Effective range of 5.56 from 18 inch barrel

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Selecting the “right” AR-15 barrel is probably the most difficult choice to make, especially for beginners. Companies throw a lot of marketing dollars around to convince you that you need the latest and greatest or you’re going to lose the match, be uncool, or even wind up dead in the street! 

But they’re wrong.

This article summarizes just about everything I’ve learned about AR-15 barrels. While I’m focusing on the AR-15 platform in particular, the principles apply to any firearms barrel. The physics of ballistics don’t change just because you went from an AR-15 to a bolt action.

Everything I’ve written here comes from years of reading, competing, training, practicing, and writing articles for this blog and elsewhere. In this post, I’m posting a few quality examples of what I’m talking about. I’m linking to these in particular because they are companies that I know, like, and trust- but they aren’t the only game in town. There are many quality barrel makers out there, and I only have direct experience with a subset of them.

Suggestions aside, this article helps you understand the trade offs and quality indicators of a good AR-15 barrel so that you can make that decision for yourself. I’m not here to be yet another internet expert trying to sell you on the “Best AR-15 Barrel” of the moment.

Bottom Line Up Front

If this is your very first AR-15, I suggest a lightweight profile with chrome lining. This will serve you well in 90% of situations, and gives you the opportunity to grow your capabilities in many directions.

Every choice you make that deviates from the classic lightweight profile (AKA the “pencil barrel”) introduces a compromise somewhere. Whether the thing you gain makes up for the thing you lose is worth it or not depends entirely on your intended purpose.

One last point, and I’m going to say it a lot, realize that most people aren’t as good a shooter as they think they are. As Jeff Cooper once put it, a “good shot” is someone who can shoot up to the capabilities of the rifle. A highly-customized weapon, tailored for maximum accuracy, speed, or competition doesn’t do much good unless the shooter is capable of leveraging it.

If you aren’t there yet, I say stick with the classic lightweight barrel and shoot the snot out of it.

Setting the Baselines

This is a long article, and you might be pressed for time. So to get to some quick answers, let’s start with the basics and some hard and fast examples.

The M16A1 adopted in the 1960’s featured a lightweight 20″ barrel. I consider this the starting point of the discussion. The rifle evolved along with a small caliber high velocity (SCHV) projectile dubbed M193. This is a 5.56 mm bullet weighing 55 grains and launched at 3,150 feet per second from a 1/12 twist barrel.

The M16A1 weighed 6.4 lbs unloaded, which made it exceptionally easy to live with compared to full-powered battle rifles of the time. It was a gunfighter’s rifle, meant to be carried much of the time, and then perform well in a firefight.

Since then, technology for manufacturing, ammunition, and optics have come a long way. Because of that, it doesn’t make sense to stick strictly to the M16A1 template. However, we shouldn’t forget the lessons learned leading up to its adoption.

Most folks shopping for their first AR-15 only have some vague notion of what they want it for. Their described need usually falls somewhere between home defense, tactical training, plinking, competition, or the collapse of society. I argue that the classic lightweight barrel template is the best all around starting point, so let’s start with some suggestions there.

General Purpose Lightweight Barrels

This class of barrel performs well at most tasks, and is particularly suited to field rifles that are carried more than shot. If you’re sticking to a budget, then the Faxon Gunner Profile is a great wallet-friendly option. It’s light, accurate enough, and will take care of you for a long time. I used this particular barrel on my Minuteman KISS Rifle pictured here.

If you have a bit more money to spend, then I suggest Daniel Defense’s Hammer Forged Lightweight or the Bravo Company USA (BCM) Enhanced Lightweight Barrel.

Criterion’s new CORE series barrels have also impressed me with their accuracy potential.

Wondering whether you should look at a 16″ vs 18″ vs 20″ barrel? I say either 16″ or 20″, and I cover that in much more detail further down in the article.

General Purpose, Mid-weight AR-15 Barrels

These barrels have slightly more mass, which helps them better tolerate aggressive firing schedules without being too much more cumbersome to carry. 

In this category, I don’t really think you should look for budget options. If you need it to well at everything, then you’re going to pay a little extra for the materials, manufacturing, and quality control. My favorite barrels in this class is Criterion’s Hybrid Profile as well as Centurion Arms’ hammer-forged options (either lightweight or mid-weight).

Precision AR-15 Barrels

In this category, you are no longer concerned with weight. These barrels deliver tight groups and consistent performance all day, so long as you don’t abuse them.

That also means you pay for it.

At the “budget” end, I suggest Criterion’s fluted stainless offerings. I put “budget” in quotes because, obviously, it’s still more expensive than the lower end of the market.

If you have even more cash to spend, then check out the Centurion Arms RECCE or Mk12 barrels, which are the same ones used on the military Mk12 rifle. If this is the path you’re going, then you’re probably building out a Recce Rifle or a Designated Marksman rifle. Check out my build guides for those configurations.

The Marksman’s Guide to AR-15 Barrels

With the quick and dirty recommendations out of the way, the rest of this article explains all of the factors you should know when choosing a barrel for your AR-15 build.

The Rifle’s Beating Heart

The modern AR-15 barrel isn’t far removed from the muskets and cannons used during the Revolutionary War. There is a charge, combustion chamber, projectile, and length of hollow metal tubing. As the charge burns, expanding high-pressure gasses propel the projectile down the bore. 

Upon exit, the bullet begins a ballistic trajectory.

Nearly all of the modern advancements in rifle technology focus on the mechanisms for loading ammunition into the chamber as well as better manufacturing technology overall. The aerodynamics of bullets have also come a long way, as well, but that’s not the topic we’re talking about today.

More than any other component, the barrel affects accuracy, reliability, and handling of your weapon. It is fair to say it is the most important component you select when building your AR-15, and you build the rest of the rifle in support of the barrel.

When selecting an AR-15 barrel, you must balance accuracy, weight, handling, compactness, parts longevity, and recoil characteristics. The choices we have to make to affect these traits include:

• Length
• Profile
• Material & lining
• Rifling method & twist
• Chamber dimensions
• Gas system

Every choice you make benefiting one trait negatively affects another. So the best you can do is prioritize which things are more important to you and consider how much “downside” you’re willing to tolerate.

Making Compromises

Simply put: the more specialized you make your rifle for a specific task, the worse it perform at others. This is why I suggest your first rifle should be a general purpose “do-all” rifle. New shooters don’t have enough skill to take advantage of the specialized configurations. Here’s some numbers to illustrate what I’m talking about.

The average life of an AR-15 barrel is about 20,000 rounds. Let’s generously assume that the average new shooter goes to the range once a month and fires 100 rounds through their rifle per session. At that pace, it would take about 16 years to wear out that barrel.

In contrast, the average professional competition shooter expends between 20,000 and 30,000 rounds per year.

I’m not trying to discourage you. You can develop a huge amount of skill with small ammo counts and a lot of dry practice. This is only to show you just how much trigger time “pro” shooters actually put in to get where they are.

I want you to understand that the ultra-specialized configurations only make a significant difference in the hands of highly practiced shooters. A master-class level competitor using a bone stock AR-15 will still trounce a novice equipped with a fully custom top-end match rifle.

As an example, up until 2014 I would have told you that it wasn’t possible to land hits at 1000 yards with a bone stock M16A2, and then I read about another blogger (Shawn at the now defunct Loose Rounds) doing it. That act blew my mind and started me on the path to taking marksmanship more seriously.

A basic rifle is capable of way more than most “experts” give it credit for, and as the saying goes: “It’s the Indian, not the arrow.”

The man who trains with a stick will defeat the man who plays with a sword.

The Golden Rules of Buying Gear

As I get into the technical side of things, there are two rules that I try to abide by for most things:

• Mission drives gear
• Buy nice or buy twice

Make your decisions on what you need it to do.  Many of us fall into the trap of buying things for the wrong reason and then try to shoehorn them into roles they’re not suited for. 

If you are going to buy it, buy something nice enough to last.

