second look at 284 win AR

[stagpanther]

Got an inquiry from somebody on the Sniper Hide about this build--honestly I had forgotten about it and haven't fired it in a long time. It bubbled back into being a topic of interest given the recent--if not ironic--interest in the cartridge which is the mother of many wildcats, but became something of a wildcat itself as it lost popularity.

Obviously it's not impossible to build an AR for the 284 win--but you will run into the obstacle of whether or not you make it for short action or long, which is a big factor in shooting the more modern longer and heavier high BC bullets. The other obstacle is the way the 284 case stacks and feeds in a .308 magazine.

I used conventional .308 components, so I can't go as long as say 2.97 which is fairly common for bigger bullets. My barrel, which was made for me by McGowen, doesn't appear to have much of a freebore anyway (a good thing in this case) as far as I can tell so I can't chamber a longer COL even if the rest of the set-up could feed it. Depending on the base of ogive, I can get out to around 2.92 +/-. That's not "modern long action" length, but it's still more generous than 2.8"

I tried the magazine cut-out thing on 4 different makes of 308 magazines--only the PMAG plastic ones seem to work flawlessly without any modification other than cutting a slot in the front to allow the bullet's nose to protude. There appears to be a slight taper from back to front with the PMAG and as far as I can tell that aids in prventing the 284 case from wedging--to a point. I can put 4 in mag and one in the chamber and shoot a 5 shot group with no problems, but cutting out more material in the front of the magazine causes buldging and the risk of wedging.

Shot a test group of 150eldx's at 251 yds, as usual I pulled (actually rolled the rifle on the bag as I pulled the trigger) so in true lame fashion I call no count and toss it out in an otherwise nice grouping.