Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

APR Rifle Accuracy

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    APR Rifle Accuracy

    I’m considering pulling the trigger on one. What kind of accuracy should I expect ? I saw some post about some quality control issues with the TBH special deal. Thanks in advance.

    #2
    APR Rifle Accuracy

    Originally posted by Null90 View Post
    I’m considering pulling the trigger on one. What kind of accuracy should I expect ? I saw some post about some quality control issues with the TBH special deal. Thanks in advance.





    This is a 5 shot group from mine. My brother shot the 3 and I shot 2. We were sighting it in and cleaning the barrel after every shot. First high shot was after the last cleaning then the other 4 below it.



    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Comment


      #3
      Wow

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Black Ice View Post



        This is a 5 shot group from mine. My brother shot the 3 and I shot 2. We were sighting it in and cleaning the barrel after every shot. First high shot was after the last cleaning then the other 4 below it.



        Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
        Factory or hand loads ?

        Comment


          #5
          My buddy has 5 rifles from them his newest 300 win mag shot a 5 shot group

          Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

          Comment


            #6
            It's been excellent in the 4 that I've owned. Three of them held .5 moa to 600 yards. The forth is in delayed load development due to deer season but I feel like it will meet or exceed the above. I'm working slowly with it to get it to 1000. Of the three tested to 600, they all have repeatedly hit a 6 inch gong at 600 first shot from a cold bore.

            The first two were from the first TBH group buy with Douglas barrels. One of them wouldn't shoot very well, vertically stringing about 1.5 inches at best. After considerable testing I contacted Robert and told him all that I had done. He asked me to check one thing and retest. That didn't work so I sent the rifle back to him and APR re-barreled with an upgrade to a Bartlein at no charge to me.

            Also on that group buy he called me to say that the run out on the barrel for my other build didn't meet his specs. It had met the Douglas spec but he wasn't thrilled with it. I had the option of cutting 2 inches off the barrel making it a 24 or having Douglas replace the barrel. Take a guess which route I took.

            Finally, here's a 25 shot group while fire forming 22-250AI brass. This includes foulers as I cleaned every 5 rounds.
            Attached Files

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Null90 View Post
              Factory or hand loads ?


              Factory


              Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

              Comment


                #8
                You should ask the Axis I got this weekend with mine. Using factory Hornady it shoots sub moa.
                The issue you refer to was a limited issue that they have taken care of on any that got by them. Most were caught and fixed before they left.
                Attached Files

                Comment


                  #9

                  Comment


                    #10

                    These 2 back to back groups were shot out our first APR which is actually my oldest son’s.

                    We now have 3 and they all shoot about the same. I have mounted optics and sighted in 4 others with factory ammo and they all shot 3/8” groups on average.

                    These include 6.5 CM, 260AI, 308, 3x 280AI and a 338 RUM.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      If you get a custom gun that is test fired by APR then you should expect to see the same results...a lot of that depends on the shooter & ammo obviously. Other considerations one needs to concede to the the builder are the applications & calibers.

                      If I ask APR to build me a tight neck 6ppc on a benchrest action, then I am going to expect .200 & better & most of that is luck on a hummer bbl shooting 5 / 5 shot group strings. If it's a lightweight mountain hunting rig in a traditional caliber, then consistent 1/2 moa 3 shots from a cold bore to me is just an outstanding of a build. We demand a lot from the $$$$ spent for a custom rig & most likely put too much pressure on the builder. I'll likely have APR makes something for me someday & will ask them to take their time & test shoot it as much as they want. My preference is to take the long road on customs & don't send it till they are warm & fuzzy. FWIW.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Null90,

                        Thanks for considering us for your next build. Thanks everyone else for posting targets. I can speak to the accuracy guarantee, and this is probably a good time and place to do it. It will be long, so bear with me.

