DPMS AR 10 6.5 Creedmoor Match rifle

[N Jensen]

I had not seen many people talking about match rifles so I thought to share a few photos of my DPMS AR 10. The upper was done by White Oak Arms. 26 inch barrel, gas port moved two inches out, and two stage trigger. I used a A1 but-stock to reduce LOP with a A2 but plate. The rear sights is a PNW with front sight is 22mm from Creedmoor sports, i used Lipski front and rear sight mounts. I heat treated the gas rings and by bending them smaller than originally to reduce drag on the bolt carrier when unlocking. The gas rings basically fill the space between the bolt and the carrier now. The Major problem when I first starting shooting it was that DPMS mags that never failed before now wouldn't work.  Solved this by C-product mag and slight bend to both ends of the spring only. Accuracy is very good. 142MK at 600 yds, 40g H4350, Hornady brass with turned necks. Out of 20 shots fired at 600yds, the X-ring is a 6 inch circle and my average vertical displacement is having 16-17 shots being within the X-ring in height. Considering a .008 aiming error is 6inch on paper and using a sling and shooting coat for support. I feel the rifle is doing an honest 3/4 MOA accuracy, maybe less at times.  At Perry this year i fired 199-11X was my best 20 shot string losing one point for the wind. I was wondering if anyone else is shooting a Ar 10 in HP matches.

[unforgiven]

Great job on that rifle brother Jensen,how about more pics of the sights as I have not seen that type before.Great stats also bro. <thumbsup>

[N Jensen]

I can't get to my camera right now, might be a few days before I could take a few photos. You would be surprised how much one can put into aperture sights for competitive shooting. The rear sight (PNW) with Gehman aperture with LPSKI mount runs a little over 400.00 alone. Front/fore sight with a Diopter, Gehman adj aperture, 22mm sight and LIPSKI mount runs around 200.00. Believe me, there are more expensive rear sights available. The Warner rear sight runs 650.00 and that is before buying a mount or an adjustable irs. Most rear sight have 1/4 min click adj for both windage and elevation.  Considering the cost in sights alone comes in what a pretty good 30mm target scope sells for.

Some of the best scores are shot with iron sights. The winner of the National Matches in HP used Iron sights on a 6mm AR 15 match rifle, score 2391 points out of 2400 possible. While the tactical match rifle,  a Tubbs 2000 bolt action with a target scoop had a 2387 out of 2400 points. Never would of thought a semi auto beats a bolt action scooped rifle.

[unforgiven]

:eek: holy poop,outstanding scores with irons :o

[Jgun]

You mentioned that you adjusted the gas rings to reduce drag in the carrier, aside from that, are you using a stock DPMS carrier as it came with the rifle? Also, is the buffer and spring also stock? What about the two stage trigger, do you know what brand two stage trigger it is? What is the pull weight? How is the upper lower fit, is it tight? I see that you say that White Oak built your upper with a 26" barrel, do you know what blank was used, ROT? You say that they moved the gas port out 2", I didn't even know that it was possible to get a gas tube that was longer than rifle length. Very impressive rifle (and shooting). Please excuse my ignorance if I'm using the incorrect term, but since your shooting 6.5 cal, does that mean that your in open/unlimited division? Would you be shooting your large platform gun head to head with the other two that you mentioned? If so I'm curious about the tradeoff of reduced recoil/extra weight when shooting off hand. Is it your opinion that the large platform is superior (for you) than a fully modified small platform AR?

[N Jensen]

In HP match rifle is one big class made of divisions of skill level, marksman thru High Master. All bolt action and semi autos  match rifles are in one class but must have iron sights/aperture sights. Semi autos/bolt action with target scopes are in what is now called tactical match rifle class. High Master is the hardest class being avg score of 97% and higher. Carl Bernosky and David Tubb both have won the National HP matches each many times. Both are well above my skill level. Also David Tubb once used an SR 25 to win the nationals 10 or so years ago. There was at a time where a lot of people tried to make the Ar 10 Armilte into a match rifle, but they ran into so many problems and some could never figure out. Bolt stops breaking or feeding problems and accuracy issues. The word was out but people after seeing many others have problems didn't want to try it. Not many people shoot the AR 10 in HP because of it.  About 6 years ago my friend had an AR 10 Armilite match rifle built in 6X and he shot very good with it. Although he had issues with it, but he made it work well enough to start beating me at 600yds, I was shooting an AR 15 in 223 with 80g bullets. On wind changes he was usually inside what I had, an 8 ring vs his 10 or 9 ring. Like the Jones, I had to move up. But I wanted to try the DPMS AR 10 as a starting point. Maybe have less of a problem making it work. My 1st one was in a wildcat 6mm, a 243 resizing die cut off .250, a blown out 22-250 case. Also a little shorter than a 6X case. I had zero problems from the start, accuracy, no feeding issues, and bolt stop that never broke. Both my friend and I are broad across the chest so the larger Ar 10 didn't bother us as a person who is not broad across the chest. I used an A1 but stock to shorten the LOP by an inch which also helped a lot. He bought a custom adj but plate assy to shorten the LOP and adj cheek piece as well. Both my Ar 10 DPMS are all stock except for the armilite 2 stage trigger, Krieger Barrels. White Oak Arms has the ability to make longer gas tubes, drilling the hole moved fwd lowers gas pressure in the barrel and to accommodate the longer barrel. The reason for working on the gas rings is that I found that when the bolt/carrier group was clean or very few rounds fired it shot a lot better at 600yds. During a 80 round match and using H4350 powder the fouling builds up on the gas rings casuing the action to stick/bind up a little. This little bit of binding I believed was causing me to shoot high shots at 600 yds. More so to me to think it just wasn't me or a cartridge not loaded right. Once I lowered the gas ring drag to next to nothing the vertical displacement became smaller. Keeping the BCG well lubed with CLP on the rings and 80w oil on the rails of the carrier ensured the BCH was very slick unlocking when fired.  The hard part of doing this is hit and miss with the gas rings, to small the rifle would not function. So it took several gas rings over a period of time for each carrier to work. I mean each carrier as I have 3 match rifles. Buffer and buffer spring are stock DPMS items. The other part on accuracy is neck tension, the lower the better weigh all the cases for 600yds +/- .5 in weight. Powder charges all the same, spot on. then practice, practice, practice.   

