AR-15 newbie

[rayzorloo]

Hi folks, I am a new AR-15 owner. Previously only shot handguns and shotgun. I was wondering how far on average an AR-15 can shoot. At the moment my range's farthest distance is only 200 yards. I heard they are creating a 500 yards range soon. I've been reading that 200 yards with iron sights is doable, no scope needed to learn and practise. If this is the case then I'd be happy because I want to get into long range shooting but want to start "small" with just iron sights, then down the line buy a rifle and get into scopes and longer range. I wanted to know from more experienced shooters if this is an accurate asessement. Thanks in advance.

[Stevebot-7]

Some of the crazy guys who do Service Rifle shoot 1000m with iron sights on their ARs.

Generally though, for grabbing any random AR and box of ammo, your results out past 300m are going to drop off fast. You can shoot quite a bit further than that if you tailor your rifle and ammo and get some marksmanship experience. For any sort of distance shooting I'd recommend something like a 20" match barrel, and handloading heavy bullets. Lighter bullets, and those shot with less velocity, are going to get pushed around by the wind a lot.

The biggest part is what you consider to be effective shooting. For example, Rick at ATRS generally considers MOA to be par for a rifle, anything more than that is considered inaccurate. Other people are happy if they can hit a 24" gong at 200m. The difference is if you hit the target, or hit the bullseye.

[robab]

200 yards on irons on my 14.5 barrel ar isn't easy. I'm happy if I can achieve decent accuracy at 50-100 m on irons. I'd get an optic for anything over that personally.