The crux of this post is the following question, which I realized after I typed the whole thing, so I’m putting it here at the beginning so everybody gets where I’m coming from:
Do you feel like a 14.5 gives up a lot to either a 12.5 or a 16?
And now for the backstory/original post:
I’m thinking over some options right now and would be interested to hear the thoughts of people here.
I mainly shoot a VZ58 for reasons related to a) cheap ammo and b) annoying Canadian legalities.
But I’m going more in the AR direction right now. I have a couple of options front and center:
Pick up a 14.5" AR. There is no legal distinction between a 14.5 and a 16 in this country, so SBR stuff is not an issue for me.
Wait a few months, and get both a 16 and a 12.5.
The reason I would wait on the 16 and the 12.5 is that I’m waiting on production from a company I’m friends with and would probably get a good deal on. But at the moment, they’re doing 14.5" guns.
I don’t have access to suppressors, and I would run a 12" rail on both guns. Originally I thought I’d do a 12.5 first, then a 16 mid length later on. But then it struck me…man, that’s a lot of effort for two near-identical guns, one 3.5" shorter than the other.
Why not split the difference and do a single 14.5" gun? I would only give up two inches on the shorty and save myself the cost of a whole gun and optic. If I decide I just have to change things up down the road, I could buy a shorty upper and get a middy when funds allow.
Anyway, those are my thoughts at the moment. I had been feeling pretty cocky about buying two, but then I went ahead and bought a house, and I’m feeling a little tighter for cash.
faced with no restrictions, you have much better choices but again… it depends on what you want to do. have you shot a 12.5 much? if not, you may find its a little narrow focused as your sole carbine.
the gas system would make my choice for me. I would do a 16" midlength or a 14.5 carbine length…
This is one of those things that I believe the military got right. I very much prefer 14.5,s on AR’s. The 14.5 will do 99% of what the others will do. My vote is the 14.5. Even with pinning the FH in the states I still own more 14.5’s than anything else.
If you want something short and compact for vehicle borne use or maneuvering in a house, I’d opt for an 8" Noveske 300 AAC Blackout or a 10.5 inch 6.5Grendel (own one)/12.0 inch 6.8 SPC . After handling a factory Noveske Rogue 8inch 300 AAC Blackout, I feel my wallet getting lighter. Muzzle blast will be a lot less as well with the smaller powder charges of the 300 AAC Blackout.
16.0 versus 14.5? Pick your loads and either will work fine but, the 14.5’s seem to be the sweet spot for accuracy in a lot of rifles. Add mid-length gas and you’re set. If 14.5 inch barrels were NOT NFA in the USA, would we even have 16.0 inch barreled uppers?
If you purchase the 12.5 and 16.0 rifles, wouldn’t you feel they are redundant with each other?
That is exactly what I am wondering…I have a bit of time in on a 10.5 and honestly I was left feeling that without the need for a suppressor gun, I was giving up quite a bit of barrel for not a ton of handling advantage. The 12.5 allows for a 12" rail, and I would rather gain 3 inches of rail (figuring a 12" rail on a 12.5" gun and a 9" rail on a 10.5" gun) than shrink the gun by two inches, if you take my meaning.
This leaves me with a 12.5" gun as my preferred shorty option. But at that point it’s getting close enough to a 16 that I’m not sure if there is really that much advantage anymore.
I would get a 12.5" carbine and a 16" Stainless Steel “Recce” upper.
Reasons:
You will want more than one AR/Upper. If you get the 14.5" you’ll end up getting a 12.5" for short work and a longer, more accurate barreled upper for precision work anyway, trust all of us and do it right the first time.
The 16" will easily reach out to 600 meters (So will the 14.5" I suppose, but very few if any make stainless steel 14.5" barrels and you dont want that extra weight for your close in work regardless)
The 12.5" is long enough not to have ridiculous muzzle blast while unsuppressed but 2" shorter than a 14.5". Anyone who has gone from a 16" barreled AR to a 14.5" with pinned flash suppressor knows what a little barrel length difference makes, and it only gets more pronounced as the barrel length decreases.
The 16" SS and 12.5" are completely different fundamentally. Put a 12" rail on the 16" upper, get a bipod and a decent optic and you have an excellent rifle for long range precision shooting. The 12.5" with a red dot sight would be a great rifle from 1 to 200 meters easily. Of course it all depends on your skill level, but the equipment will do it.
That is the exact line of reasoning I originally had for the two-gun solution. I am unsure at this time whether I am prepared for the expense of regular long-range shooting…I used to do a fair bit of mid-range (3-800m) .308 shooting but got out of it because I was just laying out too much cash.
I guess the real answer to my question is the same question that everyone (or at least me) struggles with…exactly what am I wanting this gun/these guns to do for me?
