I did a search and didn’t find much concerning Green Mountain AR barrels. Been wanting to put together an A2 with a 20" Green Mountain 5.56mm 1:7" twist barrel. Specs seem good, but has anybody had first hand experience with them?
I wonder what corners they cut to offer their barrel for 120 less than Daniel Defense. No personal experience here, just wondering.
Make up the rest of the profits with their coffee business.
Or you could ask why other companies charge so much for the same product. Green Mountain makes a lot of barrels for other manufacturers so the amount they produce might cut the cost down too.
Not your answer, but WHITE OAK, makes very affordable barrels and very high quality. Kinda like Noveske at half price. Another quality barrel you can afford. I love my 18 laser beam
As I recall there was talk of them doing a run of barrels for the MK18. However one needs to remember that just like Remington produces Bushmaster carbines, they also produce mil-spec M4s for the Army. In other words their contract products may be better than their commercial products.
Yeah, well…
Considering that they supply some of the craptacular barrels Century International Arms uses in their products, I would classify Green Mountain right below Olympic Arms in terms of quality…
I believe Green Mountain lists the barrel material for the barrels on their website. As far as being a suppier for Olympic, the rifles may be crappy but are they accurate?
I have no dog in this fight, it’s just that I’ve never heard bad things said about Green Mountain.
Green Mountain supplies barrels to some of the mfgrs as I understand it. My Vltor 6X45 upper is Vltor marked but uses a Green Mountain barrel. It goes under an inch and down to 5/8" at 100 yards with CorBon or Black Hills ammo using the Barnes 62 grain Varmint Grenade, very consistently. I may have seen it go over an inch once. I’ve probably grouped it with that load a dozen and a half times-- it is a very accurate barrel, and looks very well-made.
That is the only first-hand experience I have with their stuff that I know of.
BTW I’m not keen on Olympic either but my pal the High Master in NRA HighPower used their barrels for some years and accuracy-wise, they worked for him.
…nowadays he’s using Kreigers and whatever White Oak is using, and he’s mostly shooting 6mm AR. Works better for him at 600.
I don’t care if it is accurate or not. From what I hear, some Olympic barrels are pretty accurate - doesn’t mean that I would ever, ever use one…
Green Mountain is in the same boat - I don’t care how well they shoot, I won’t use one because there are far better options out there.
I saw all I ever needed to see of Green Mountain barrels when CIA started slapping them on their garbage…
Green Mountain’s AR-15 barrels may not be considered tier one barrels. For a lot of different reasons.
Carbine barrels are ONLY available w/ carbine length gas. Which will turn off the mid-length crowd.
No pencil barrel profiles available unless you want their retro 20".
But,
They are probably,IMHO, the best CM chrome lined barrels in their market bracket/price point.
Personal history with GM barrels.
Just to see how good/bad their barrels are I purchased one of the 20" 1:8 gov profile barrels and one of their fluted 16" 1:7’s
The 16" fluted 1:7 has performed flawlessly for about 4k rounds so far and holds an inch, or less, at 100 yrds. (depending on which optic I use and whether I do my part)
The 20" 1:8 was more than adequate and holds sub-moa groups easily.
I did notice that the groups loosen up considerably when the barrel gets hot. So, tinkering bugger than I am, I sent it off to ADCO to have it shortened to 18" and rethreaded. Adco, of course, did a great job. I reinstalled the barrel and grabbed some 55gr and 60gr TAP ammo and headed out to the range.
MUCH better overall groups, even when hot. I theorize that the barrel length reduction “stiffened” things up enough to counteract “heat slop”.
I use the 20" upper for hunting and varminting and, the 16" for training/HD. I’m very happy with the barrels but, I realize that other people will have their own thoughts on the matter.
YMMV
Good luck and stay safe
So to you, Green Mountain is guilty by association or do I not understand your point. If Olympic started using Magpul furniture, would that make them low quality?
They are button rifled barrels. Not much different from what Colt used years ago. Your expectations should be about the same as if you were buying a Colt barrel made in the 1980s.
Having probs with the board there for a while. Excuse the 2x tap.
Green Mountain is like Wilson or Douglas - they make barrels that their customers pay for. If the customer wants a nice, lapped match tube, GM can do that and do it just as well as anyone else. If the customer wants a cheap barrel, GM can do that as well as anyone else too.
But to dismiss them out of hand is rather short sighted.
Green Mountain makes some good barrels regardless of what some who have never shot them think.
I found them to be very accurate and reliable in the particular AR that I shot.
My experience was the same. My sample size of their barrels is 1 but I was very impressed. If I can find the target I will post it later but I’m sure I put it in the case with the rifle when I sold it. It measured at .675 and .5 and some change at 100 yards.
I saw an email with a picture of a target that was shot by a USG qualified sniper with a Gov’t agency.
But he was not shooting in an official capacity nor can he use that rifle on duty. The group was approximately 1" at 200 hundred yards which is .5 MOA. He was using Federal GMM loads.
Thank you all for your input. I’m glad to hear some good results have been achieved with these barrels. I have one on the way but was considering using it to trade if I didn’t hear good things. Didn’t want to have a gunsmith ream the FSB and barrel for taper pins if it was not likely to be an accurate barrel. All parts for this build are here or will be here next week. It will be my first true build so I’m pretty pumped. Thanks!
Forget it.