I'd appreciate some feedback on a potential re-construct of my rifle as pictured below. I've used a 10.3" based around a Colt barrel as my primary AR for several years now. Generally speaking I like it a lot and do not have reliability issues, even when running suppressed. What I'm wondering about is moving to an 11.5" barrel. An inch isn't that much (that's what she said), but the numbers say it's quite a bit when it comes to velocity. I use 62gr Speer Gold Dot, which is less reliant on velocity for terminal performance, but it's still only about a 150yd gun. My idea of a mini-recce is really a do-all gun. There's not enough distance in my local terrain to warrant a true long range gun, but the 200yd out to maybe a 400yd max envelope is realistic.
If I could just go buy an 11.5" Colt HRT barrel for anything like $300, I'd probably just do it and be done. Unfortunately the ones I can find are $500-$700. I do have a new-in-box factory Colt 10.3 as a backup/replacement to my current barrel along with a bolt. If I were to go 11.5, ultimately I would want two.
Finally, from an optics perspective, I have always had an Aimpoint on my 10.3 and when I had a magnified gun (LPVO or ACOG) it was on an upper built around a 14.5" SOCOM barrel. One thing I really liked about those barrels was their accuracy. Here's a 10-shot 100yd group out of one of those 14.5 SOCOM barrels using a 3.5X TA11 ACOG:
By contrast, this 10.3 Colt (gov profile) with same ammo is almost 2MOA:
So my hope is that with an 11.5" HRT barrel, which is heavy profile, I could get more velocity = better terminal performance, plus the added accuracy benefit.
Short of forking out $500-$700 for a barrel, anyone have any other thoughts to get the performance, or just stick with the 10.3 for what it is (reliable, short, reasonably accurate)?
Current setup:
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TGS @
HCM