights and 55gr bulk pack, 3-4 MOA is a very realistic figure.
 
JimB said:
@Friday isn’t a 4” gong at 100 roughly the same as 1” at 25? I’ll try to count next time, but I think I’d be below 50%. AR10 is too heavy for me, I’m a soft pasty office worker during the day.
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Maybe I guess. But I sure as heck ain't hitting the center 1" every time. Anywhere in that 4" circle and it goes clang and I figure that counts. :D
 
With my Armalite carbine, and a 1x prism optic, I've been able to shoot 4-5" 10-round groups at 100 yards pretty often. Sitting and bracing my elbows on a bench shrinks that down a bit.

For me it varies by AR, but all of mine will hold within a 6" circle at 100 yards with exception of my pistol. Part of me thinks I should try heavier ammo with it, but at the same time, I wonder if its worthwhile, considering it's just a pistol.
 
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rantingredneck said:
Question. Are you using a good 2 point sling to help stabilize the rifle/your support hand?
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No, which might be a mistake, but it is on the list. Please recommend one and I’ll get it ordered.

Catfish said:
Jim I can get you some range time outdoors to 300 yds any time you like just around the corner from you.
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Thanks! I’ll take you up on that!

11B CIB said:
If you’re ever back in this area, I can give you some pointers at the range (free of course).
But with a standard 1:7 16” off the rack milspec AR with Iron sights and 55gr bulk pack, 3-4 MOA is a very realistic figure.
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Appreciate the offer. 3-4 MOA is gonna be an inch at 25 if my understanding of the math is correct, so I’ve got some work to do, which is what I expected. Will absolutely let you know if I get out your way.

Friday said:
Maybe I guess. But I sure as heck ain't hitting the center 1" every time. Anywhere in that 4" circle and it goes clang and I figure that counts. :D
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LOl, you misunderstand, I need to put them into 1” at 25 to equal you hitting your 4” at 100. I think 1” @ 100 would be 1 MOA, and that’d be a tough standard for standing unsupported.

Combat Diver said:
Google the Army Marksmanship Unit Rifle training manual.
CD
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Found http://www.nfga.org/highpower/pdfs/basic_highpower_info/SR_Shooting_Guide_AMU031204.pdf
Also FM3-22-9 looks interesting, as does this that looks like a train-the-trainer program from any corporation, just missing the PowerPoints! http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA544533
 
Blue Force Gear Vickers or Magpul MS1/MS4 for the sling. Either works well, best is a matter of preference. I slightly prefer the Magpul for ergonomics sake. If you have physical limitations with your support hand and the weight of the rifle a good sling could help. Make sure you match the attachment points of the sling you order to what is installed (or what you will install) on your rifle.
 
I'm very pleased with my Magpul ms4
 
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JimB said:
LOl, you misunderstand, I need to put them into 1” at 25 to equal you hitting your 4” at 100. I think 1” @ 100 would be 1 MOA, and that’d be a tough standard for standing unsupported.
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Sometimes I'll be dancing all around that 4" but not hit it. So I'll move over to the 8" and 10" I have hanging at the same distance. I'll hit those every time unless I get lazy. And that kind of confirms that the guns are doing there job, I'm just not doing mine.
I have a 12" at 125 yards and that one is pretty do-able. I mostly use that one for long distance pistol play. There's a 3" gong I have at 110 yards, and I can hit that one about 30% of the time with the 15. I don't think I've hit it yet with the 10.
I really don't consider myself a great shot. I would rate myself as acceptable, but far from expert or great. Someone with a sweet rifle that knew how to use it could probably hit that 3" all day long.
 
JimB said:
Target is a 2” dot on a white sheet of printer paper. Maybe I’ll try something smaller.

I was using irons, but have switched to an ACOG at least temporarily. Added it and an SSA-E trigger to my M&P AR15 PSX making it even more fun than it was the week before!
Click to expand...

Alright then here's an old guy answer and you may or may not believe nor like it.

At 25yds, standing, offhand, no sling on a good day, I can put 7 shots into under 2 in with my 69cal 1842 Macon smoothbore equipped only with an excuse of a front blade. That's at 2 shots per minute. At wartime speed of 3+ per minute and it will open up a bit to 4 in. BUT, I shoot that gun quite a bit. While it's the short bus kid in the safe, it's loads of fun to shoot.

Now for the analysis and I'll keep it to the short version. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PRACTICE! That's as true for modern guns as it is for muzzleloaders. Want to get proficient? Get ready to spend money on ammo. All the doodads in the world are just a crutch for poor technique and lack of practice and yes, I shoot that smoothbore every week and in North South Skirmish Association matches. The scary part, I'm probably only in the upper 50% of our shooters.
 
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Cliff notes version

There is no substitute for trigger time, practice, and proper shooting technique.

Stop shooting off a bench if you want to get good.
 
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What ammo and twist in the barrel? M855 acceptable spec is 4moa.

