AR-15 Exits the Penalty Box

I had a pretty decent shooting session today.

First off, I tried out my new Labradar. This is a radar-based chronograph. When I took my precision rifle course, they told me there were only two accurate chronographs: Magnetospeed and Labradar. I didn’t want a Magnetospeed because they require you to hang a sensor off your barrel, so I spent almost four times as much on a Labradar.

It’s a little weird. It’s an orange box with a small LED screen. You put it on a tripod and aim it so the short sides of the box are parallel to your shooting lane, and then you shoot. If it works, the sound of your gun sets it off. It will measure the speed of your projectile at various points on its way to the target.

Labradar doesn’t include a tripod, an external battery, a case, or a memory card. You need all those things to make it work and protect it. I shoved my chronograph in an old laptop case, and it fit fine. My cheap Amazon tripod holds it up well enough. I already had external batteries because I have a scope that eats internal batteries. Now I just need a card. Without one, you can’t save tons of data, and I believe it’s also impossible to move the small amount of data you have to another device.

I got it working after wasting a few shots. I decided to use my AR-15. I was firing Australian Outback 55-grain varmint ammo, which is supposedly extremely similar to Hornady Urban TAP law enforcement ammo, except that it’s better because it’s temperature-stabilized. The Australian military makes it.

I was pretty happy with my results for 5 shots. Figures are in feet per second:

2879
2877
2884
2895
2877

Average: 2882.4

Standard deviation: 6.8

Spread: 18

I had had problems with this gun. I got a 4-14x MRAD scope for it, hoping to do some fairly accurate shooting. I tried to shoot groups in August, and I shot one tiny group followed by a mess. I thought the scope had come loose, so I put the gun away. Then I forgot about it until the world went crazy and BLMtifa terrorists made it clear that widespread violence was coming to America. I got a red dot and removed the MRAD scope.

Today when I put the MRAD scope back on, the zero was history. Took me a number of shots just to find the paper.

I was anxious to try the scope again, because I had obtained some new information about “gas guns,” which means gas-operated semiauto guns like the AR-15. Most moderately knowledgeable shooters believe gas guns are inherently less accurate than bolt actions. I was even told this when I took my shooting course. I recently joined a forum for accurate shooters, and they have instructional videos you can pay to watch. I found some video information about gas guns. It turns out they’re not inaccurate. They’re just harder to shoot than bolt actions. If you can shoot a bolt action well, you may still shoot gas guns badly. If you shoot gas guns well, you will also shoot bolt actions well, because it’s easier.

Bolt-action shooters who shoot gas guns poorly hate to hear this. They don’t want to think they’re the problem.

Basically, there are things you can do wrong without hurting your bolt-action groups, which will expose your lack of knowledge every time you shoot a gas gun.

Today I put the information to work, and I got good results. I shot 6 groups at 104 yards, and 3 were sub-MOA (under 1.12″). Two others were sub-MOA plus one flyer, and one was a mess. I think the bad group was caused by the pain the buttstock was giving me. It was not made for prone shooting, and it was really digging a hole in me. It started to mess up my concentration.

I will post the targets. Some of what you see is just me trying to find the paper while I adjusted the scope. It doesn’t count.

All the stuff halfway up that target is me, messing with the scope. It’s not a group.

Here, you can see 1 sub-MOA group, plus two nearly sub-MOA groups, but for solitary flyers. Then the fourth group blows up. While I was pressing the trigger, I was thinking, “That thing is going to bite me in the shoulder again, in exactly the same place.”

If sort of looks like this is a sub-MOA gun, hobbled by an inexperience shooter with a sore shoulder. I don’t have a lot of time behind AR’s, and most of the time I do have was wasted because I was using poor technique I had learned from people who were not up to speed on AR shooting. I also have a stiff trigger. If I practice more, replace my buttstock, and either master or replace the trigger, I should be able to shoot sub-MOA fairly consistently with this gun.

That’s very nice, because it makes it a very useful gun. I can use it to improve my shooting, not just for semiautos, but for everything. If I can shoot this gun well, I’ll be better when I shoot bolt guns. I can also use it to hunt anything smaller than a deer. It would be a killer hog gun.

I hope I’m right.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people claim AR-15’s are not even 1-MOA guns. Like it’s the gospel truth and cannot be questioned. My gun cost only $790, it doesn’t have a match barrel, it doesn’t have an Atlas bipod, it has a relatively inexpensive scope, it has a fighting trigger and buttstock, I don’t own match .223 ammo, and it sure looks like it will shoot sub-MOA at 100 yards.

Speaking of hogs, I saw a depressing video about them the other day. Some old guy on Youtube specializes in shooting them with a .22. They drop dead. No running. No follow-up shots.

Why is this depressing? Because part of the fun of hog hunting is putting together an amazing gun that takes down “hard-to-kill” hogs. People believe hogs are much tougher than they are. There is even a myth that you can’t shoot a hog through the callused skin on its shoulder. People think it stops bullets. Apparently, they think this because they shoot hogs in the shoulder, in the wrong place, and the hogs run off. The shooters assume the bullets got stuck.

One of my favorite Youtubers uses high-powered rifles to shoot pigs. Some of his hunts are pretty gross. He blew a sow’s front leg off. He shoots very well, but sometimes his pigs take a number of rounds to go down. It seems unnecessarily cruel. The .22 guy’s experience shows that the other guy is doing it wrong. It appears that you have to place your shots carefully. Either that, or don’t shoot.

I saw an interesting video about shot placement. A man who shoots hogs for a living says you shoot them between the ear and shoulder. Here is his theory: pigs move a lot, so you are likely to miss the exact area you shoot at. If you shoot between the ear and shoulder, and your shot misses toward the front, you hit the pig in the brain. If you miss toward the back, you destroy the shoulder joints. If you hit where you aim, you destroy the spine. All this assumes you’re using a fairly powerful gun that produces a lot of hydrostatic shock and tissue damage.

I’m glad the AR-15 is working out, because my .17 HMR turned out to be a huge disappointment. It’s just not consistently accurate.

Next, I hope to get the .204 Ruger working. Then I want to go on a paid hog hunt. I’ll have to decide which gun to use. The .204 is neat, but it only holds 4 rounds, including the one in the pipe. The AR is common and less interesting, but I can put anywhere from 10 to 30 rounds in it, and that might be fairer to the hogs.

I’m surprised how accurate the AR turned out to be. Maybe it’s not hybris to talk about prairie dogs.