Hope this answers some of your questions, I don't mind. I'm glad Ifound this form as it deals with AR 10's only. I'm sure armilte is a fine rifle, but my friend had issues dealing with them. Like getting the rifle to feed ammo, they would only talk about the issue only if he was using federal match ammo. So a wild cat round was nothing they wanted to deal with. Just my thoughts. Don't want anyone to think that I nick picked Armilite only, I know people had issues with their DPMS guns as well. Customer Service is what makes a good impression.

[Jgun]

I'm always amazed when I hear the lengths to which the bench rest competitors go, to remove all variables from the shooting equation. As fascinating as I find it, I don't believe that I am organized, or methodical enough (at least not yet) to do what it takes to effectively participate in those types of shooting competition. It sounds as though the high power shooters have a need for some of that same attention to detail. I have listened to a friend that was getting into precision bench shooting, describe weighing cases, measuring the volume that each one holds, checking the  runout, even going so far as to mark his cases so that they are always indexed the same in his bolt gun. He even keeps records of all of this. I must admit that I am becoming more interested in the concept of seeing just how mechanically accurate I can build a gun to be. I must admit also that I like the concept of human involvement that high power has that seems to be less evident in bench rest. I presently am building a .308 AR and my M25, both of which I have attempted to build to the highest level of mechanical accuracy that I am able, with my resources and skill at this time, but my AR only has a 20" barrel, and the M25 a 22".  I am thinking that I may try out the local high power matches next year, but after reading what your doing to try to be competitive, I don't have high expectations of being able to do very well, especially with my admittedly poor record keeping. Thanks for giving a glimpse of what it takes to play in high power.

[N Jensen]

HP is a lot of fun, anyone who has shot HP for a number of years are more than willing to help a new person out. There are so many levels of experience, I'm sure you would do fine. Your 20inch or 22 inch rifles will do fine at 600yds or even 1,000 yds. I only weigh cases for 600yds and beyond and if I don't have time to sort them, I just load ammo anyway. I don't keep any records other than a score book for current sight settings. I know a lot of real good shooters who just keep a sticker on the stock and write their elevation zero on that sticker. Heck, I don't even keep track how many times a case has been reloaded. I usually stay with the KISS principal. When I shot service rifle with my M1A my goal was to keep all my shots within the height of the ten ring. When I started to shoot bolt guns my goal was the same, but it was easier with a bolt gun. I started with my Ar 10 match rifle as a challenge and over time I wanted it to to be able to hold x-ring. It took some effort, but I'm mostly there. For a load to start with would be 43.0g of Varget, Remington 9 1/2 primer, 175g MK, Winchester or Remington case. That load in my DPMS Ar 10 24inch barrel was right at 2610 or so.  Reading the wind is the hardest thing to master. The best aimed shot for the center will not be there if the blowing wind changes and you don't adj for it. HP is more than getting a rifle to shoot it's also beating the conditions you have to shoot in. In Vegas the wind blows all the time, having 2 to 5 or 6 minutes of wind on at 600yds is pretty normal. But everyone has to shoot in the wind. 

[98Z5V]

I had not seen many people talking about match rifles so I thought to share a few photos of my DPMS AR 10.

Just need to toss this one out there to you - no such animal, for a reason, in the gas gun world. Armalite makes the AR-10.  No one else does.  DPMS makes the LR-308.  Armalite takes offense when you title something "AR-10," and it's not an Armalite rifle, and they do so for a very good reason. 

Not nit-picking anything else, but that's something to nit-pick.  Custom build by self, custom build by some awesome commercial builder, doesn't matter.  No DPMS AR 10 exists. 

No offense intended, so please take no offense.  <thumbsup>