Daniel Defense M4A1 for long range shooting?

[matrosov]

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.

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.[/QUOTE]

Thanks MMH. Yes the handguard is free floated and I never got into handloading. I'll grab couple of boxes of hornady and a decent scope and see what I can do, and go from there. Should be an interesting experience.

[matrosov]

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.

I can put it on paper but the results is pretty much what I would call a combat accuracy not a precision tack driving. Thought it would be a nice challenge to tighten it up. With the setup I have it is harder to tell where shooter ends and hardware begins. Up to this point I've had good hardware for the ranges and type of shooting I do so I knew that the only variable in the picture was me. Precision is a new concept so I am slightly at the loss. .