And would I be satisfied with the compromise solution, or will I ultimately be annoyed that I did not go all out the first time around? I don’t know.
Lot’s of 14.5" S.S. barrels out there. Noveske anyone? If I had to only have 2 they would be a 14.5 and a 11.5. I’ve currently got a 12.5 S.S. Noveske and it’s great to at least 300 yards, which is the limit of my range at that time. A 14.5" Afghan upper with a 11.5 chrome lined barrel would be a good combo. I feel like if it wasn’t for under 16" being either pinned or NFA here that we wouldn’t have them. 14.5" then 18" if you wanted it. The 16" is only an answer to our NFA laws for the 5.56 cartridge.
Just wanted to touch base on the 12" rail that you’re looking to get but I’d try a mockup of a 12" rail and a 12.5" barrel. I’ve installed an 11" VTAC hand guard on a friend’s AR and it came nearly to the point where the flash hider began. There was maybe 3/8 of an inch of bare barrel. Unless you have a longer flash hider you might want to reconsider your chosen rail length.
A Noveske 14.5 Afghan could be easily mistaken for a long-barreled, precision oriented rifle if one fed it good ammo, if the only degree of qualification was target analysis.
You can get a lot of good work done with one of them, and I would bet that if it weren’t for the US NFA laws, a 14.5 barrel would be the most popular.
Noveske has been making 14.5 middies for a long time, and I have never heard of anyone having an issue with function with good ammo, but I would really like to try a properly regulated carbine gas upper on an A5 RE lower, but I doubt that I ever will simply due to the PITAedness of NFA for “just” a 14.5 barrel.
With no barrel length restrictions it’s harder to say. I went with a 12.5" carbine with a chrome lined barrel as my main/class/higher volume fire gun and a 16" stainless upper for precision stuff. Ask yourself what you give up with a 12.5" over 14.5" in (your) realistic uses and typical shooting distances. To add on what F2S said, if it weren’t for NFA laws I think 12.5" would be more popular. People who get stamps tend to skip it because the reasoning is that if they’re paying $200 why not get the shortest ie. 10.5" vs 12.5" where it would only be a minor difference between a pinned 14.5". Hope I articulated that clearly.
I asked a question last year, “If you could only have 2 AR’s” and the answers were generally an SBR and 16". Just depends if you ever plan on having a second rifle. If yes, I would try and get seperate ends of the spectrum where they compliment eachother without too much overlap. https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=69456
The middle is a chrome line 16" middy that I sold because I can do everything I need to do with the others.
What are you going to be doing with your rifle? As you mentioned in your third post, you need to answer that question first.
I went with a 10.25" as I knew I wouldn’t be doing any shooting beyond 200 yards. The ballistics with 10.25 still give me basically “point and pull” shooting out to that distance. The vast majority of my shooting is under 25 yards though. That being said, the carbine length hand guard is bothering me. I feel it’s too short to get my hand out as far as it should be. Eventually I’m going to shave the FSB and put on a longer hanguard, perhaps an NEA version once they release them. If that doesn’t feel better I’ll end up getting a 12.5 upper.
I did actually read the “only 2 ARs” thread a few weeks ago…it was one of the best sources I found on a similar topic. But I think I will read through it again to see if anything different jumps out at me this time.
The majority of the time it will probably be fired at less than 50m…however this does not automatically translate in to wanting a rifle specialized for that purpose. For short range blasting, I can always use the VZ if so inclined as I don’t have much interest in x39 past about 125m. The 5.56 is a more appealing round out at 250 or 300m.
Given that I spend vastly more time at the range with a glock than with a rifle, I can probably afford not to worry TOO much about disappointing myself with a compromise gun. I would guess 90% of my shooting for the last three years has been with handguns, so realistically I don’t think it’s especially likely that I would be willing to throw precision rifle money around for the sake of the relatively small amount of use it would get.
Further to that, since I would probably not put much more than 1000-1200 rounds through a precision AR each year, I would probably not keep my skills up enough to really maximize the long range gun. That is exactly what happened to me with long range .308s…I found that as the bills piled up, I no longer shot enough to make my precision Savage particularly useful, and I got as much utility out of the one M14 build I hung on to, which was about a 2 moa rifle.
I own far less rifles and pistols than I did five years ago. I just don’t have time to be proficient with all of them. Heck, I don’t even have time to be proficient with the ones I do have!
I could see getting a 12.5" carbine 1st…then adding a 16" match barreled AR (or upper) later. But…if it is a 12.5" and 16" chrome lined AR…a single 14.5" would make more sense. Or a shorter SBR length like a 10.5" to have a bigger difference.
If you want/need a shorty and want/need a more precision oriented rifle, skip the 16.0 inch model and go straight to a 18 or 20.0 inch precision rifle like a DMR or SDM model.