                        We do give a sub-MOA guarantee. Honestly, it's kind of a catch-all and should match up with most any combination of components that are going to be used - most times. We realized a long time ago that it would be foolish to give a hard number "guarantee" when many component/chambering options would make it impossible to live up to. We much prefer to operate under the "if you're not happy, we're not happy" guarantee. I have not seen that fail to work out yet. If we built on a certain blueprint and limited it to certain chamberings we could probably give an impressive hard number guarantee. But we build titanium/carbon fly-weights up to heavy 2 mile rigs in any chambering a customer requests. It would be quite a challenge to build a mountain rifle in 35 Whelen for a customer that only shoots factory ammo and give him a 1/2 MOA guarantee...with a straight face. I would question any builder that would. There are a ton of variables that control group size. Variables that we absolutely can't control. Shooter ability, hand loading ability, factory ammo availability, lot to lot inconsistencies in that factory ammo.....you get the point.

                        What we can control is the process to produce the rifles. We cut our chambers in a rigid fixturing system with a flush coolant set up and are able to keep concentricity to the bore within .0001 on average. It is checked and logged throughout the entire process. I have filing cabinet drawers full of chamber logs from the rifles we build. It's a good data reference to help spot trends. We also bed it stress-free into whichever stock platform the customer picks. There is always "luck of the draw" when it comes to individual barrels, but at this point there is nothing that can be done to enhance the rifle's accuracy potential no matter the builder. Stress-free and straight is stress free and straight. We're basically testing ammo more than the gun itself at this point.

                        So now you're down to finding what the barrel likes, as every barrel will have its own preferences(assuming you didn't get a dud blank). This is a good time to address barrels and temper expectations. If you take 10 barrels from ANY top name maker, I can say with confidence that not all 10 are going to be hammers. The worst one may still be good or "average", but 2-3 are going to be absolute hammers that just do well with most anything. The others are going to make you work a little bit to find what they like. Two ways to get there:

                        Hand loads - This makes it easier to give a guarantee as the rifle is likely being fed quality components, with the huge advantage of being fit to the rifle itself from the start. A guy that observes good re-loading techniques and practices(not the getting started section in a manual) should have no issues crowding or exceeding the 1/4 MOA regularly with most platforms and cartridge combos.

                        Factory loads - Hard number guarantees start getting fluid here. If you are going to guarantee something, you better be able to back it up or it's worthless. Try as many different brands/types as you can. Fact is, for every popular commercial cartridge that good ammo is available for, there are 2 fringe or non-mainstream rounds that don't have the market support of the "hot" rounds and do not have the quality or selection of ammo available to meet a 1 MOA guarantee! Many have just a single, low-quality option available from a single manufacturer or maybe two. How do you guarantee "everything" given the later? How do you address warranty claims on a dead-straight rifle that won't shoot that one round? You run out of options on both ends pretty quick.

                        A couple examples of accuracy guarantee challenges with factory ammo are the 28 Nosler and 6.5 CM. We build a lot of 28's and I keep a fleet of 6.5 CMs on hand for testing and demo guns.
                        -The 28 is a good example of barrel preferences. It's really popular right now among the factory ammo shooters, but it only has a couple of factory offerings. I've seen some barrels shoot 3/8" or even better with it, but some don't like either round and are more like 1.5" or worse. Now I can quickly work up a load with the 1.5" barrel and have it shooting under 1/2" in short order, but it does no good for the guy that wants to shoot factory ammo. It's a 1/2 minute gun, but it still fails the guarantee.

                        The 6.5 CM is a great example going the other direction. High quality and many choices of ammo, but big lot to lot variations. I keep cases of Hornady 140 ELDM on hand for the demo guns. I have had cases that averaged a little under 1/2" in all of the demo guns. Right now we have a case thats running around 7/8" in all of them. Had a lot 2 years ago that was worse, and one earlier this year that was 1/4" - 3/8" or better in the demo guns. On average its right around 1/2". My point being, we could probably offer a 1/2" guarantee on those guns, but an odd lot of ammo would fail it and it would have nothing to do with the rifle itself.

