The Modern Hunter Rifle UPDATED December 10 2015

[LuckyOnes]

Not sure how I missed this thread, but I am certainly going to get my order in when I head to Alberta to pick up my at15 in December.
Wish I never missed the custom serial number though...

[alberta tactical rifle]

I didn't mean to get every body upset, I was only responding to a business owner about a statement he made, that rubbed me the wrong way. If he's mad at me he can say so, I'll still buy his gun. I apologize to ATRS , for the mean words . Good luck with your project.... Brian

Brian
Everyone has an opinion and it is their right to express them. I have FAR thicker skin than to be mad at someone who takes issue with a comment.

Having been asked a countless number of times over the last several years to help guys who purchased XCR rifles solve the plethora of problems that they are well known for was a LARGE part of why we decided to invest the time and money to develop the Modern Hunter rifle. And then to thoroughly test it to ensure that this sort of thing did not happen with 1 of our products. Read through the forums, there really is not a ton of love for the XCRs or Alex Robinson.

Personally I think anything over 1 MOA is very inaccurate given what we have to work with today. 200 years ago 1 MOA was stellar, however times have changed. The AR platforms are well proven to be more reliable and more accurate than many semi auto platforms like the AK, M1A and such.
I applaud Alex Robinson for his design efforts, and from what we are hearing from guys who own the most recent version of his rifles they are better than the earlier versions that were truly crap, there really is no other way to describe them from a reliability and accuracy point of view.

Accuracy is the culmination of many parts of an equation. The shooter is certainly the biggest factor, but the gun and the ammo also play a large part. When any rifle when shot by a person with great skill level can only get 1.5 MOA from a modern rifle, this can only relate to much greater group size when used by a less skilled operator, less than ideal ammo and it is further degraded with field conditions.

Personally I do not think it matters what the rifle is to be used for, if the best it can do is 1.5 to 2.0 MOA why bother making it? That is what shotguns are for.
1 of my personal pet peeves is guys who figure 1.5 to 2.0 MOA accuracy AT THE RANGE UNDER IDEAL CONDITIONS is "good enough" for hunting. Do people actually place that little value on another creatures life that they would employ a rifle that under field conditions is most likely going to produce 4 to 5 MOA accuracy for hunting? Shooting conditions and the shooters conditions will certainly not increase the potential accuracy of any rifle. So starting with a rifle that under range conditions is capable of 1/2 MOA has a better chance of being 1.0 to 1.5 MOA accurate in field conditions.

As we get more rifles built over the next month or so we will be stretching it to longer distances. A lot of the shooting has been done at 50 yards simply to get the round count as high as possible to see IF there are any issues with reliability.
Several groups have been shot and posted at just over 100 yards and we ARE seeing between .5 and .75 MOA groups under range conditions with decent ammo.
Theoretically if a rifle can shoot sub MOA at 100 yards it will produce similar results at longer distances, but we will be testing these as we go. AND posting the results, not just from within ATRS but we will be putting rifles out to several experienced and very credible shooters with no connection to ATRS for testing as well.

[Stormchaser]

Great post!

I would only add, part of the reason for the 50 yard shooting is simply because it's cold outside! That's the max distance at the indoor range.

8)

[alberta tactical rifle]

Great post!

I would only add, part of the reason for the 50 yard shooting is simply because it's cold outside! That's the max distance at the indoor range.

8)

It WAS cold out and I AM a wuss when it comes to cold.

[Stevebot-7]

As you get more testing done, I for one would love to see how tight you can get the accuracy with handloads, to provide a comparison against factory match ammo.

Spring can't come fast enough!

[Brianma65]

Brian
Everyone has an opinion and it is their right to express them. I have FAR thicker skin than to be mad at someone who takes issue with a comment.

Having been asked a countless number of times over the last several years to help guys who purchased XCR rifles solve the plethora of problems that they are well known for was a LARGE part of why we decided to invest the time and money to develop the Modern Hunter rifle. And then to thoroughly test it to ensure that this sort of thing did not happen with 1 of our products. Read through the forums, there really is not a ton of love for the XCRs or Alex Robinson.