My personal spec with any rifle is based on the ammo that's in it
 
Dave951 said:
THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PRACTICE! Get ready to spend money on ammo. All the doodads in the world are just a crutch for poor technique and lack of practice
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I agree about practice, and have far more ammo than I have time to shoot it. I do think that some doodads are probably useful, say slings.

Dave951 said:
Stop shooting off a bench if you want to get good.
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I rarely shoot off a bench, sometimes with a new gun or optic or load.

Ikarus1 said:
What ammo and twist in the barrel? M855 acceptable spec is 4moa.
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This gets back to the calculation of absolute accuracy, suppose that I could shoot it off the bench to get a baseline. For now I’m shooting xm193 in a 1-7 barrel.
 
backwoodsshooter said:
Minute of man between 100-200 yards is acceptable to me. Cause that covers minutes of venison and man at those distances.
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IMO that is the correct answer. If you want to shoot minute groups buy or build the correct rifle for that. Typical AR is not that weapon.
 
JimB said:
I agree about practice, and have far more ammo than I have time to shoot it. I do think that some doodads are probably useful, say slings.


I rarely shoot off a bench, sometimes with a new gun or optic or load.


This gets back to the calculation of absolute accuracy, suppose that I could shoot it off the bench to get a baseline. For now I’m shooting xm193 in a 1-7 barrel.
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As for doodads, get acquainted with a bare firearm with irons first, then add another level of complexity. Without an idea of how you shoot without crutches or training wheels, you'll have no realistic idea of whether the doodad is helping or hindering. I've also heard it called the Mall Ninja Paradox.

Bench shooting is only to establish the actual precision capability of the firearm. Note I didn't say accuracy. The two terms are NOT equal.

There is another term to be familiar with- Natural Point of Aim. To find yours, stand with the firearm in your hands as you would to shoot. Close your eyes, raise gun to shooting position, open eyes and see where it is pointing. Do it several times and you'll start to see a pattern of where your body will naturally want to point the gun when you shoulder it. Shoot from that position and you will remove some of the tension in your stance that will cause the wobble while aiming. Trigger control- depending on the geometry of your hand relative to grip and trigger, find the place on your finger that the trigger pull will have the LEAST amount of deflection on the trigger while pulling, it's not the same for two different guns. Follow through, also lumped in with controlling flinching and jerking. Any flinch or jerk, for whatever reason, while shooting will throw off your aim. On a muzzleloader, just lifting your head from the stock at ignition can lead to a 6in miss at 100yds. The usual cause for rookies is the jerk reaction when the cap goes off or frizzen strikes the sparks in the pan. In a modern arm, it can be from anticipation of the muzzle blast (can you stand still while popping a balloon?) to a poor trigger pull. Trigger control, follow through and the Natural POA are critical to success in shooting muzzleloaders and if you have it cold for a front stuffer, the modern stuff will make you look like a rock star but again, it won't come without practice. Sorry, but I didn't make the rules here.
 
Dave951 said:
As for doodads, get acquainted with a bare firearm with irons first, then add another level of complexity. Without an idea of how you shoot without crutches or training wheels, you'll have no realistic idea of whether the doodad is helping or hindering. I've also heard it called the Mall Ninja Paradox.

Bench shooting is only to establish the actual precision capability of the firearm. Note I didn't say accuracy. The two terms are NOT equal.

There is another term to be familiar with- Natural Point of Aim. To find yours, stand with the firearm in your hands as you would to shoot. Close your eyes, raise gun to shooting position, open eyes and see where it is pointing. Do it several times and you'll start to see a pattern of where your body will naturally want to point the gun when you shoulder it. Shoot from that position and you will remove some of the tension in your stance that will cause the wobble while aiming. Trigger control- depending on the geometry of your hand relative to grip and trigger, find the place on your finger that the trigger pull will have the LEAST amount of deflection on the trigger while pulling, it's not the same for two different guns. Follow through, also lumped in with controlling flinching and jerking. Any flinch or jerk, for whatever reason, while shooting will throw off your aim. On a muzzleloader, just lifting your head from the stock at ignition can lead to a 6in miss at 100yds. The usual cause for rookies is the jerk reaction when the cap goes off or frizzen strikes the sparks in the pan. In a modern arm, it can be from anticipation of the muzzle blast (can you stand still while popping a balloon?) to a poor trigger pull. Trigger control, follow through and the Natural POA are critical to success in shooting muzzleloaders and if you have it cold for a front stuffer, the modern stuff will make you look like a rock star but again, it won't come without practice. Sorry, but I didn't make the rules here.
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mall ninja paradox, I like that. The vast majority of my shooting is with irons, I have optics only on this AR, a single shot 300blk and a contender in 22 hornet, and I’m fine shooting irons. As my vision degrades with age I plan to shift more to optics.

I’m with you on precision vs accuracy, natural point of aim and trigger control. Not sure why you keep bringing up the need to practice and implying that I expect results without effort, you’ve obviously misunderstood something I said.

backwoodsshooter said:
Minute of man between 100-200 yards is acceptable to me. Cause that covers minutes of venison and man at those distances.
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And this brings us back to the question because min of man at 200 is going to work out to about that 2” target at 25. So, plan is to continue working towards that level of consistency in this position.
 
