Which barrel length is best for an AR-15? We perform the ultimate tests.

is pretty good size I'm kind of concerned about it yours is more than adequately I've really been self-conscious it could do everything this can do you really think so oh yeah dude 100 oh hey guys what's going on today we're going to be talking about a very important question what question is that does size matter as far as barrel length exactly now this has been discussed ad nauseum too much in fact uh if I have to answer one more barrel length question on Instagram I will we actually like answering these questions quite a bit there's a lot that goes into choosing the correct barrel length anything from velocity the slug to the environment that you're in we're hoping to hit a lot of those things today there's also a lot of myths there's a lot more accurate than others there's just everything that goes into it so we're going to try to test as many of these as we can out to try to give you some good data to help you choose the best barrel length now today we are using noveski rifles fully built up and why are we doing that Micah because their barrels are excellent they're extremely consistent super consistent and what's even better is that all the barrels that we have on these rifles right here are all from the same batch so from going from the different bear lengths to the longer Barrel links we have about the best consistency we can get we have no difference in brand between all those and in my mind probably uh as removing as many external factors as we possibly can borrowing the fact that we're not actually very good scientists I mean you know someone's going to be like that one has a different optic point is we've tried to remove as many variables as possible these are all built up in the factory at Noveske and we have to thank them so much for building these out and letting us use them for their tests they're going to head back to them after and they're all scuffed up so without further Ado we're going to get into it because it's time for some science do it also you're getting really good at filming oh yeah I've actually gotten so good I figured out how to film myself this is incredible yeah but before we get into it we need to thank the biggest sponsor of the channel who's the biggest sponsor of the channel Micah the Sonoran Desert Institute you're not that guy if you're looking to get your start in Gunsmithing they are the people to go to and we cannot thank them enough for sponsoring this Channel and we of course have primary arms nerd rope me May point is we also have to thank them for providing all the optics for the rifles that we're doing with today's tests so that was very nice of them that was Mega bass yeah that was very nice and then of course if you're looking to make your uh personality based around MultiCam Black we cannot forget savior equipment they are actually awesome rifle bags and they absolutely Rock and then I love them yeah we love them and unlike the uh camera that we're filming this on and the TV that you're watching this on AAC ammunition is sponsored in the US of a we're using it all in today's test they sponsor over ammo and we love it so we have six different rifles right here uh starting with the shortest right here we have a 10-3 we have our 11.5 we have a 12-5 we have a 13-7 we have the 14-5 which everybody loves very very much they certainly do they love it and then of course we have the 16 which has been forgotten by everyone not by me not by us um so we're gonna go ahead we're gonna start with the shortest and we're gonna go to the longest because that's just the order of things there's nothing wrong with a short rifle no absolutely not in certain situations they Excel all right start with the 10-3 right here okay it looks like about 26. so we have a standard deviation of 13. super low that's not typical of the Vmax it's usually around 20ish that was really good that would just happen to be really good on that one um and then our average was 26.33 [Music] that's 10. foreign was odd on the standard deviation standard deviation 52 on that one so average is 27.50 and yeah averages 27.50 [Music] okay standard deviation of 19.7 on that one average was 28.02. all right series four for the 13-7 [Music] good all right so standard deviation of 22.4 that's that's around the 20s seems like we're around 20. average of 28.53 all right uh series five on the 14-5 yeah standard deviation 33.7 average of 29.19 series six foreign there we go cresting that 3K FPS yeah magic number right there so we'll talk about that in one moment let's check this all right uh standard deviation 27.7 average 29.86 yeah so the question is why does velocity matter well it depends on the round 556 in a lot of cases does rely on velocity especially when you go to the 55 grain most people that I know are shooting 55 grain yes now there are better rounds yes well yeah it's eight yeah 77 grains uh your 69ers all those are are awesome and they will do amazing things even at low speeds but if you're using 55 you need velocity if I'm not mistaken certain rounds rely on certain velocities to Tumble to do certain fragments all sorts of things yeah the 556 out of a 20 inch barrel going 31 to 33 100 feet per second is absolutely devastating the round will y'all will yaw it will