AR Barrel Length: The Long and Short of it

The longer the barrel, the more velocity the projectile starts with. Velocity is important for two reasons:

• It decreases the required adjustment for a given range (otherwise known asshooting “flatter”)
• It increases the effective range of the bullet

Longer barrels generally correspond to lower pressures inside of the rifle. That, in turn, increases the longevity of the bolt, springs, and other components. The price for these benefits is increased weight and more cumbersome handling.

On the other end, short barrels have quicker handling, compactness, and lighter weight, but come at the cost of higher operating pressures, increased noise, and accelerated wear on internal parts. Suppressors practically become a requirement once you get down to 10.5″ barrels. The noise and concussion become unbearable, especially indoors where instantaneous permanent hearing damage will occur without protection.

This chart comes from a 2012 article at Small Arms Defense Journal about the effects of barrel length. They measured the bore pressure at bullet exit after cutting the barrel down one inch at a time. Note that a 10.5″ barrel has almost twice the pressure of a 20″ barrel at bullet exit.

This difference in pressure affects the noise, concussion, flash, bolt carrier velocity, and long-term durability of the weapon.

When I was in the military, a base armorer once told me that he practically never sees broken bolts from the M16A2s they had on the racks. The M4s with the carbine gas systems, on the other hand, were breaking bolts pretty regularly as they approached round counts around 10,000. That’s not scientific, mind you, but an interesting anecdotal observation.

Accuracy and Trajectory

Many folks claim that long barrels are more accurate. They then use that as a reason to justify them. That is wrong and you shouldn’t believe it. Barrel length has little to do with accuracy. If anything, longer barrels reduce accuracy potential.

Imagine a long 2×4 wood board at the hardware store. The longer it is, the more prone it is to “flex” under stress as you hold it from one end. In barrels, we call this “whip.” Long skinny barrels demonstrate more whip than shorter or fatter barrels.

Don’t let that sway you just yet, though. The effect of the whip is very small and not something you should be concerned with until you are a seasoned match shooter. That gets into advanced topics like barrel harmonics during the shot.

So what do they really mean by more accurate?

When people talk about longer barrels being more “accurate,” what they really mean is that they think it’s easier to make hits at distance. This is a true statement.

A bullet reaches its maximum velocity as it exits the barrel. As soon as it exits, gravity and aerodynamic drag start doing their thing. A higher starting velocity means that the bullet drops less for given distance than a bullet starting at a slower speed.

For you, this means that you could land a hit with less holding over the target or adjustment to the sights. Yes, choosing a different bullet with better aerodynamics might have a similar effect, but this is an article about barrels and not ammo selection.

I wrote a much more detailed article on the effects of velocity on trajectory, as part of that, I put together these two visualizations:

The first chart compares a 100-yard zero for a 20″, 16″, and 12.5″ barrel. The red dot represents the point of aim. The black dots show expected impact points 25, 50, 200, and 300 yards. Notice how the overall extreme spread of impacts shrinks as the barrel length increases. It’s particularly noticeable with the 300-yard impact.

The second chart shows the same comparison for a 300-yard zero, and the effect is much more dramatic.

This is what we mean by “flat shooting.”

The nice thing is that this over/under is predicable using external ballistics calculations, and we can leverage this behavior to our advantage. A battlesight zero, sometimes annotated as “BZO,” means picking a zero distances that keeps all of your shots within +/- some distance of the point of aim. 

Beyond the military, we also call this our Point Blank Zero.

Effective Range of the AR-15

When we talk about the effective range of a bullet, we are talking about the maximum distance the bullet can travel and still have the desired effect on a target. What that desired effect looks like depends on what you’re doing.

The velocity required to punch a hole in a piece of paper or ring a steel plate is one thing. The energy needed to produce threat-stopping wounds is very different and much higher.

Some bullet designs, such as the light 55gr FMJ or 62gr M855, require higher velocities to produce “terminal effect.” I wrote a lot about this in my series on the Small Caliber High Velocity (SCHV) Program that eventually produced the M16 rifle.

Daniel Watters, who I leaned on heavily for the SCHV series, did an outstanding job assembling the history. The short version of the research is that a lighter, faster bullet could be just as effective as a larger bullet up to realistic combat ranges. 

What’s a realistic combat range? Historically, it’s about 300 yards, and that was the intended range for the .223 cartridge. Depending on the configuration, the M16/M4 series has listed effective ranges of 460 to 550 meters. Keep in mind that those definitions come from what the military wanted the rifle to do at that distance, namely punching a hole in a steel helmet. It says nothing about fragmentation or other terminal effects you might want as a defensive shooter.

So for civilian purposes as a defensive rifle, consider the AR-15 to be maximally effective out to about 300 meters with a 20″ barrel. That distance shrinks as the barrel gets shorter. Don’t get me wrong, you still poke holes in things and ruin someone’s day at 500-700 meters, it’s just that the rifle wasn’t designed for it.

But I digress.

This chart shows a plot of starting muzzle velocities of an M855 projectile fired from various barrel lengths. The red line represents the minimum velocity for M855 to have good terminal effect. Again, this is only for M855. There is a lot of other new ammunition designs that have good terminal effects down to 2000 fps and below, and you’ll pay for it.

By starting at a higher velocity, you give yourself more time and distance to have maximum effect. Mission drives the gear, so how much range do you need? This is all assuming that you are trying to kill something or stop a threat. If you are interested in shooting paper for competition, then it’s a moot point.

Comparing AR-15 Barrel Lengths

Let’s discuss the most common barrel lengths for the AR-15. Each one has its pros and cons. What you choose ultimately stems from your goals and needs.

20″ Barrels – Old Reliable

A member of the special operations member, who also happened to be a gun nut, once told me something that stuck with me ever since. He insisted that we should never sacrifice velocity if we don’t have to. He later started up a very successful company that produced well known AR-15s, barrels, and accessories.

That mantra always stuck with me.

The 5.56 cartridge and original AR-15 design happened in tandem. The barrel supported the new cartridge’s ballistic characteristics. The 20″ barrel was the heart, and it’s the workhorse or the AR world.

I would even argue that the 20″ barrel length is the most optimized for balancing velocity, longevity, and recoil characteristics. Going back to the velocity chart above shows peak velocity occurs at the 20″ length. Everything about it is optimized from velocity to pressure.

I’ve taken many folks accustomed to 16″ and 14.5″ barrels and let them shoot my M16A5, and they are often blown away at just how smooth the 20″ length feels.

Performance Characteristics

20″ AR-15 barrels provide the most consistent performance across the widest variety of loadings. There are plenty of modern specialized loads “optimized” for use in a 16″ barrel, or shorter, but the 20″ length will still do things better for any given loading.

Aside from velocity, the long 20″ barrel gives a balance benefit to marksmen. With the extra length and weight, your rifle has a slight forward balance known as “hang.” This helps reduce the “wobble zone” during unsupported aiming.

The 20" AR-15 barrel is easier to shoot, but harder to live with.

The trade-off is that a 20″ barrel is longer and heavier than other options. Clearing a house or riding in a vehicle is more difficult. One Security Forces Airman put it to me this way: the 20″ barrel is easier to shoot, but harder to live with.

There are configurations like the M16A5 which help with the maneuverability aspect, but a shorter rifle is always easier in cramped quarters.

16″ Barrels – The Civilian Standard

The 16″ length is the most common AR-15 barrel length sold today. It doesn’t do anything particularly better than other options, but it has good all-around performance. 

The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 limited a rifle’s barrel to a minimum of 16.1″ before more taxes and restrictions come into play. I suspect that we would see a lot more 14.5″ barrels on civilian rifles, the length of the M4 Carbine, if the NFA was not a factor.

That said, the 16″ AR-15 barrels offer a good compromise between the full 20″ length and the short barreled rifle class.  It’s still capable of hitting any target the 20″ can hit while only losing about 50 meters of effective range compared to the longer rifle.

When you think about it, the difference between 200-ish meters and 250-ish meters effective range isn’t a big deal if most of your shooting is inside 100 meters.

Combined with a collapsible stock, the 16″ gun is compact enough to make living the rifle plenty more convenient. If you’re trying to be a bit more of a clone dork, then the 16″ barrel is your ticket for building a RECCE pattern rifle.

