Daniel Defense M4A1 for long range shooting?

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Originally Posted by dkf

If you want to buy an upper to shoot tight groups you might as well step up to a 20". Something from White Oak Armament would be a good place to start. They have quite a few different uppers available. The BCM uppers with the stainless barrels are good but I'd give the accuracy edge to WOA. https://www.whiteoakarmament.com/

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+1 Exactly who'd I recommend. Their whole business is providing match grade uppers to competitors. I've owned one of their uppers for 9 years now and replaced the barrel once at 7K rounds. I never benched it, but it will shoot 1 1/2 MOA at 200 yards using a sling from the prone position when I do my part.

I only own two scoped rifles, so I'm far from an expert when it comes to scopes. In that price range - something like the Bushnell Elite 4500 6-24x40 (this is one of the scopes I own on bench/varmint rifle) will do you well.
You really need the high magnification if you want to shoot small groups at 200+ yards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkf

If you want to buy an upper to shoot tight groups you might as well step up to a 20". Something from White Oak Armament would be a good place to start. They have quite a few different uppers available. The BCM uppers with the stainless barrels are good but I'd give the accuracy edge to WOA. https://www.whiteoakarmament.com/

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+2
I have an 18" WOA in a SPR-ish setup with a 3-10x42 Nightforce SHV on top. Combined with a Geissele SD-E it is a driver when it has Black Hills 77's going through it.

FYI, for glass, check these guys. I was able to score a small discount on my Nightforce which is rarely seen. You can make an offer and they will either accept it or get back to you with their best counter offer.
http://www.scopelist.com/

Look into the new .224 Valkyrie. Supersonic to 1300 yards, zero wind drift, near-zero drop. Only thing is, you have to move from where you fired it. If you don't, in 45 minutes it will hit you in the ass.

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Originally Posted by Bang

Look into the new .224 Valkyrie. Supersonic to 1300 yards, zero wind drift, near-zero drop. Only thing is, you have to move from where you fired it. If you don't, in 45 minutes it will hit you in the ass.

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I very rarely say this, but I actually LOLed...

The .224 valkyrie is impressive with the 90gr OTM. They are going to be a while though until manufacturers get rifles, uppers, barrels, etc produced.

Barrel length doesn't necessarily affect accuracy; it affects velocity.

A milspec barrel will do at least 4 MOA at 100 yards. You're likely going to look at 2 MOA with typical ammo.

If you want to really get into long distance shooting (600m and beyond), then you're looking at a dedicated 20" upper, likely chambered in something a little heavier and/or faster than 5.56.

As others have said barrel length has little effect on accuracy with shorter barrels being more rigid and accurate with other things being equal.

White Oak barrels are really nice for the money and I've probably built half a dozen of those. They all shoot .5 moa with the 77gr Nosler Custom Competitions over 23.5gr of Varget. The downside is that they typically shoot wider groups with cheap bullets due to the 1:7 twist which magnifies bullet wobble when they aren't cocentric. Basically, if you're shooting 55gr bulk, don't waste your time.

On another note, I can get a PSA upper at 1moa almost every time when it's one of their free float uppers. I've had to send a couple back for tight chambers, but they fixed them within two weeks so no complaints.

The Valkerie is cool, but the cartridge is not the gun. Unless you're sub MOA all the 1000 nonsense is not really useable and just numbers. Consistency and repeatability is key and a .22 bullet at 1000 yards....is well....a .22. There are ways to get that done cheaper and with more potential unless you just want to punch paper.


Lycan162grat3250fpsthrope

22plinkster from Youtube is a federal sponsored shooter now. He recently did a video on the .224 valkyrie and the JP test rifle he was using. He shot multiple shots in a rather tight group on a small prairie dog steel target at 1000 yards with the Federal 90gr test ammo. Thus far it looks like it will perform with quality components. He said the rifle had over 5000 rounds when he got it.

The .224 stuff is coming out quicker than I expected. https://www.cmttac.com/224-valkyrie

If I had a 200 yard range at my club would be very tempted to take it to the range and shoot it at the 200 yard target to see the results before investing a lot of money. It will only cost you a few rounds and a bit of time.

Hawk & Lycanthrope gave you good answers.

Sounds to me like you are after a 200 yard sub MOA rifle, not a long range precision gun. I do not have any experience w/ DD, but most quality ARs are capable of sub MOA performance, but not w/ cheap or ball ammo. With a 14.5" barrel, 5.56 ballistics will limit you to 400 or 500 yards. As Hawk said, most consider 600 yds. as medium & 1000 yds. as long. I use my 22" barrel AR at 'medium' range to get myself good practice for 30 cal 'long' range. Getting a dedicated long range rifle to shoot at 200 yards makes no sense to me.

Do you handload? If not I would find some quality match ammo that your rifle likes (i.e. can reliably feed). Most match ammo will have bullets heavier than 62 grains. Most 69 grain stuff should feed without problems. If you can get to 75 or 77 grain, all the better. Your dilemma will be finding a good accuracy node with match ammunition as most of it has been developed for longer barrels. Again, not having any experience with this, I think that 1 MOA should be achievable.

Is the handguard free floated? I would think that it is, but if it is not, it will negatively impact accuracy.