AR15 has pretty bad accuracy?

AR15 accuracy

  • Minute of crown vic is decent for a cheap upper

  • Minute of fat bunny or cat is more what it should look like, even on a cheap one

  • My yugo ak47 shots better when full of mud, you got problems

  • My smooth bore 12 gauge slings rifled slugs better than that, you may have a problem


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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?
 
If those are the things that the AR people you know are saying, find AR people that know a little more about ARs.
First off. PSA has a lifetime warranty. Contact them to see what they will do for you.
Your barrel could have a bad crown or some other defect. If so, PSA will replace it.
It could also be that your rifle just did't like the brand of ammo you were shooting.
 
First I’d wonder why such a short barrel, second is the upper 5.56 or .223, what is the twist you may need a heavier or lighter bullet than 62s. I’m guessing heavier is needed. Others will be along shortly to help you out.
 
The ammo was winchester loose packed 55gr fmj.
The barrel is 16 inchs, standard 7'':1 twist with 5.56 chamber. If it's a reject barrel it may not be 5.56 or 223.

I cut the A frame off the barrel so I could see the target with my optic, not sure of they would allow me to return it.

I could attempt a recrown.
When a squib caused a bore obstruction in my 17hmr it buldged the barrel about 2 inches from the muzzel on my 21'' barrel gun I cut the barrel down to 19'' and did a back yard recrown and was back to eating the bulls eye out of paper targets at 50 yards in no time. So it would appear that I can do an effective recrown job with my welding and automotive tools.

Edit, looking at the crown closely appears that it was buzzed on there with a screw countersink bit for about 2 seconds.
No attempt to cut a decent crown detected.
 
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I suggest double checking the scope and base to make sure they are locked down tight. Then move on to trying a few different types of ammo. With that barrel twist rate, it may do better with the heavier bullets. My Ruger has a 1:8 twist rate and, while it does "okay" with 55 gr. bullets, it shoots noticeably better with 69-75 grainers...
 
Double check your scope and mount- have you used it before on another rifle, and how did it perform? Also try some better ammo. It sounds like a barrel problem- like you got a bad one, or it just doesn't like what you put in it.
 
PSA doesn't sell second-hand rejects from other manufacturers (they do sell "blems", but many people have questioned if they are even actually blems). They buy a lot of their parts second hand from the same houses that Ruger, S&W and basically every other budget AR manufacturer do, but AFAIK it's all brand-new stock.

If it were my gun, I'd tighten the scope rings down with blue Loctite and get 2 or 3 different brands of ammo the next time I was at Wally World or my LGS. Doesn't even need to be expensive stuff, just different than the WWB you have.
 
I have since moved the scope back a little bit to where i liked it better and resecured. The scope appeared to be secured good when I took it off.

Alrighty then, next time I shoot this rifle it will have:
Different kinds of ammo. I will still bring the loose packed 55gr win ammo as a control sample.
Moved the scope, resecured it.
Recrowned the muzzle, doing that today.

But this is pretty horrible accuracy, I'm looking at like 12 to 16 moa when it warms up.
The only time I saw a gun shoot this bad was when I put a scope on a 10/22, I left all the scope screws finger tight because I was going to do the final setting at the range, 3 weeks later I got a chance to go shooting I had forgot all the screws were only finger tight. But it didn't take long to figure out.
 
Having a similar issue with a cheap SAA upper, 16", 1:9 twist, 5.56 chamber. It just does not like 55gr Hornady FMJ-BT bullets. At 25 yards indoor it shoots 1.5" - 2" groups. My loads were LC brass, CFE-223 at 26.0, 26.3, 26.6, 26.9 and 27.2 grains at 2.225" COL. I also used AE 55gr 223 to sight it in, and it was no better. Going to try a ladder test with H335 and Varget before I write off these Hornady 55gr'ers in this barrel. I mean, typically, I'll see some variance in group size throughout the charge weight range, but I just didn't. It was all equally ****e.
 
I would definitely try the suggestions listed above first, if none of them solve the issue you may want to check the fit of the barrel to the upper. It should be a tight fit. Another thing to check is if the face of the upper is square with the bore. Brownell's sells a lapping tool that squares the face using valve grinding paste.
 
Are you certain that the optic itself isn’t broken? My next step would be to swap that out or test it on a different rifle just as a sanity check.
 