14.5″ Barrels – Military Carbine Length

14.5″ is the length of the military M4 and M4A1 carbine barrels. The M4 was adopted in 1994 after ten years of design and testing. The original intent was bridging the gap between the 20″ M16 series and the Vietnam-era XM177 “Commando” and its 10.5″ barrel.

It had a great reputation for compactness and ease of carrying, but came with noted shortcomings in low velocity and loud noise signature. In fact, the XM177 came equipped with a 4″ moderator to mitigate some of the noise, effectively bringing the length up to about 14.5″.

For the average person, there isn’t much benefit to dropping from a 16″ to 14.5″ barrel. In fact, it will cause you more pain than it’s worth due to dealing with NFA paperwork, taxes, and regulation.

Some people circumvent this by using 14.5″ barrels and permanently welding extended flash hiders to the muzzle. This does bring the length back up to the legal 16.1″, but it also makes it difficult to do any future modifications. 

If this is your first AR-15, don’t do this to yourself. Give yourself room to experiment without tripping over federal law.

10.5″, 11.5″, 12.5″ – The Short Barreled Rifles

Few things trigger a good forum debate like discussing the “best” barrel length for an SBR. The thread will go on for pages and pages while they hash out the tiny differences between 10.5″, 11.5″, and 12.5″ AR-15 barrels.

These lengths all do the same thing and they do it well. They all make for very compact and easy handling carbines. They also come with increased pressures, loud noise, and reduced velocity.

Short barreled carbines are certainly fun to play with, but I wouldn’t want to seriously use one without a suppressor, especially indoors. Keep in mind that this class of AR-15 is purpose-built for close-quarters fighting. Sure, they can hit a target and poke holes in things at 300 or 400 meters, but I’d rather have something more suited to the job.

As for my personal preference, it’s the 12.5″ barrel. My reasoning goes back to something Monty (Navy SEAL and founder of Centurion Arms) once posted in a discussion on the topic.

I'm a fan of the 12.5in barrel its the shortest you can get and still have good terminal performance out of a large variety of ammunition that is on the market. The 12.5 also gives you enough dwell time to be reliable with a wider variety of ammo and in a wider variety of environments it just has a wider operation envelope then the shorter barrels and is a GREAT all around length.

18″ AR-15 Barrels – The “Special Purpose” Length

The 18″ barrel length has an interesting story, and it’s well documented by the Small Arms Defense Journal. After the Gulf War, Armalite floated an idea for a light sniper rifle called Special Purpose Rifle, and it went nowhere.

Later, in 1998, the 5th Special Forces Group resurrected the concept and started circulating it around SOCOM. The concept finally rose to prominence when the GWOT started ramping up in the early 2000s. The Navy signed on and dubbed it the Mk12 program.

The SOCOM program started by trying to formalize the Navy SEAL Recce rifle and its 16″ barrel. But the 5th SFG guys wanted a 20″ barrel for velocity reasons. Eventually, the Army won the debate. But as it tends to go, bureaucratic red tape caused more headaches.

The Navy had trouble requisitioning 20″ match barrels because “the system” kept telling them that 20″ barrels already existed in the supply chain. The fact that these were standard M16A2 and A4 barrels not up to the accuracy requirement for a light sniper rifle didn’t matter.

So the program office changed the specification to 18″ and said that there wasn’t anything in the system. They got their barrel. 

Regardless of its origins, the 18″ AR-15 barrel is very popular in the competition world. The rifle-length gas system offers a very smooth recoil impulse, while the 2″ shorter length shaves a few ounces off of the end of the rifle. The length also maintains good velocity for reaching out with a flatter trajectory. 

The primary trade-off is a loss in dwell time between the gas port and the muzzle. This can make it a little touchy about ammo selection in cold weather. I’ll talk more about this when I get to gas systems.

As a side note, the Army still wanted their 20″ accurate barrel, and the idea lived on in the SDMR (Squad Designated Marksman Rifle) and Marine SAM-R (Squad Advanced Marksman Rifle).

AR-15 Barrel Length Takeaways

Those who carry rifles professionally do a lot more living with their weapons than shooting them. You probably aren’t riding around in vehicles all day with your rifle, doing yard work with it slung across your back, or taking it with you to the bathroom. So worrying about living with your weapon probably isn’t a concern unless things have gone very very wrong in the world.

Also, as a bonus, we civilians can take advantage of configurations the military never fully adopted. Such as the M16A5. This configuration combines 20″ barreled upper with collapsible stock. That reduces some of the pain associated with full sized rifles and still provides all the benefits. This is actually my favorite configuration, and the Canadians liked it well enough to adopt is at the C7A2.

Now that we’ve covered AR-15 barrel length, let’s talk about profiles.

The Skinny (and Fat) on AR-15 Barrel Profiles

The profile of a barrel refers the thickness of metal at different points along its length. 

The way mass distributes along the length of the barrel has dramatic effects on how the barrel performs for different tasks. For example, a thin profile all the way down, the “pencil” profile, makes a very lightweight and easy to carry weapon that heats up quickly. In contrast, a thick profile from end to end, the “HBAR” profile, makes a heavy rifle that sustains accuracy over a long string of shots.

AR-15 Barrel Heat Management

The balance here is one of heat management versus handling. 

From a cold bore, there’s little practical difference in accuracy between a light barrel and heavy barrel for the first few shots. The differences appear as the barrel heats up.

You can carry it all day, or you can shoot it all day, but not both.

You might remember from chemistry classes way back in the day that metal expands as it heats. For rifle barrels, this expansion negatively affects the accuracy of a barrel. So the faster it heats up, the quicker your accuracy potential starts dropping.

If you heat any barrel up enough, you’ll eventually destroy the protective linings, rifling, and harm the steel itself. This was the case at the infamous Battle of Wanat. Most of us will never shoot that much.

Skinny barrels heat up faster, so you expect their accuracy to drop off faster. But they also cool down quicker. Heavy barrels are slower to heat, so they retain their accuracy longer, but are also slower to cool down.

I should note that a few manufacturers, like Faxon Firearms, claim that the heat treatment they’ve done on their barrels greatly reduces the effects of heat on accuracy. That could be true, or false, I’ve not tested it myself.

Handling Characteristics

There are far more profiles out there than “skinny” and “heavy.” It’s common to have a heavier mass of steel at the rear of the barrel, near the receiver, and then the barrel gradually tapers to a skinny profile near the muzzle. 

This produces a well-balanced rifle that dissipates heat well. Criterion uses this in their “Hybrid Profile”  as well as their CORE serries AR-15 barrels. Ballistic Advantage calls their version the “Hanson Profile.”  Faxon’s “Gunner Profile” fits this category as well.

There is also the “Government” profile found on the M16A2, M4 carbine, and many civilian rifles. This has a skinny profile near the receiver and a thicker profile towards the muzzle. There is kind of a funny story behind how that profile came about. 

The only real benefit of it is that it moves some of the balance forward for shooters who want a bit of “hang” without increasing the overall weight too much.

The compromise between weight and balance comes down to how easy you want the rifle to carry, how quickly you want to bring it to a target, how well it settles in your hands for precision shooting, and how well handles heat. 

You can read more about that in my article on weight and balance.

Choosing Your AR-15 Barrel Profile

Rifles that are carried a lot and see easy to moderate shooting schedules are the best candidates for light barrels. This is most people, including military members who live with their rifles.

Heavy barrels are suited to rifles that need to maintain higher levels of accuracy over long strings of shots. This describes match shooters and precision rifles shot from relatively fixed positions.

There’s also an argument for heavy barrels when it comes to sustained high rates of fire, as with an “automatic rifleman” type of project (though with something like a binary trigger rather than actually being fully automatic). The heavier barrel helps soak up the heat from those long strings, but just remember that it’s also going to take time to cool back down. I’ve personally never had interest in trying this AR-15 project.

As the late Hognose of Weapons Man once put it, “You can carry it all day, or you can shoot it all day, but not both.” 

Most people are far better served by lighter profiles.