fragment it will break apart in the body and it will be devastating however most people that I know aren't running M16s because they're not Giga Chads so if you're running anything shorter you have to understand that you're a little bit more limited in your fragmentation range 10-3 famously with 55 grain can only fragment to about 50 meters and past that it has a little bit of trouble am I saying that a 10 3 isn't going to kill absolutely not you put a 55 grand through somebody's brain they're still dead but if we're talking about trying to get the maximum amount of energy and the maximum amount of lethality out of around so we have to understand that certain barrel lengths aren't going to provide that at longer distances okay we're gonna go ahead and we're going to check the data with our engineer Christian hey so we're going to look at three things here we're going to look at the biggest increase in fps we're gonna look at the smallest increase in FBS we're going to look at the total increase that we saw from smallest barrel length the biggest barrel length so Christian go ahead and take this off yeah so the biggest FPS gain is between that 10 3 and 11.5 with a 117 FPS which means they haven't seen this yet but that is psychotically high higher than all the other barrel lengths BCM predicting everything talking about the 11.5 and how much better it was they really drove that conversation 117 is kind of nuts it's crazy yeah it's it's about 50 to 70 FPS between all of the other um barrel lengths um yeah and then the the lowest is going to be between the 11 5 and 12.5 and that's going to be 52 FPS gain between those two so it looks like the lowest two gains are from 11 5 to 12.5 and from twelve five to thirteen seven those kind of mid barrel lengths were smaller than what we saw yeah yep and then the total FPS gain between 10 3 and 16 is going to be 353 FPS really interesting the one thing that I want to point out too is we've seen a lot of talk about 14 5 to 16 about it not being a big increase at all or being very negligible second base it's the second biggest increase when it comes to FPS so there is certainly a difference between 14 5 and 16. so we have to note on that but with all that being said let's go ahead and let's get to our next test let's go hi everybody looks a little different right now doesn't it well that's because it's been two months uh we had a little oopsie Daisy and a bunch of our footage corrupted so here we are again refilming and we're gonna go ahead and explain what's going on so we have all of our Barrel links that we just tested with velocity we have our 10-3 we have our 11 5 or 12 5 13 7 or 14-5 and are 16. now we could obviously just show you on a ballistic app what the drop is going to look like at different distances but we thought it'd be way cooler to actually shoot it out to 300 and show you what those drops are actually going to look like when each of these rifles has a 100 yard zero so right here we have the Pinnacle of AR-15 setups uh we have a Vortex uh 6 to 36 and uh great little optic on a scalerworks mount and we have our Noveske 10-3 so we'll start with this guy work up 16 and then we'll show you guys the difference in uh drop between those different bullets because obviously with a shorter Barrel you're going to have less velocity Therefore your round is going to be dropping a little bit more quickly than a 16. it's not as pronounced as you'd think but it can make a difference on longer shots so when you start getting out past 300 or getting two 300 you'll start to see that difference so again if you're just uh LARPing inner city and it's all 200 in may not be that big of a deal but if you're out in the foothills of Idaho like we are right here you might want a little bit more velocity we have the 10-3 so we're gonna go ahead and take our shots at 300. all right let's go check them out all right first shots with the 10-3 uh you can see the amount of drop you add this was the aiming Point here's impact point we do have a little bit of left to right wind so that makes sense it is uh you know 556 can only do so much let's go see how the eleven five does all right we have an 11.5 at 300 . foreign check it out cool so right here we have our uh 11.5 so you can see the height difference between the two here is kind of the mean group of where the 10-3 was here's the eleven five I will say pretty good group except for the little flyer right here but could have been pretty pretty dang tight way to go Noveske so we'll go ahead and we'll step it up to the 12-5 and let's see how that compares so we have the 12-5 we're gonna be shooting at uh 300 before we do a quick note we are using the same lower between every gun it's just a coat lower with a guy's a triggering it because it works well a lot of wind but that's uh it's another day on uh garandaram Ranch our biggest jump was from uh 10 3 to 11.5 is terms of our feet per second you can definitely see that from 11 5 to 12.5 there's a lot less of an increase so you can see here here's our 12-5 group it is significant but as you can see not as large as what we saw from the 10-3 and this is pretty on the money and I will say in this high wind I'm pretty happy with this group right here so not too bad I think I pulled that one I think it would have had a little bit tighter that's my ego on on trial right now so pretty cool you can see it slowly walking up let's go and see what the 13-7 does dick we have uh the 13-7 from Noveske are in a 300. 