PSA has 2 sources for barrels; one is FN for their “premium” uppers, and the other is their own facility, DC Machine, which also produces uppers, lowers, and barrel & receiver extensions. They also carry an unconditional lifetime warranty so if the problem persists, I too urge you to contact them, sawed off fsb or not.

You may not realize it but PSA has now captured half of all US AR sales. That doesn’t happen by accident and to think they managed that feat in 10 years starting in a garage means they’re doing a lot of things right. If you did get a bad one, call them! I’ve been more than satisfied with my PSA purchases to date including the accuracy of the upper I purchased.
 
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.

That's substantially worse than what I would expect. You don't mention what position you're shooting from, but hopefully it's stable enough to tell an 8 MOA gun from a 4 MOA gun. You can definitely try different ammo, but M193 should not be THAT bad. I would consider 4 MOA the minimum standard here, and expect more like 2 MOA.

I think there's been some good suggestions so far. I doubt it's headspace (it never is with ARs) but I would definitely run a patch down the barrel and see if you feel any burrs or tight spots. Then I'd grab the barrel and optic and make sure they're rigid with respect to eachother. Then I'd go over everything: - check the crown, look at the bolt, scope the bore, etc.

Despite what your friends say PSA tries to deliver an acceptable level of quality and they do stand by their products.
 
When guns I've seen that were that bad I've found it to be the optics or mounts more than anything else, but being a new barrel i would also run a patch through it to check for burrs.
 
a few quick thoughts:

what is the parralax for the scope set at? 25yds is pretty close for a scope and can greatly impact accuracy. I have a 22lr that changing the scope caused the 5 shot groups to go from 1.5" at 50 yds to .5" at 50yds

secondly, ammo matters. a friend had a Core AR15 he was shooting with "independence" 55g FMJ ammo and couldn't get it better that 5" at 50yds. it also jammed constantly.

I gave him a PMAG of some of my handloads, hornady 55g FMJ and H335 powder, groups around 1.5" at 100yds for me.

his 50yd group became 2" with iron sights laying prone (no sling or other rest) and perfectly reliable.

I would try better ammo at longer distance (if possible) or with irons if you can't get longer distance
 
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?
Which service did you qualify in? The Army does 40; 36 and up is expert.
Change only one variable at a time, you're trying everything at once.
Shoot from a solid position, preferably a Lead Sled for testing.
M193 is not known for it's stellar accuracy, but if you want a round that approximates M193 velocity that is accurate try 25.8 gr. of BL-C(2) out of LC brass, CCI 400 primers and Hornady 55 gr. BT FMJ.
If your M16A2 was not working properly, it wasn't the rifles fault. They are still comparatively new. The A1 I was issued was as old as I was.
The things on your list might be what's wrong, but trying different ammo is your next step.
 
I suspect that most of the problem is with bullet weight with that 7" in 1 twist. After fixing the crown and making sure the scope is mounted securely I would obtain a variety of ammo with heavier than 55 gr. bullets and see what happens. If no joy I would change scopes. Still got a problem? Contact the maker.

I assume that you are shooting from a stable bench using a good rest system. If not, do so.
 
4 inches at 25 yards has to be optics, or something so loose it's obvious. This isn't an ammo or crown I don't think. A "solid 4 inches" at 25 would be a 16 inch group at 100 minimum. Likely much more.
You can shoot 35 grain vmax in a 1:7 twist barrel and not come close to that bad. And ive seen sawzall barrel length adjustments that weren't nearly that bad either. 4 inches at 100... sure. But not 4 inches at 25
 
Aside from the gun and the ammo used, it could be anything from uneven sling pressure to forearm bounce off of a rest. My money is on the notion that it's -probably- not the gun or ammo; not for results that spectacularly bad at such short range.
 
4 inches at 25 yards has to be optics, or something so loose it's obvious. This isn't an ammo or crown I don't think. A "solid 4 inches" at 25 would be a 16 inch group at 100 minimum. Likely much more.

That was my thought as well. I feel like an issue with the barrel bad enough to make it shoot effectively 16 MOA would be glaringly obvious, and even then throwing out 4 inches at 25 yards seems extreme.

Anyone happen to know what the optic in question is set for as far as parallax? I found that it isn't adjustable parallax, but couldn't find what it is actually set at. If the mount or scope isn't secure in some way and you add in some parallax error, even as little as you might get at 3x magnification, maybe it could add up?

Mistwolf could be into something too with the barrel nut especially since I'm assuming it isn't free foated.
 
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