Another way to improve accuracy is just put up a blank piece of typing paper as a target. Want to see some really good shooters go bsc , attend an idpa t-shirt match, shooters who have trained themselves to aim at a specific place on the target, such as a down zero circle or a red target dot, on their practice targets are all over the place with no specific point of aim for their minds to lock onto. So staple up the typing paper, start with just getting all the shoots on the paper then start working the group's down in size . Just my 2 cents
 
In North South Skirmish competition, shooting iron sighted Civil War era weapons, off hand only, one of our main stages is a clay pigeon on a sheet of brown cardboard at 50yds. There are 4 pigeons per man, 8 men on a Nationals team and 5 on a regionals. A clay is 4in in diameter, or an 8moa target at 50yds. HOWEVER, while I can whack them with boring regularity at my home range in practice, when the horn sounds and clocks are running in an actual match, they have this amazing ability to shrink suddenly to about 1moa and seem to be able to dodge minie balls or have a deflector shield for protection.

The point I'm driving at here is competition is great for seeing just how steady you can be and I'll also emphasize practice again as much as possible.
 
Dave951 said:
In North South Skirmish competition, shooting iron sighted Civil War era weapons, off hand only, one of our main stages is a clay pigeon on a sheet of brown cardboard at 50yds. There are 4 pigeons per man, 8 men on a Nationals team and 5 on a regionals. A clay is 4in in diameter, or an 8moa target at 50yds. HOWEVER, while I can whack them with boring regularity at my home range in practice, when the horn sounds and clocks are running in an actual match, they have this amazing ability to shrink suddenly to about 1moa and seem to be able to dodge minie balls or have a deflector shield for protection.

The point I'm driving at here is competition is great for seeing just how steady you can be and I'll also emphasize practice again as much as possible.
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I can imagine. It doesn’t matter if you’re shooting or making pen on the lathe, as soon as you put a clock on it gets an order of magnitude harder.

Went shooting yesterday and could not get groups to shrink. Turns out that while the gun will run it does apparently help to clean the barrel at 1,000 rounds or so, lots of copper.
 
IMO, I would service (clean) it and get it on bags at 100yds as soon as you can and see what it is capable of. Eliminating the "shooter" variable as much as practical when setting up the system seems to keep me from wasting ammo... lol!

When you start shooting from your standing positions and start running the gun, youshould have a really good base line.

As an example,
This (5) shot group was shot off of bags by my brother using a 16" barreled AR with 69 grain ammo. The "bags" were 5lb burlap sacks filled with dry pinto beans.

Distance = 200 yards Altitude = 5,000 elevation ( Northern Arizona )

WP_20140822_008.jpg

WP_20140822_010.jpg
 
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rantingredneck said:
Blue Force Gear Vickers or Magpul MS1/MS4 for the sling. Either works well, best is a matter of preference. I slightly prefer the Magpul for ergonomics sake. If you have physical limitations with your support hand and the weight of the rifle a good sling could help. Make sure you match the attachment points of the sling you order to what is installed (or what you will install) on your rifle.
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The rifle has a fixed swivel in the rear and a QD point on the bottom of the gas block, so order the MS1 and a MS1 to MS4 adapter (https://www.magpul.com/products/ms1-ms4-adapter)?
 
JimB said:
The rifle has a fixed swivel in the rear and a QD point on the bottom of the gas block, so order the MS1 and a MS1 to MS4 adapter (https://www.magpul.com/products/ms1-ms4-adapter)?
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If you have a fixed point in the rear that is thread through you won't need the MS4 adapter. You'll just need an inexpensive QD swivel for the front and you can direct thread the rear through whatever type of loop is on your stock. The MS4 adapter is meant to be used on the rear with a QD point equipped end plate. It converts the 2 point MS1 into a single point sling (MS4 is to be used either way).
 
MS4 as a 2 point....

IMG_20180604_192427.jpg

MS4 as a single point.....

IMG_20180604_192502.jpg
 
Screenshot_20180604-193148.png

There are cheaper options but if you want to stick with Magpul here you go. It may be as cheap to buy the MS1 already equipped with swivels and just remove the rear for a thread through option. Save that QD for your next rifle or as a spare.
 
rantingredneck said:
View attachment 59035

There are cheaper options but if you want to stick with Magpul here you go. It may be as cheap to buy the MS1 already equipped with swivels and just remove the rear for a thread through option. Save that QD for your next rifle or as a spare.
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Thank you much!
 
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One other thing to consider before buying stuff- physical conditioning. It does play a huge role in shooting offhand at any kind of speed.

Back when I was active in the 3g pew pew game, I noticed early on that the better shooters were invariably in decent physical shape. Fat guys have issues running and add carrying a rifle and shooting to the mix and it's no mystery why they can't hit a barn from inside. That holds true for the office cube jockey too. I've also seen skinny pasty white office weenies get pooped out from just toting their gun and ammo between stages.

I'll revisit my original position, conditioning, technique and practice are essential to successful shooting. It's not magic nor hard but it does take some dedication.
 
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