Dinoallison wrote:Do you have any recommendations of a complete upper you like with a 20 in. Barrel? I wanted to go with a 20 in barrel because I Strictly am going to deer hunt with it and I was extremely happy with the accuracy of the gun at 200 yards. Just stinks it won’t cycle correctly.
You need to preface that question with an acceptable price range. You can get excellent quality and reliability
for a fee.
You're in good company with me as I prefer rifles with rifle length barrels myself, not pop guns. I'm not the president of the "rig of the month club" however, so my universe is pretty limited. There are plenty of members who are actively building and rebuilding rigs here, so I'll defer to their experience with readily available components. My first 2k reloads went through a complete 20" Bushmaster upper mounted on an A2 fixed stock, RRA NM lower. The only failures to perform were a result of my experimenting with hand loads on the fringes of what the rifle was designed for. That upper was made almost 10 years ago, before Bushmaster got sold to a
wealth enhancement group so that experience may just be a glimpse of the past. I now hang my hat on a 20" Bartz upper. The fit and finish imply that they are hand made one at a time and definitely tested before they leave their U.S. factory. You pay for that however. With the Bushmaster upper sporting a carbine length gas system, the only time it behaved as "over gassed" was when I was feeding hand loads that were "over gassed" to start with.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will once again state that IMHO, this caliber is plenty lethal at modest velocities. I don't mind pushing my hand load ladder tests up to where I begin to see pressure signs, but I stop there,
back down and don't return, opting instead for the load that is most stable and accurate without living on the edge.
Do write off an entire evening or two to hunt around the sub forums and
read about other member's experiences. We are pretty good about sharing them, both positive as well as negative. We go through the trouble of putting them up so that others can benefit from them.
Hoot