                        All of that to say we're not big fans of giving a generic guarantee knowing what we know about real world variables. If it's coming from a builder that does not do full load development for each rifle going out, I view it as nothing more than a sales hook. Rather than shooting for a generic number, I'd rather a customer have the confidence that we will do whatever is in our power to deliver a rifle that shoots to their expectations and stand behind it the whole way. We generally don't do full load development as we are confident in the building methods and processes we employ to produce an accurate rifle.........and it generally puts our pricing about $1,500 under the builders that do offer it.

                        Having our team shooters on board this year has offered us a great test bed. It was a "put up, or shut up" opportunity for us to see how our products and processes stacked up against the best of the best out there in actual competition. Our shooters took 1st and 2nd place in the year end results of the NRL. With as many top 3 finishes as we have accumulated in national PRS matches this year, we expect a strong finish there too. One of our shooters took first at the NALRSA shoot this past weekend, and we have a ton of top 3 finishes at local long-range precision matches this year. This is not to brag at all, rather to qualify the methods that we use to build every hunting rifle is the same method we use to build the rifles that compete and win on a national level. Here's a pic of a 5 shot group from a Dasher barrel we just sent to one of our shooters last week.


                        OP - I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but we do get asked about a guarantee a lot. Thought this was a good place to share our views that topic.

                        Thanks,
                        Robert
                        Alamo Precision Rifles
                        Last edited by Stick1; 11-20-2018, 04:56 PM.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          ^^^^Excellent way of putting it Paul.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by Stick1 View Post
                            Null90,

                            Thanks for considering us for your next build. Thanks everyone else for posting targets. I can speak to the accuracy guarantee, and this is probably a good time and place to do it. It will be long, so bear with me.

                            We do give a sub-MOA guarantee. Honestly, it's kind of a catch-all and should match up with most any combination of components that are going to be used - most times. We realized a long time ago that it would be foolish to give a hard number "guarantee" when many component/chambering options would make it impossible to live up to. We much prefer to operate under the "if you're not happy, we're not happy" guarantee. I have not seen that fail to work out yet. If we built on a certain blueprint and limited it to certain chamberings we could probably give an impressive hard number guarantee. But we build titanium/carbon fly-weights up to heavy 2 mile rigs in any chambering a customer requests. It would be quite a challenge to build a mountain rifle in 35 Whelen for a customer that only shoots factory ammo and give him a 1/2 MOA guarantee...with a straight face. I would question any builder that would. There are a ton of variables that control group size. Variables that we absolutely can't control. Shooter ability, hand loading ability, factory ammo availability, lot to lot inconsistencies in that factory ammo.....you get the point.

                            What we can control is the process to produce the rifles. We cut our chambers in a rigid fixturing system with a flush coolant set up and are able to keep concentricity to the bore within .0001 on average. It is checked and logged throughout the entire process. I have filing cabinet drawers full of chamber logs from the rifles we build. It's a good data reference to help spot trends. We also bed it stress-free into whichever stock platform the customer picks. There is always "luck of the draw" when it comes to individual barrels, but at this point there is nothing that can be done to enhance the rifle's accuracy potential no matter the builder. Stress-free and straight is stress free and straight. We're basically testing ammo more than the gun itself at this point.

                            So now you're down to finding what the barrel likes, as every barrel will have its own preferences(assuming you didn't get a dud blank). This is a good time to address barrels and temper expectations. If you take 10 barrels from ANY top name maker, I can say with confidence that not all 10 are going to be hammers. The worst one may still be good or "average", but 2-3 are going to be absolute hammers that just do well with most anything. The others are going to make you work a little bit to find what they like. Two ways to get there:

                            Hand loads - This makes it easier to give a guarantee as the rifle is likely being fed quality components, with the huge advantage of being fit to the rifle itself from the start. A guy that observes good re-loading techniques and practices(not the getting started section in a manual) should have no issues crowding or exceeding the 1/4 MOA regularly with most platforms and cartridge combos.

