Hmac wrote:Seismic Sam wrote:Hmac wrote:Accuracy is far from the most important element in assessing the quality of an AR-15.
In some sense I'm sure your right, but at the end of the day or TSHTF either your bullets were on target and you're still alive, or you missed and you're dead. Yes, you can have jam failures and a lot of other things, but you're still dead if your gun runs like a Swiss watch but won't put the bullets on the target.
It's a combat weapon, not a bench rest rifle. I want to be able to shoot an 8 inch group at 100 yards. There are very few ARs that won't do that and most will shoot 2-3 MOA. The weak spot isn't accuracy, it's reliablity. The most accurate M&P/Bushmaster/DPMS or other price-point rifle in the world is no good as a defensive rifle it it won't stay in the fight because of substandard parts and corner-cutting in the QA department.
Accuracy is not the most important component of an AR.
I disagree. An AR can be built to serve any purpose you want it to. Whether that is defense, benchrest/target shooting, varmint hunting, big game hunting, competition in multiple disciplines and in a variety of .22 rimfire capacities. I think I'm up to 9 AR platform guns now, all built to fill different roles and none of them are alike, but if any one of them shot an 8 MOA group it would be shortly laying in pieces. You saying the only use for an AR is as a combat weapon sounds like it's coming straight out of the Anti's playbook.
As far as reliability goes. With more years of hunting and competitive shooting with AR's that I even care to think about anymore. I can only remember having one malfunction that disabled a rifle and it wasn't even the guns fault. In my varmint/target rifle I had switched to a wax based sizing lube for my accuracy loads and it gummed up the chamber after a few hundred rounds out P-doggin, I had a case get stuck in the chamber. Extractor ripped a chunk of the rim right off the case and needed a cleaning rod to pop it out. That's it. In 20 years of coyote hunting, p-doggin, target shooting and 3-gun competition with countless thousands of rounds, I've had one true stoppage. I guess I don't see a weak spot in reliability based off my own experience.
2-3 MOA........pfft