Personally I think anything over 1 MOA is very inaccurate given what we have to work with today. 200 years ago 1 MOA was stellar, however times have changed. The AR platforms are well proven to be more reliable and more accurate than many semi auto platforms like the AK, M1A and such.
I applaud Alex Robinson for his design efforts, and from what we are hearing from guys who own the most recent version of his rifles they are better than the earlier versions that were truly crap, there really is no other way to describe them from a reliability and accuracy point of view.

Accuracy is the culmination of many parts of an equation. The shooter is certainly the biggest factor, but the gun and the ammo also play a large part. When any rifle when shot by a person with great skill level can only get 1.5 MOA from a modern rifle, this can only relate to much greater group size when used by a less skilled operator, less than ideal ammo and it is further degraded with field conditions.

Personally I do not think it matters what the rifle is to be used for, if the best it can do is 1.5 to 2.0 MOA why bother making it? That is what shotguns are for.
1 of my personal pet peeves is guys who figure 1.5 to 2.0 MOA accuracy AT THE RANGE UNDER IDEAL CONDITIONS is "good enough" for hunting. Do people actually place that little value on another creatures life that they would employ a rifle that under field conditions is most likely going to produce 4 to 5 MOA accuracy for hunting? Shooting conditions and the shooters conditions will certainly not increase the potential accuracy of any rifle. So starting with a rifle that under range conditions is capable of 1/2 MOA has a better chance of being 1.0 to 1.5 MOA accurate in field conditions.

As we get more rifles built over the next month or so we will be stretching it to longer distances. A lot of the shooting has been done at 50 yards simply to get the round count as high as possible to see IF there are any issues with reliability.
Several groups have been shot and posted at just over 100 yards and we ARE seeing between .5 and .75 MOA groups under range conditions with decent ammo.
Theoretically if a rifle can shoot sub MOA at 100 yards it will produce similar results at longer distances, but we will be testing these as we go. AND posting the results, not just from within ATRS but we will be putting rifles out to several experienced and very credible shooters with no connection to ATRS for testing as well.

Thanks for the reply, very much apprieated and informative. I shot a new XCR-l this morning and got 1 and a little under using superformance ,only tryed 3 5 rnd groups. The other 5 types of ammo was doing 2 and under. If I can keep it at 1 moa I'm happy. This is only a fun gun for me. ( it was cold it). I was using a 2x7x33 scope. Enough abot that. The only hunting I do is, for moose. So I'm really looking forward to your rifle, if it does as well as you think it will, I'll be buying one for sure. It is one of the most awesome rifles I've seen yet.! Best of luck... Brian

[alberta tactical rifle]

As you get more testing done, I for one would love to see how tight you can get the accuracy with handloads, to provide a comparison against factory match ammo.

Spring can't come fast enough!

We will be doing some work with handloads soon, just to see what we can get for accuracy out of the rifles we are testing. I can not see how it could do anything but improve.
Stay tuned.

[ShaunM]

Several posts from ATR says it would only take a few weeks. It's been close to 5 weeks which is why I am asking.

We were told by the rcmp that it wouldn't take more than 8 weeks, we're in the middle of week 5 right now. So all we can do is wait impatiently for now :-)

[zupermann]

Ive never purchased the expensive match ammo. is hand loaded ammo able to still get much tighter than the good match ammo? i always figured it was just cost effective compared to buying the expensive stuff.

Generally you're right. For many it is a cost savings only, but advanced handloaders have the time, tools and expertise to "tailor" the ammo to a particular rifle giving excellent results.

My "problem" with ammo tinkering/tailoring is that it can take a lot of time and resources to do. If your time is worth something, it might be better to go factory.
I always used to joke that by the time one finds the right load, you've shot yer barrel out--and then you have start over again lol

[ShaunM]

Got a couple more photos. The materials have arrived and we are now pumping out upper receivers. The whole project is starting to come together, and all the pieces are falling into place!