AR-15 Barrel Composition

When it comes you barrel steel, you’ll choose between Chrome Moly or Stainless. Those descriptions are very broad, with many sub-varieties falling under those labels. Some alloys are more useful than others.

The two alloys have different wear characteristics. It looks something like this: let’s say chrome moly barrels last to ‘X’ number of rounds before accuracy starts gradually declining until the barrel is “spent.” A stainless barrel might last slightly longer than ‘X,’ but then its accuracy declines much more quickly.

This is a generalized example and ignores the quality of the barrel, rate of fire, heat, or load pressure of the ammunition. All of these things dramatically affect the life of a rifle barrel.

Any barrel might last through many thousands more rounds shot at a slow cadence than it will doing regular mag dumps. This heat management issue is why you see such a wide discrepancy between the mechanical cyclic rate of an AR-15 (700-800 rounds per minute) and the sustained rate of fire (12-15 rounds per minute, or about one shot every 4 to 5 seconds). The sustained rate of fire is the heat management tipping point where the weapon could sustain that rate of fire indefinitely without overheating.

Chrome Moly Barrels

This is the most common type of steel encountered in AR-15 barrels. It’s a broad category that encompasses several different types of metal. If you read my guide to buying your first AR-15, I mentioned two of them: 4140 and 4150. So let’s start there.

4140 and 4150 are two common steel alloys that include Chromium and Molybdenum. These are called “ordnance steels.” 

4140 includes about .40%  carbon, and 4150 includes about .50% carbon– hence the 4140 and 4150. In real terms, 4150 is a harder alloy and better stands up to temperature extremes, such as fully automatic fire or very cold weather. 

Good to Know

While the higher carbon content of 4150 steel does make it stronger at the edges of performance, the average person will probably never push their barrel to that limit. This is why some manufacturers use 4140 steel as a cost saving measure.

The US Government has a specification for small arms barrel steel, known as ORD 4150. This specification is MIL-B-11595E, and lists out the chemical composition required to be compliant.

The third blend in this spec includes Vanadium. This blend is called Chrome Moly Vanadium, or 4150 CMV. You may also see it called 41V45 steel. The vanadium in this alloy helps promote a finer grain structure, wear resistance, and strength.

A manufacturer may claim their barrel is 4150 steel, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually certified under MIL-B-11595E. Being both 4150 and 11595E certified is more difficult, and thus more expensive. 

A manufacturer that’s gone to the trouble of utilizing certified barrel steel will advertise the fact. If they don’t, then you may be getting a barrel made with plain AISI 4150 steel, which has looser tolerances on its chemical composition.

If you shop around enough, you’ll come across retailers selling AR-15 barrels made from “machine gun steel.” FN USA makes these barrels using their blend of steel intended for the M240 and M249 machine guns. It’s a variety of 41V45.

Stainless Steel AR-15 Barrels

When we start talking about stainless steel barrels, everyone assumes we’re talking about precision rifles and match grade barrels. To dispel that, understand that the barrel’s material has little effect on the accuracy of the weapon.

Stainless barrels are popular for match rifles for one primary reason: they are easier to machine and finish. 

The same small shop is able to machine, rifle, polish, and lap a barrel in one place according to their own quality control standards. Due to a shortened supply chain and skilled craftsmen all working in one place, the finished product is cleaner and more consistent from barrel to barrel. It’s this improved consistency of the barrel and its finish on the inside of the bore that improves accuracy.

Speaking of finishes inside the bore, another factor is protective linings. Since stainless barrels have a much higher amount of chromium in their chemical composition, upwards of 12% compared to about 1% in chrome moly barrels, they do not need any additional coatings or treatments to resist corrosion.  This is important because the application of chrome lining to rifle barrels historically meant that the bore surface became uneven and inconsistent compared to a bare metal finish. These inconsistencies disturbed the bullet and reduced accuracy.

Accuracy is a product of uniformity.

Due to the easier process, and all things being equal, good stainless barrels are about 30% more accurate than the chrome moly equivalents. Of course, this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

The trade-off is that stainless barrels do not handle adverse conditions as well. The necessary inclusion of sulfur in the metal raises a risk of developing sulfide stringers. That’s a fancy way of saying that the barrel could suffer catastrophic failure under fatigue.

What is fatigue? For barrels, it comes from extreme temperatures. That could mean very cold environments, very high rates of fire (and therefore heat), or some combination of the two. The best way to prevent this fatigue to increase the barrel thickness and avoid wild temperatures.

Stainless Alloys for Rifle Barrels

The most commonly used alloys for stainless AR-15 barrels are 410 and 416r.

410 is harder and more durable, owing to its lower sulfur content. The trade-off is that without the extra sulfur, the barrel becomes more brittle in temperatures below freezing. To compensate for temper embrittlement, the walls of the barrel must be thicker.

416r is an alloy formulated by Crucible Industries specifically for gun barrels. It’s easier to machine and rated to temperatures down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the most common alloy you’ll come across. It has more sulfur than 410, so it comes with increased risk of failure from sulfide stringers.

IMPORTANT: Do not confuse 416r with regular 416, they are not the same. If you see a barrel advertised as 416 stainless, ask if it is actually 416r before you buy it.

Because of the temper embrittlement and sulfide stringer fatigue concerns, it’s a best practice to avoid lightweight profiled stainless barrels all together. I know they are out there, and that’s because people ask for it even if it’s not a good idea. Such barrels might work fine for a bolt action hunting rifle that only get shot once every few hours, but it certainly isn’t meant for the higher rates of fire you see in defensive carbine classes or tactical matches.

Good to Know

The temper embrittlement issue in steels with extra sulfer isn't unique to stainless barrels. If you look at the MIL-B-11595E specification above, you might notice the middle column labeled as Resulfurized 4150. At .05% to .09%, it has more sulfur than 410 stainless steel (.04%) and is also at risk for temper embrittlement. The same applies to 4140 steels. The key factor in overcoming this issue is how the barrel was tempered by the manufacturer.

Again, buy quality and let the manufacturer figure it out.

Protective Linings for AR-15 Barrels

This is where the real differences between chrome moly (CM) and stainless barrels become apparent. CM and stainless barrels, machined bare, have about the same level of accuracy. But you’re rarely going to find a bare CM barrel on the market. CM barrels require extra lining, typically composed of chrome, to resist corrosion.

Chrome Lining

To improve corrosion resistance and wear characteristics of combat rifles, it’s important to line the bore and chamber of a CM barrel with chrome.

To line a barrel, manufacturers remove a thin layer of steel from the bore and replace it with chrome. Small imperfections left in the bore from this process might affect the bullet as it travels the length of the barrel. Historically, this negatively impacts accuracy.

In the 21st century, manufacturers like Criterion have figured out how to get a more even and consistent layer of chrome in the bore. I have another barrel from Centurion Arms made of FN’s machine gun steel and double-thick chrome lining that shoots about 1 MOA with good ammunition. 

The bottom line is that chrome lining does not deserve the negative accuracy reputation it has today- so long as it comes from a quality manufacturer.

Nitrided AR-15 Barrels

Another popular option is nitriding. I’ve written a much longer article about this nitrided barrels, so this is just a snapshot. Nitriding has several trade names such as Melonite, Tenifer, QPQ, Salt Bath Nitride, and others. 

The end result of the nitriding process is a very hard “case” surrounding the barrel steel. This case is about 60-65 Rockwell, as opposed to 28-32 found on normal barrel steel. It’s very corrosion resistant and has a much lower coefficient of friction compared to bare metal or chrome.

The “killer feature” of nitriding is that the accuracy of the barrel is maintained while the corrosion and wear characteristics improve. Nothing is free, however.

There are two downsides that I know of. The first is the temperature required to complete the process, which is very close to those used for stress relieving barrels after rifling- specifically stainless barrels. Stress relief is a huge factor in a barrel’s accuracy. It is possible to undo that important work and hurt a barrel’s performance. More on that in a second.

Secondly, the nitride case is much less heat resistant than chrome. It is not an ideal solution for barrels that see very high volumes of sustained rapid fire. The lining will fail and result in faster erosion of the barrel’s steel.

