I got one of those palmetto state armory 16 inch uppers with parts kit for $260.
The lower is a ruger, not home made plastic or 80%.
The optic is a leopold cqt mark 4.
I take it out to get it on paper at 25yd with M193 type ammo.
First thing I notice is its shooting nearly 2 inch groups at 25 yards. I figure that's kind of bad. But for $260 I can't complain too much.
Then the gun warms up, based on touching hot metal surfaces at work I would say it was around 140F then the groups open up to a solid 4 inches at 25yds.
So from pretty bad to even worse.
The only thing it did right was it fully cycled every shot. No .mil M16A2 I ever shot could say that. I do okay with this this platform, I had always been able to shoot at least 44 out of 50 hits qualifying, twice I got 49 out of 50. I could never get 50 out of 50.
I figure I should give it one more chance. Maybe it just shoots exceptionally bad with 55gr ammo. Try 62 and 70gr ammo.
Allow more cool down time.
Find a smaller mag, do a better rest setup. But I did fine every other time with a 30 round mag. So that might not help much.
If I don't get any improvement with heavier ammo and more cool down I figure possible problems are:
The upper is made of armalite reject parts and the barrel is junk.
It just failed an accuracy test at the factory and got sold cheap to PSA, so it's possibly fixable.
The barrel may have a gas port burr.
The head spacing is messed up.
That's what the AR people I know are saying. Before now I just shot them, not worked on them.
Other?
Options are:
Shelve it get another upper, this is the most likely option for now.
But eventually I will unshelve the upper and do something with it.
Fix it, It seems the upper will at least need a barrel adjustment, if not a new barrel.
Sell it for cheap at a gun show.
What do you think?