13-7 did have the smallest FPS increase amongst all the barrel lengths and you can definitely see that here from the 12-5 the 13 7 is higher than the 12-5 you can see our impacts here here and here pretty good group actually but uh it's not much so uh the one thing you can say about a 13-7 is that the gas system is a lot softer than a 12.5 so it is a easier gun I believe to get on Target and to do follow-up shots 13-7 isn't useless despite the data okay we have the 14.5 300 yards go check it out so to reiterate my point of aim has been right here looks like I did a little bit more of a shitty group right here so we have a little bit of vertical stringing our general impact area is right here so we do have that increase especially over the 13-7 compared to the 12-5 um compared to those and obviously it's going to be the case 14.5 has uh a significant amount more velocity than 12.5 so we've seen what the 14.5 is going to do let's go ahead and take a look at the 16. next up 16 at 300. foreign so we had we had one flyer my bad guys but uh here's the general level of our 14-5 here's a general level of our 16 approximately so um gained a good amount of height so you can see coming down from our 10-3 all the way up to our 16. there is a good bit of difference now it's kind of harder to explain is the velocity especially on a moving Target 16 is nice or 14-5 because the velocity of the round is just a little bit more it's a little bit easier to get a lead and make sure that you're contacting with those moving targets especially when we consider windy conditions the longer your slug is in Flight the more it's going to be affected by wind by other environmental factors so um that speed is uh is awesome but anyhow 16 so let's go ahead let's print the 16 versus 10-3 I've been told that the 10 3 and the 16 should have the exact same accuracy um we're gonna figure that out I don't I think I think they should theoretically the 10-3 stabilizes 556 um so it should be good doubt 16 verse 10 3 16 we'll see which is more accurate all right let's go measure that cool so we are just a smidge under an MOA on this one uh with one Keyhole through one of the rounds which is pretty cool so this is um how long as you do in your part this is gonna be typical of the action you can expect from good ammunition with a low SD so we will see how the 10-3 does we have the 10-3 right here about the shortest you want to go on an AR-15 just due to the way the AR-15 operating mechanism works a lot of people tend to opt for this the mark 18 Med that made the 10-3 really popular and the 10-3 is still used in the military today so um a lot of people have it it was one of the first rifles I had in one of the first rifles that I used like on the channel I'm a big fan of it see how it performs [Applause] foreign flyer but it was going good until we had a little flyer there but that's part of the uh experiment so with the ballistic X app we ended up with about 1.5 MOA with this group all considered not bad not bad at all um that was 100 me I think that the 10-3 one thing that we can certainly I would say from the uh the initial group that we did while zeroing is that I think they're pretty well matched up the 16 is definitely an easier weapon to fire in terms of grouping because it's easier to follow on The Recoil is less the the bang is less it's just easier but the 10-3 definitely has that ability to do it so long as you are doing your part so with all these things being considered let's go ahead let's put all the uppers up uh down let's talk about them and talk about application there are a lot of conclusions that can be drawn uh from the video today obviously there's a lot of factors that come into play not just myself but in terms of the type of ammunition that you're using and many other factors but we wanted to give you guys a good Baseline here so now that we've done everything I want to go through each of the uppers and talk about potential applications and pitfalls we're gonna start with the 10-3 um I love the Mark 18. I've carried it it's all awesome I did early videos on it and this Noveske right here is also a 10-3 they are wonderful weapons for CQB they're as short as you want to go but you're going to be losing a lot of velocity relative to something just a little bit longer like an 11-5 in addition to that the 10-3 is pretty tough on bolts and bolt carrier groups but especially bolts you're you're I've seen on in general people last from about five to eight K depending on firing schedule so understand that the 10-3 is really going to burn out your components just a little bit harder because the weapon is just going to run harder that being said if you need to get into ships you need to maneuver and have the tightest CQB weapon possible the 10-3 is a good option now when it comes to the Grand thumb crew we kind of have several different barrel lengths that we prefer and the 11.5 is definitely one of our favorites if you need to go um short it's just a little bit longer than the market 18 but at the same time the 11.5 is much easier on components um I definitely have to credit uh BCM with really