Again, if you would like more detail about the nitriding process, its positives, negatives, and what exactly I mean by high volumes of sustained rapid fire (hint, it’s a lot), then head over to my article specifically about nitriding.

So Which AR-15 Barrel Material Should You Choose?

99% of shooters are best served by a quality CM/CMV barrel. Either chrome lined or nitrided.  Well-made barrels are more than capable of turning in 1.5 to 1 MOA groupings or better. That is more accurate than the average shooter is capable of, especially when most users are blasting cheap ammo that isn’t capable of better than 3-5 MOA to begin with.

It doesn’t make sense to spend $500 on a custom stainless match barrel capable of 1/2 MOA, and then feed it cheap bulk ammo that can’t group better than 3 MOA.

If you absolutely need better than 1 MOA accuracy, and you only plan to feed it quality match ammunition, then go ahead and get a stainless barrel. If you live where it gets below freezing, stick to 416r stainless.

AR-15 Barrel Twist Rate and Rifling

Rifling describes the grooves cut down the length of a barrel’s bore. These grooves “grab” the bullet and impart rotation. Like a spiraling football, this spinning action increases the accuracy and range of the projectile. We measure how stable a bullet is by applying a gyroscopic stability factor. 

The stability factor is a combination of the spin rate and the shape of the bullet. Before I get into determining twist rates, let’s quickly look at how we create rifling.

AR-15 Barrel Rifling Methods

There are three methods that manufacturers use to form the rifling of a barrel: cutting, button rifling, and hammer forging. Each of these has pros and cons and the balance is between how long it takes, the consistency of the end result, and how much stress the steel undergoes during the process. 

Cut Rifling

Cut rifling is the original “old school” way. A machine cuts each groove one at a time over many passes. This produces the least amount of stress on a barrel but requires the most care to get right. Generally, these are the most expensive barrels due to the extra time and quality controls required.

This video shows a machine performing cut rifling

Button Rifling

Button rifling is the military specification and involves forcing an extremely hard “plug” through a smooth “blank.” This cutting plug creates the grooves as it passes through the bore. This is a much faster method but produces much more stress on the barrel steel.

Many qualities barrels are button rifled, so don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that it’s inferior to other methods.

Hammer Forging

First developed by the Germans during WWII,  this method uses a tungsten “negative” mandrel inserted into the smooth bore of a “blank.” A large hydraulic machine hammers the blank around the mandrel until the desired rifling pattern forms. There is a great article from a 2005 edition of Precision Shooting that covers the history and process well.

This is a fast way to mass produce very consistent rifle barrels. It has a side benefit of creating a metal grain compression pattern and a slightly stronger barrel. The downside, of course, is that it puts a very high amount of stress on the barrel steel.

This video demonstrates what the process looks like. It comes from GFM Machine, which produces most of the hammer forging machines in the world. One of the original engineers who designed the process founded the company.

Stress Relieving a Rifle Barrel

Applying high amounts of force on steel results in stress. To combat this, we need to stress relieve the barrel. Without this step, the rifle’s barrel would lose accuracy very quickly after starting to heat up.

To summarize the process, stress relief means heating the barrel up to about 1000 degrees. This helps removes stresses that built up during the rifling process. This also results in a slight softening of the steel. Of note, cut rifled barres do not require this process, which means they are slightly harder than other finished barrels. 

Notice the temperature used during the stress relief process? It’s about 1000 degrees. That is right around the upper range of the nitriding process. Unless the company doing the nitriding is very careful to control temperatures, there is a risk of undoing the important stress relief work. At that point, the barrel will become very inaccurate as it heats.

Main Takeaway

The rifling process is interesting but is honestly not that important. Worry less about marketing hype. Buy from a quality manufacturer and let them worry about how the barrel gets made.

AR-15 Barrel Twist Rate

A barrel’s twist rate describes how quickly the grooves spiral. Twist rate is denoted as 1/7, 1/8, 1/12, etc. Pronounced “one in seven,” for example, this means that the groove completes one 360-degree rotation around the bore every seven inches. The smaller the number on the right, the faster the twist rate.

You may have heard that you should tie the twist rate to the weight of the bullet you want to shoot. Technically, that is wrong. If you want the long and detailed version, check out my write up on twist rates. 

The short version is that the ideal twist rate is a calculation accounting for a bullet’s diameter, length, and weight distribution. More length, and more mass, for a given diameter typically requires a faster twist to stabilize it.

The original AR-15 barrels had a 1/14 twist rate. Later, the specification changed to 1/12 for use with M193 55gr bullets. When the M16A2 arrived, the twist rate increased to 1/7 to better work with the long tracer rounds. 

For a long time, most civilian AR-15 barrels had a twist rate of 1/9, which is actually a really good compromise for shooting most common bulk ammo between 45gr and 62gr. But since the military specification is 1/7, it has been deemed “most desirable” by serious users. 

As the popularity of 77gr SMK for match shooting and defensive use took root, 1/7 twists now reign supreme.

I’ll note that a 1/8 will shoot just about anything 77gr and below well, and is the one I recommend most if you don’t mind deviating from the pack.

I put together this chart to help show you the ideal twist rate for various bullets.

Some people speculate that you can over-stabilize a bullet if you fire it through a barrel with too fast a twist rate. Generally, that is wrong. But, if you fire thin jacketed lightweight bullets or smaller cast lead ones, you could see some issues with high RPMs causing the bullet to come apart during flight.

Ballistician Bryan Litz does point out that there is an optimum twist rate for maximum accuracy, though. If you reference the chart I put together above for twist rates, bullets do best when the stabilization factor is between 1.5 and 2.0.

Rifling Shape

Traditional rifling consists of grooves cut down the length of the bore with edges that “grab” the bullet. This pattern is called “land and groove.” 

If you do enough shopping around you’ll eventually come across a manufacturer touting their various special polygonal rifling patterns. Remington calls theirs 5r, Shilen calls theirs “ratchet rifling,” and there are other names. The bottom line is that they all effectively do the same thing by using gentle “swells” and smoother angles to do the same job as traditional grooves.

There isn’t much difference in performance between them. Don’t let the marketing hype fool you. If anything, polygonal rifling is slightly easier to clean up due to the smoother surfaces, but you aren’t likely to see any real difference in accuracy.

AR-15 Chamber Dimensions

The .223 and 5.56 are very closely related. In fact, most people think they are identical. Dimensionally, they pretty much are.

The difference comes down to the pressures that each generates. 223 is a SAAMI specification, so everyone knows how to follow it for the civilian market or reloaders. On the other hand, 5.56 is a military specification and one that’s changed a lot over the years as velocity requirements have changed. 

SAAMI and the US Military measure pressure differently, so there really isn’t a way to directly compare them.

Rifles with 5.56 chambers have slightly more room on the inside of the chamber to deal with those higher pressures.

Common wisdom is that firing a 5.56 cartridge in a .223 could result in catastrophic failure due to overpressure. I think those fears are a little overblown, but I understand where they’re coming from.

There are other chambers that split the difference between the two, like .223 Wylde or Noveske’s Match Mod 0.

Due to tighter dimensions, you should expect .223 chambers to be slightly more accurate. But 5.56 chambers work safely with a wider variety of ammunition.

I think most new shooters are just fine starting with a 5.56 chamber.

Gas Systems

Now we have reached the last consideration: the gas system.

The AR-15 is a gas-powered rifle, meaning that it uses the expanding gasses from a fired cartridge to eject the spent case and load the next round. The gas required to do this bleeds out of a small hole in the barrel, known as the “gas port.” This is true of just about every modern semi-automatic rifle design whether it’s piston-driven or direct impingement.

On an AR-15, the gas port is on the top of the barrel under the front sight tower. Gas flows down a tube, where it meets the gas key of the bolt carrier group. It then flows inside the bolt carrier, where the pressure pushes against the back of the bolt and the rear of the carrier. This forces the two components apart and unlocks the bolt. The rearward momentum then continues to cycle the rifle.