                            Factory loads - Hard number guarantees start getting fluid here. If you are going to guarantee something, you better be able to back it up or it's worthless. Try as many different brands/types as you can. Fact is, for every popular commercial cartridge that good ammo is available for, there are 2 fringe or non-mainstream rounds that don't have the market support of the "hot" rounds and do not have the quality or selection of ammo available to meet a 1 MOA guarantee! Many have just a single, low-quality option available from a single manufacturer or maybe two. How do you guarantee "everything" given the later? How do you address warranty claims on a dead-straight rifle that won't shoot that one round? You run out of options on both ends pretty quick.

                            A couple examples of accuracy guarantee challenges with factory ammo are the 28 Nosler and 6.5 CM. We build a lot of 28's and I keep a fleet of 6.5 CMs on hand for testing and demo guns.
                            -The 28 is a good example of barrel preferences. It's really popular right now among the factory ammo shooters, but it only has a couple of factory offerings. I've seen some barrels shoot 3/8" or even better with it, but some don't like either round and are more like 1.5" or worse. Now I can quickly work up a load with the 1.5" barrel and have it shooting under 1/2" in short order, but it does no good for the guy that wants to shoot factory ammo. It's a 1/2 minute gun, but it still fails the guarantee.

                            The 6.5 CM is a great example going the other direction. High quality and many choices of ammo, but big lot to lot variations. I keep cases of Hornady 140 ELDM on hand for the demo guns. I have had cases that averaged a little under 1/2" in all of the demo guns. Right now we have a case thats running around 7/8" in all of them. Had a lot 2 years ago that was worse, and one earlier this year that was 1/4" - 3/8" or better in the demo guns. On average its right around 1/2". My point being, we could probably offer a 1/2" guarantee on those guns, but an odd lot of ammo would fail it and it would have nothing to do with the rifle itself.

                            All of that to say we're not big fans of giving a generic guarantee knowing what we know about real world variables. If it's coming from a builder that does not do full load development for each rifle going out, I view it as nothing more than a sales hook. Rather than shooting for a generic number, I'd rather a customer have the confidence that we will do whatever is in our power to deliver a rifle that shoots to their expectations and stand behind it the whole way. We generally don't do full load development as we are confident in the building methods and processes we employ to produce an accurate rifle.........and it generally puts our pricing about $1,500 under the builders that do offer it.

                            Having our team shooters on board this year has offered us a great test bed. It was a "put up, or shut up" opportunity for us to see how our products and processes stacked up against the best of the best out there in actual competition. Our shooters took 1st and 2nd place in the year end results of the NRL. With as many top 3 finishes as we have accumulated in national PRS matches this year, we expect a strong finish there too. One of our shooters took first at the NALRSA shoot this past weekend, and we have a ton of top 3 finishes at local long-range precision matches this year. This is not to brag at all, rather to qualify the methods that we use to build every hunting rifle is the same method we use to build the rifles that compete and win on a national level. Here's a pic of a 5 shot group from a Dasher barrel we just sent to one of our shooters last week.


                            OP - I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but we do get asked about a guarantee a lot. Thought this was a good place to share our views that topic.

                            Thanks,
                            Robert
                            Alamo Precision Rifles
                            This X100000000

                            Now, I don't expect anyone at APR to agree with this next statement (or disagree) . The APR guys finished up a 338 Lapua for me right as I was getting finalizing my Type 7 a couple years ago and the thing shoots lights out with MY load development. Promises of accuracy can be a **** tough deal as most everyone knows as the guy buying the rifle may jerk the trigger like he's starting an old push mower. Robert, y'all build more rifles in a day than I probably build in 6 months and I defer everyone to you as I only build a handful for friends and family and your fit and finish/craftsmanship is second to none AND your pricing is just a solid!!! Bringing me to my next quick point...I have seen and heard plenty of folks talk about their GAP, Gradous, McWhorter, Hill Country, etc. No doubt those guys build a helluva rifle and they are where they are because of that but they had to start somewhere in the beginning as well. My point is that you can spend $6k on a rifle or spend $3.5k on the same exact rifle with a different name on it and get every bit as good of a build.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Thank you KcK! Looking forward to seeing some of your work, and congrats on getting your shop up and running!!

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X