pushing the 11.5 and showing how it both has much better velocity than the 10-3 in fact the biggest jump in velocity was from 10 3 to 11.5 it really is a great compromise if you want to go short and unless you're really getting tight in there until those little spaces I definitely would recommend the 11.5 bolts tend to last much closer to the lifetime that you'd see on an M4 so in general the Grantham crew mostly runs the 11.5 next up we have the 12-5 um the 12-5 is awesome it is starting to kind of split hairs in my opinion uh it kind of is that nice in between kind of like the 13-7 if you want to be on the shorter side and have just a little bit more velocity the 12.5 is a good option is easy on components and um obviously the LMT spec war is a 12.5 as well and we are big fans of the spec War so we have the 12-5 this is the one that Micah hates the most but he's not here so he can't uh bemoan it but the 13-7 is very interesting um it was one of the smallest increases in performance compared to a lot of the different uppers but I definitely think that there is a place for it and the reason for that is that it is easier on the components due to the gas system your dwell time but in addition to that the extra barrel length that you have over like a 12-5 does mean that the rifle will last longer in terms of serviceability and ability to print good groups so the 13 7 is not useless but it it definitely falls into kind of a weird area so yeah in general we're not running them much if you're not running like an AR-15 uh there are a lot of different weapon platforms that use a 13 or a 14 somewhere right between there just naturally due to their gas system length so you know that's kind of a moot point but on an AR-15 generally not our first choice 14-5 is I think one of the best compromises when it comes to Bear links on AR-15s this is something that I've definitely argued with my crew about we have long discussions about this stuff but the fact the matter is is that when you go to a 16 yes the 16th performance is incredible it's a very soft firing rifle but if you're in a forest or a mountainous area you really can't go wrong with the 14-5 it's just at about that performance level of the 16 in terms of ballistics in terms of velocity while being just a smidge more maneuverable especially in Brush especially when you attach a suppressor to it so I am a big fan of the 14-5 if you have a 14-5 you are not wrong at all just understand your holds next up we have the 16. now out here in God's country in Idaho we are big fans of the 16 just because we have extremely long sight lines so being able to really stretch out the AR-15 is a is something that we love and uh it really isn't that bad a lot of people get pretty um it's a word for it like upset about barrel lengths where they're like oh 16 is completely unmaneuverable I mean Marines maneuvered in Fallujah with a 20. so if 16 is not bad you're going to do fine with it it gets a little bit unwieldy out of suppressor but the great thing about the 16 is you can add one of the miniature suppressors and you generally have really good flash signature because the longer the barrel length the less flash you're going to have now this is a little bit more ammunition dependent but in general your 16 is going to perform better than your 14 and especially compared to like your 10-3 so the 16 is one of our big go-to's um when it comes to me personally I either use a 16 or an 11 5 that's kind of my my two go-to lengths in terms of barrels Mica is more of a 14 5 16 guy and he runs a 10-3 as well because uh Vibes or something along those lines the point is there is a purpose to every single one of these uppers right here you need to understand what the benefits are to those and what the cons of those are when you're choosing whatever you're going to use and it's going to be completely independent upon your environment so as much as I love the 16 if it doesn't fit your your needs because you live in a city well then don't let me force you to use a 16 even though it has incredible performance in terms of ballistics so that is our bear length video what is the best barrel length depends hopefully this video is good for you guys you guys learned something we like to put out these data driven videos and uh yeah we love you guys very much get out there and train that's what's really gonna matter um I'd be much more afraid of a guy with a 10-3 when he's training every day versus a guy with like a 20 I mean I wouldn't want to get shot with 20 inch but the point is if you're training you're deadly get out there and train that's what we want to see as always guys we've got nothing else for you nothing for you guys um this is something that's I'm not a philosopher so it's going to be hard to explain but something I've always told people is you aren't what you want to be you are what you are so what that means is somebody be like I want to be a good dad well if you're just be a good dad then don't wait do it actualize actually get after it there's a lot to be said about people who talk versus people who do so be a doer thanks guys

Channel: Garand Thumb

Views: 1,319,606

Keywords: best barrel length, best ar15, ar15 barrel, best 556, 556 best barrel, ar15

Id: 9q03ZkC4VUs

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023