Manufacturers must manage the amount of gas entering the system. Too much gas and the rifle action becomes too violent. Too little gas and the action will not fully cycle and cause malfunctions. Manufacturers also have to account for the gas port slowly widening over time as the hot gasses erode the steel.

What makes this calculation particularly tricky is that different lots of ammunition have different amounts of pressure, so what works for one lot of ammunition on a hot day may not work on another on a cold day. To combat this, most manufacturers will “overgas” a rifle slightly to ensure it works across a variety of ammunition in a variety of environments.

Match shooters who always shoot the same load of ammunition through the same rifle are the only ones who should consider trying to run on the raggedy edge of cycling reliability.

AR-15 Barrel Dwell Time

Dwell time describes the amount of time between when the bullet passes the gas port, allowing gas into the system, and when the bullet exits the bore. As the bullet “uncorks,” the pressure in the system equalizes back to “neutral” atmospheric.

On average, for government spec configurations, there is about 7″ of barrel between the gas port and the muzzle. This is pretty well optimized for a 20″ rifle, 16″ midlength, or 14.5″ carbine barrel. 

Where you see some trouble is the oddball lengths like 18″ and many of the SBR lengths. 18″ barrels with rifle-length gas systems have two inches less “dwell time” when compared to their 20″ cousins. That means the gas port must be enlarged to let more gas in the system before the bullet uncorks.

The inverse applies as well with long dwell times. 16″ barrels with carbine gas ports need smaller holes.

This dwell time issue becomes very important on the very short 10.5″, 11.5″, and 12.5″ barrels, as they all use the same 7″ carbine gas system. Suppressors add yet another layer of complexity, as they also increase pressures and manufacturers have to find a way to work well both suppressed and unsuppressed.

To date, I’ve seen companies deal with this in two ways. The first is some kind of adjustable gas block design, so that the user can adjust how much gas enters the system according to their needs. The second way is more interesting, as it involves using smaller gas ports set closer to the chamber, intentionally increasing the dwell time and siphoning off that pressure for longer.

Something else manufacturers have to content with is “leaky” gas block fitment, where some portion of the gas vents out at the base of the gas block rather than traveling through the gas tube and into the system. I keep repeating myself on this point, but this is why buying from quality manufacturers matters.

Selecting Your Gas System

The hard-and-fast rule here is the longer the gas system, the lower the operating pressure. That means a more gentle recoil impulse and longer parts life. That’s not always true, however, it’s just a general rule. Again, buy something quality and let the manufacturer figure this out for you.

Good to Know

The military specified as port sizes are well known. These are proven reliable for millions of rifles shooting billions of rounds of ammunition reliably. Consider these your baseline gas port sizes, and you need a very good reason to deviate from them with these barrel lengths. For non-military barrel lengths, it's a bit more like the wild west. Also, notice the relationship between the length of the barrel, length of the gas system, and size of the port.

• 20" barrel, rifle gas - .093"
• 18" barrel, rifle gas - .0995"
• 14.6" barrel, carbine gas - .0625"
• 10.3" barrel, carbine gas - .070"
  

Manufacturer Spec

I want to leave you with one more piece of advice, because I see it all of the time in message boards and social media. Let’s take a fictional gun company getting their start. I’ll call them Wildcard Arms.

Wildcard Arms contracts with FN USA to produce a run of very high-quality hammer-forged barrels. The specs on the bore are very tight, and the accuracy expectation is high. Not every barrel FN makes will meet this specification, so there is a fairly high “reject rate.” This is expected and built into the higher cost that Wildcard Arms has to pay per delivered barrel. But because each barrel is made to a high spec and consistency, Wildcard gets to charge a premium price for the product.

Both companies are now selling barrels from the same factory, on the same machines, but one has a much higher spec product held to tighter tolerances.

I’m not saying that Athena’s barrels are junk. They might even perform quite well, though not as well as Wildcard’s spec. I would also expect that the factory, FN in this example, also wants to maintain a positive reputation and wouldn’t push junk. But I am saying that there is a reason for the price difference. It is foolish to discount that just because they came from the same factory.

Buy nice, or buy twice.

Wrapping it Up

I hope you found this guide useful. Buying a barrel is an intimidating process because of the huge number of choices that you need to make. The length, profile, material, lining, and gas system all have an effect on the performance of the gun. But, despite all the text above, the difference from one configuration to the next is not as important as the quality of the manufacturer.

Don’t spend an excessive amount of money chasing accuracy. A quality basic barrel is capable of holding 1 to 1.5 MOA. That is more than accurate enough for even most match shooters, much less a new shooter just getting into things. The mechanical accuracy of the barrel is far less important than the marksmanship skills of the shooter.

Let me know if this article was helpful, and feel free to ask any other questions you might have. Whatever it is, you’re probably not the only one thinking it.

Home » Equipment » The AR-15 Barrel Cheat Sheet: Everything You Need to Know

Matt

Matt is the primary author and owner of The Everyday Marksman. He's a former military officer turned professional tech sector trainer. He's a lifelong learner, passionate outdoorsman, and steadfast supporter of firearms culture.

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102 Comments

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Does adding a suppressor effectively change the barrel length increasing the projectile velocity.

Hey Bill, thanks for reading and asking! To answer your question, yes, a suppressor does add a bit of velocity boost. But 4 inches of suppressor doesn’t offer the same boost as 4 inches of additional barrel length.

That has to do with the way suppressors are designed to handle the expanding gasses. They aren’t doing much to accelerate the bullet at that point.

In real terms, the slight gain in velocity from a suppressor isn’t enough to dramatically affect the trajectory.

great post. former jarhead here with a classic a4 w/ carry handle (nostalgic inspection arms practice) from palmetto. looking to build a more tactical for the wife (and myself lol). very helpful info!! cheers!!

Hey Matt, thanks for commenting! I’m glad you found the post helpful. If you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. With an article this long, there’s bound to be some rock unturned, and you’re probably not the only one asking!

That was one of the best articles I’ve read in a long time. Very informative. Thanks!

Thank you for reading, and I’m glad you found it helpful!

I’m looking into building an AR. I’m a marine and my issued weapon is the h and k m27. Which has a gas piston operated bolt. I’ve found it to be much easier to clean and I like the operation better than the m4 I was originally issued. Do you have any articles on piston operated systems that have info to help me decide which to buy?

Hey Kyle! Thanks for coming by and asking. To be up front, I just don’t have much experience at all with piston systems. In the AR platform, the civilian model of the HK is probably the best way to go, but you will of course pay HK prices for it.

Beyond that, I know and trust LMT’s options.

Hi Matt,
Great article. Very well written. I’m rebuilding my ar15 pistol, and I’m going to replace the barrel with a good quality, 20” barrel.
I’ll also go with an adjustable butt stock. So, what size buffer And buffer spring will work Best?

Hey Craig, thanks for coming by! What you’re talking about is more or less the M16A5 configuration, I put together a post about it here: https://www.everydaymarksman.co/equipment/m16a5/

The quick and dirty side that a standard carbine buffer tube and spring paired with an H2 buffer will work fine. If you don’t mind spending a little more, the A5 system is great.

Excellent over view of complex subject. I wasn’t sure if I would like the AR platform. So I did not want to sink a lot of money into nothing more than a folly. I am smitten by the elligant engineering. That’s something it takes having it in your hands to be aware of.

A well-made one just feels nice in the hands, and even more so when you shoot it 🙂

“…or making YouTube videos of mag dumps” How is that *not* a legitimate purpose?

To be fair, I didn’t say that it wasn’t 😉

Only that if mag dumps for YouTube are your primary purpose, then a lightweight barrel probably isn’t the right place to start.

Great, informative article. Thanks!

Thanks for reading! I’m glad you found it helpful.

Since posting this comment, I just spent the last few hours reading pretty much every article of interest to me (and there were MANY) on your site. Good info, excellent delivery, and thanks for the effort! I like that you deal with the information only, facts, etc., and even opinions where appropriate. I especially appreciate the complete absence of the usual political slights and sarcastic undertones found on pretty much EVERY gun-related site or forum. I usually don’t stay long on those sites, and lose a lot of respect for the presenter when it starts. I find it reduces the… Read more »

I’m flattered, Shane, thanks for the comment. I do intentionally avoid political drama for a lot of reasons- and a lot of that is because of what you stated, it’s easy to get anywhere else.

Thank you for a very thorough, well-researched, and pragmatic page on AR-15 barrels.

You’re very welcome! Thanks for reading

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I am new to rifles and throughly enjoyed reading this article.

Hey Dominic, thank you for reading and taking the time to comment. I’m glad you found this article useful!

One of the best articles on firearms I’ve ever read. Wish I had found this a long time ago, would have saved me a lot of aggravation. Fascinating.

Thanks for reading, Jack! I’m glad you found it useful.

Matt – excellence in an informative post! Learned much. Question – about ‘twist stabilization. I read somewhere (don’t remember source but I usually only read credible informative articles – like yours) that for ‘practical distances’ – say under 300 yards – bullet destabilization ‘in-flight’ is really a non-factor for defensive purposes (the 9 and 10 rings – to be PC) out of a typical 16 or 20 inch AR barrel with a generic 1:7 twist rate using 62 or even 55 grn bullets. I know the 1:7 is designed optimally for heavier bullets (tracers) and that heavier bullets are more… Read more »

Paul, thanks again for reading. If you haven’t seen it, I have a much longer post on twist rates specifically: https://www.everydaymarksman.co/equipment/rifling-twist-rate/ But, to get to your questions, the 1/7 twist was indeed used specifically because of the M856 tracer. I ran the numbers on it and the stability factor for that round in a 1/7 twist barrel is 1.25. Going one step down to 1/8 brings the stability factor to .9, which is the realm of “unstable.” Without the odd ballistic characteristics of the M856 due to its long length, but relatively light weight for size due to the hollow… Read more »

Thanks Matt! I will read your other post concerning this topic but you answered my questions.

Outstanding article , tons of relevant information, I can’t wait to read the others you mentioned

Referring to the Armorer mentioning that the 20″ RLGS bolts not wearing out as often as the 14.5″ CLGS; is wear and tear an artifact of gas system length or barrel length? or both. Based on this article, I would think that the gas system has more to do with parts wear than the barrel length; e.g., a mid-length 16″ would wear the same rate as a 12.5″ mid length system based on the timing between primer strike to direct impingement. can you elaborate on this? I am at a point of upgrading form the carbine length gas system to… Read more »

I would think it’s a bit of both, but with the primary driver being the length of the gas system. Lower operating pressures in the system mean less violent action of the bolt. While one could argue that a “midlength is midlength,” that also ignores the increasing size of the gas port as you shorten the barrel. All of that said, though, we’re really kind of nibbling around the margins of reliability, and the difference of a few thousand rounds here or there is rather insignificant in the grand scheme.

Hello, I have an AR15 rifle made by Bear Creek Arsenals. It does not say what caliber it is anywhere on it. It does, However, say it is a multi caliber rifle, which I understand what that means. I purchased a few boxes of 223 ammo and upon loading my clip and inserting the clip into the chamber and getting ready to fire, the bullet just slide down the barrel and fell out the end onto my floor, I tried it again and same thing. I don’t know what is going on as this is my first AR 15. Any… Read more »

Hi Tammy, I totally understand your concern and frustration. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough information to provide a good answer. When you say the bullet slid through the bore and ended up on the floor, do you mean the entire cartridge or just the bullet at the end?

My first impression is that your rifle is chambered in something other than .223, I know Bear Creek makes rifles in a variety of calibers, including the 12.7×42 and .458 SOCOM, the bore of both are wide enough for an entire .223 cartridge to fall through.

A 20” barrel is still experiencing the same pressure, when the bullet is at 10”, as a 10” barrel experiences at bullet exit. It’s not like the shorter barrel increases pressure. It’s just that pressure at exit is higher because that exit is closer to explosion in the chamber. If you measured pressure at a given distance from the chamber the pressure would be uniform across all barrel lengths.

Marty, you are correct. The pressure at any given point along barrels of different lengths will be more or less the same. My point in bringing up the pressure curves is about the noise and concussion produced by the expanding gasses as the bullet leaves the bore and the increased operating pressures involved as the gas port moves closer to the chamber.

Great article! Thank you so much! You answered most of my questions in one go.

Thanks for reading, happy to help!

Out of curiosity, which ones did I not answer?

Hi, sorry, didn’t see your response for awhile. I’m still wondering if it’s worth spending a little extra on a CHF/BFH barrel. You pretty much leave it at “Buy from a quality manufacturer and let them worry about how the barrel gets made.” OK, but I still have to choose the barrel, and that doesn’t tell me if a CHF barrel from a good source will actually last longer or shoot better, or by how much. Please also consider adding “CHF” and “BFH” to the text, since some people do Ctrl+F searches on strings like that. I think discussing fluted… Read more »

Just to add, since I just made myself look foolish–when I saw fluted barrels on the vendor site, it was while looking at complete uppers, so the differences in the barrel were not visible through the handguard. (In fact, I think that particular vendor uses the same photos for the fluted barrel upper as they do for the standard barrel upper.)

I didn’t really speak to that because I honestly don’t think there’s enough data out there to say one way or the other. CHF barrels are, in theory, tougher than barrels made with button or cut rifling, but I sincerely think that it only matters if you’re looking for bragging rights. In the real world, the difference is so minuscule that you’re never going to notice it and it’s not something I would consider as part of my buying decision. As for fluted barrels, I’ve honestly not spent a lot of time with them. Since they are usually associated with… Read more »

Wow , Thank you Sir well written for this novice and extremely informative.

Thank you

I have a 20 in heavy barrel 223 on an ar platform, which weight of bullet should i be using for the longer distance

I just found this article/ very informative. I am building my first AR and went with 16 inch barrel with carbine length gas system, though I wanted an 18 inch. I will build another 18 inch but I am worried about my lack of knowledge regarding the 18 inch barrel and gas systems; whether to use a mid length or rifle length and the proper gas port.

Hi Marc, at this point I wouldn’t really fuss over it. The 18″ rifle-gassed barrel is pretty well figured out at this point.

Wow! Absolutely spectacular article in barrels. Thank you. I have a 16” high quality stainless 416 button rifled barrel with a mid length gas system in an AR I don’t use much. I’d like to get a SBR/pistol length AR to use 99% with a OSS low back flow suppressor. I could have this barrel professionally machines and cut down to 12.5” and keep the mid gas system or go to 11.5” and shorten to a carbine length…or just buy a new AR? I understand I may have some AGB and buffer tweaking to do if I do the barrel… Read more »

Hi Brian, thanks for reading. I have to admit that cutting down barrels is just not something I have a lot of experience with one way or another. That said, I think you’re skipping over another option. You’re talking about either cutting down your existing barrel or purchasing a new rifle all together. You could always buy a standalone barrel at the length you desire (and have the appropriate gas port already in place) and have it installed on your existing upper. You could also buy a complete upper to put on your SBR’d lower and then have both configurations… Read more »

Great article, and tons of information. Very helpful.

A note though, may want to work more on editing. Tons of grammatical errors, typos, and missing words.

Thanks Beau, this article has been re-written and adjusted so many times that I’m not at all surprised things fell through. I’ll give it another once over soon 🙂

So I’ve just spent 3-4 days trying to research the various aspects of how to choose an AR15 platform for 100-500yd shooting. And here Matt just pulls it all together in an understandable way. Matt – awesome explanation and without any prejudices to “what I use is..” . I am eternally grateful fo finally understanding what I need to buy.

Bill…excellent overview and very helpful, especially for a novice like me. Decided to build my first rifle from stripped receivers so that I understand the function of all parts AR. Goal is to develop proficient marksmanship at 4-500 yards vs. high round count plinking, still with reasonable ammo costs. Self/home defense is not really a consideration. Concentrating the bulk of my money on the barrel, BCG, and stock and decided to build on a 20″ .223 Wyle platform. Could upgrade trigger later. If I like how it’s going, I may in the future decide on a 6.5 Creedmoor build for… Read more »

Awesome article! Very helpful for my first AR-15 build!

Well written and informative article. Thank you for sharing the information. I will use this as a reference.

Great article. Back in the late 80’s I took a box stock Colt Hbar to Dam Neck for theAll Navy matches to see what it would do. Shooting issue M193 it shot very well and was competitive even at the 500 yd line. Dam neck didn’t have a 600 yd line then. Got a lot of strange looks and the USMC armorers wouldn’t touch it. At that time I think the only other guys shooting the 16 were some toasties and some marines not part of MTU. And now it dominates service rifle. A positive for the 556 back then… Read more »

I have learned a lot from your post. Thank you for doing it. I am building my first AR15. I want to use 300 aac because I want to be able to hunt with it as well as target shooting. What barrel length would you recommend?

I own a bushmaster xm15 E2S nato.i believe my 16″ barrel is modified and crooked.im looking for a heavy barrel 20″ to increase my velocity or distance.i disagree about carrying and shooting where you can’t do both,I can.im half blind so the extra yardage of the 20″ compared to 16″ is my preference.so if you know where I can get the hvy 4150 20″ barrel I’m game.

Great article, but proof read and use spell check please.

Hi Randall, thanks for the reminder! This one has been rewritten and assembled so many times that it’s due for a checkover.

Really Randall, do you not find enough information in this article to consider and remember that you have to criticize to flaunt your superiority in the high school grammar setting ?

Still crying over that D in English are you.

If 4150 requires .50% carbon, why does the article say CMV is 4150 per MIL-B-11595E if the requirement is allowed to be as low as .41%? Seems a lot closer to 4140. I don’t think the spec is ORD 4150. I think it’s saying either ORD 4150, ORD 4150 Resulfurized, or CMV with as low as .41% carbon which could include 4140.

Hi George, the thing to remember is that CMV is neither 4150 nor 4140. It’s a different blend that incorporates vanadium, which has the side effect of also lowering the percentage of both carbon and manganese. Calling it “4150 CMV” is a technical misnomer because it’s not accurate, but it’s a fairly common phrase regardless when talking about this particular alloy.

Question: I’m wanting to build a 11.5” or 12.5” AR Pistol … most uppers/barrels have carbine length gas systems. But, you mentioned that ~7” dwell time is optimal for a 5.56/.223 AR-15. So, in theory, the optimal gas length for a 11.5”/12.5” AR-15 would be a pistol length gas system, right? How would a 11.5”/12.5” carbine length AR-15 differ from a 11.5”/12.5” pistol length AR-15? Have there been any good studies on this? I know there have been studies on velocity comparisons between 11.5” carbine length vs. 12.5” carbine length. But, how would a poor and inexperienced person determine the… Read more »

Hi Cody, thanks for the question.

I have not come across a good study on gas system length for an SBR in that class. However, I would argue that it’s probably not getting wrapped around the axel over. If you buy it from a quality manufacturer, they will have figured out how to manage the relationship between the gas system length and gas port size for you. The only thing I would be extra cognizant of is whether the barrel is primarily designed to be shot suppressed. Make sure to weigh that against your needs.

If I get a heavy stainless 20 inch barrel, is it a bad idea to have the diameter reduced between FSB and FH to .575 ?

I am just researching for my first AR build…so maddening! But as I began reading this article, I found myself clicking links to open articles in a new windows.

Not often that I read something and then look for the author’s name! I’ll be looking for your articles to help me with future AR questions.

Thanks for “shooting” us straight. Now, back to trying to track down parts.

Great writing, Sir!

Great article. I’ve been waiting for a particular AR to become available in the 16 inch version. The 18 in version is available. Is it possible or advisable to change to a 16 inch if I’m able to get the barrel separately? Thanks.

Hi Jeff, thanks for reading! Swapping out the barrel on an AR-15 is very simple with the right tools. You should have no issue moving to a 16″ barrel on an existing upper if you decide that the 18″ doesn’t suit you.

Thank you for the outstanding article. I found it to be among the most pragmatic I’ve ever read. I wish I had this info 15-20 years ago. As a proud owner of 12 completed AR’s in various barrel lengths and calibers, I must suggest you left out an important sub topic, “AR sickness”. This is the malady that effects the mind and allows you to convince yourself that the perfect AR is “The one I’m going to build next”. I’ve yet to find the cure!

Excellent article, I build custom AR’s and this gave me a lot of insight dependent on a persons needs.

Thanks for reading, John. I’m glad you enjoyed it!

Good afternoon from London England,

I have a Colt AR15 A1 that was customised by Creative Gunsmithing Ltd. on the barrel is stamped “RMP 5.56 NATO 1/9 H RAR. 20”. Does anyone know what RMP and H RAR stand for?

Thanks,
David

Great paper, lots of (intelligent) info. Thanks! I learned a lot!

Hello I want to build my first AR pistol I was hoping you could provide some insight. I want to get this BCM® Standard 12.5″ Carbine Upper Receiver Group w/ MCMR-10 Handguard. Now I don’t know if it comes with a adjustable gas system cause I think that’s important like you mentioned this size of a weapon you want to suppressed it and I know for suppressed weapons you want to adjust the gas. No I’m not a operator and no I unfortunately won’t be able to shoot 20,000 rounds a year I wish. I plan to use this rifle… Read more »

Hi Randy, as far as I know BCM does not use adjustable gas blocks. In this case, given BCM’s reputation and focus on real-world use, I think they have likely gotten the gas port sizing question right for either suppressed or unsuppressed use.

Honestly, I would be quite jealous of that upper and I’ve been considering something similar myself.

Really enjoyed this article and find myself coming back to share or learn more. Thank you and greatly helped my events this year regarding zero and barrel length.

[11/20/2021] Very informative article. 👍 Unfortunately, it appears that all the article links to videos have disappeared as the frames are all blank. Is there any way to refresh, or renew these links??

Thanks for reading! The text links in the article all work fine. The issue is that for the product boxes like you’re talking about, the suggested items do not appear if they are out of stock. Unfortunately, there’s very little stock to be found these days so I haven’t tried to keep the boxes up to date. Items will appear again as they arrive back on shelves.

Hi, I hope that life is going well for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this fine article. Very informative and interesting. Today, I shoot long range. I use a Masterpiece Arms 6.5 CM. I am in the process of assembling my own AR-15.and enjoying every minute of it.

Wow. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I am blown away and feel so much more capable of choosing the right barrel for my project. I am very grateful.

Without a doubt, this is the best article I’ve read on a well rounded explanation on AR15 barrel differences, how they affect price and accuracy and longevity, and what the average shooter should concern themselves with.

Couldn’t have explained it better myself.

Thank you for taking the time to write this, Matt.

This was awesome and very well written!!! Thank you so much!!!

This is a very well written and helpful article. Nice work!

Thank’s Matt, I appreciate it

Perfect article – just the info I need now. I’m just having fun building various AR style rifles. I’m looking for more accuracy with .223 Wylde rifle. At 100 yards, the first two rounds are 1-2 MOA. The 3rd, 4th, 5th etc could be 4″ away. I shoot mainly for fun, cheap 55g FMJ ammo at a local indoor range. Barrel is stainless 18″ mid length gas. Heavy profile with spiral flutes. 1:8 twist. I’ve lapped in the receiver, I’ve converted to a clamp on ajustable gas block, and adjusted the gas. It does shoot better with heavier ammo, but… Read more »

Hi Dirk, that seems like an interesting challenge. You shouldn’t be seeing that kind of accuracy issues with just four rounds, especially on good barrel. My initial impression is that it could be one of two things. First, it could simply be the ammo selection. YOu mentioned cheap 55gr FMJ. That stuff is typically 3 to 5 MOA ammo, so statistically the more shots you make the wider the dispersion will get.

The second thing that comes to mind is loose sights or a loose scope mount.

Matt

Matt is the primary author and owner of The Everyday Marksman. He's a former military officer turned professional tech sector trainer. He's a lifelong learner, passionate outdoorsman, and steadfast supporter of firearms culture.

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