The Modern Hunter Rifle UPDATED December 10 2015

[alberta tactical rifle]

is all testing done with 175gr? what type of muzzle velocity are you getting?
you are going to offer 3 contours in 16 and 20. i did not see any mention of what twist rate was being used.
is there any plan to go 24"?


not sure if i should ask this through pm or not but i am sure others have the same idea as me so i am going to ask here.



i am trying to find a semi that i can shoot precision matches out to 800m with. tall order i know .

most ar style .308 will handle 600m sub moa with out issue even with 16" barrels. if the shooter does there job of course.
now i am not saying this is a ar style at all. but the semi auto in .308 format is there. and i am not trying to start a war which will be better or not.

being Canadian and with all of the work being put into this, i definitely would like to support you and your business.

i am just trying to get to 800m with a semi that shoots sub moa so that when i am having a good day i can keep the bolt guys honest!

i know that i will be hard pressed to beat my current custom bolt. i would sure like to try though.

Currently we are feeding it as much crap as possible and mostly 150 gr with some 175 gr GMM just to see what we get.
With the GMM ammo we have seen some 1/2 MOA groups. Once we get more time and with all the aluminum anodized then some serious accuracy work and load development will be pursued. We have not chronographed anything from the test rifle, yet.
Will this be able to keep up with a precision bolt rifle? I doubt it quite frankly. What we created is what we think is a reasonable compromise between precision and hunting rifle that is semi automatic. To get a semi auto to consistently produce as close to 1/2 MOA is the goal, and honestly that is a big goal to achieve.
Twist rates for the 308 are 1 in 10. Other calibers will have appropriate rate of twist barrels , we are using widely recognized twist rate recommendations for each caliber. These are listed on the order form.
As for 24" barrel, we could do this custom if someone "just had to have" it, but being a gas operated system there really is no advantage to that long a barrel. The gas to cycle the action is bled off at about 12" from the chamber. We I get time I will probably spend some quality time with the lathe and chronograph and start cutting a full length blank down in 1" increments and chronograph it with the same ammo every inch just to see where the most velocity is to be had. My gut feeling is around the 20" mark, but I guess we will have to wait and see.
A couple of years ago I built an AR10 with a 20" 10 twist barrel on it. We saw sub MOA accuracy well beyond 1000 yards with the 175 gr SMKs, so strongly believe that this rifle will easily be capable of this.

Once we get the on/off gas block perfected , then the 24" barrel could pay off. Running this rifle as a manual repeater circumventing the gas system would certainly gain a person some velocity and probably some accuracy as well.

 

[Shorerider]

This in .300 win mag would be awesome. I would have bought the nemo if it hadn't been restricted. If you can achieve this stunning piece of engineering I will definitely buy one.

^This^ I'd love to get a 300 win mag nemo but being restricted turned me off of it. This rifle comes in at about the same price point so as soon as it's available in 300 win mag I'm in too.

 

[mytiburon]

Frankly had not thought about it, we are struggling to get all of the info on the builds and additional options dealt with, getting the non inhouse made parts coming and still trying to machine the parts we do make. February is not that far off.

I understand you have a lot on your plate so no worries, I have no idea of your inventory or if you have enough optics,rings etc on hand to supply all of these rifles, if 100 customers wanted nightforce or sightrons do you stock that much or is their a substantial wait time to order?

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

Ya, so the barrel is not chrome lined currently, we get it. But will you ever consider bringing in chrome lined ones later?

Very unlikely as chrome lined barrels are not typically known for great accuracy.
To commission a manufacturer to make a run of chrome lined barrels would require having the demand sufficient to get past a minimum order and frankly I just do not see any advantage on this type of rifle. IF we were building a machine gun, maybe, but seeing as this is a sporting rifle ......

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

Those initial accuracy findings are awesome. What kind of barrel was used?

A Lilja 10 twist heavy contour, but any contour should produce the same results.

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

I understand you have a lot on your plate so no worries, I have no idea of your inventory or if you have enough optics,rings etc on hand to supply all of these rifles, if 100 customers wanted nightforce or sightrons do you stock that much or is their a substantial wait time to order?

Given that we have moved further and further into manufacturing and that NF has decided to appoint a dealer on every corner we have taken a step back from stocking their products like we used to.
It takes a fair bit of time to sell a scope in most cases and given that we do not have any "sales" personnel our time is better spent doing what other retailers can not do, which is manufacturing guns and parts.

We certainly could place an order with NF, Vortex or Sightron if we knew what optics were wanted for each rifle.
Rings we make and normally have good stock on.

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

Have you tested it with norc steelcased yet?

No as we do not have any and frankly I would not recommend steel cased ammo being used in a stainless matchgrade barrel. I would like to think that people spending several thousand dollars on a rifle would be willing to shoot decent quality ammo out of it.
When I mentioned shooting crap ammo maybe should have been more specific. My idea of crap ammo is American Eagle bulk, reloads cranked out on my Dillon 650 and assorted mixed brands of various bullet weights and ammo makes.

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

The innovation in this rifle has me awe struck.
You guys are a large part of me pursing my passion for drafting and design, currently working on my Cadd operator certificate.
I hope that a decade from now, I'll have had the experience and skill required to make a contribution to our community as you have.

Thank you for your kind words.

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

Best group of the day. The shot that is away from the cluster was a sighter to get the scope closer to being on target, so it shows promise. This was the 175gr GMM ammo.


Shot by this guy. Nope not me I am much fatter



Close up photo of test gun as we shot it. PRS stock PRI handguard 22" Lilja heavy contour barrel. And ofcourse a 5.5x22x56 NXS

 

[ShaunM]

Best group of the day. The shot that is away from the cluster was a sighter to get the scope closer to being on target, so it shows promise. This was the 175gr GMM ammo.


Shot by this guy. Nope not me I am much fatter



Close up photo of test gun as we shot it. PRS stock PRI handguard 22" Lilja heavy contour barrel. And ofcourse a 5.5x22x56 NXS

How far was it chucking the brass? And that PRS just makes the whole thing sing. Except for the barrel, that's my exact setup. Hoping with the carbon fiber barrel, and the prs it'll bring the weight back in close enough that the 5.5-22x56 will still be stable for shoulder firing. I DO after all, intend to hunt with it

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

How far was it chucking the brass? And that PRS just makes the whole thing sing. Except for the barrel, that's my exact setup. Hoping with the carbon fiber barrel, and the prs it'll bring the weight back in close enough that the 5.5-22x56 will still be stable for shoulder firing. I DO after all, intend to hunt with it

Brass was tossed about 3 feet straight right so some mods to the shell deflector are in order in order to protect the lefties.

 

[orthoboy]

That's even nicer than I had hoped, and different enough from mine that I now want another. While I'm humming about it, can you say how many of the first 100 are still available?

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

Was the target at 100?

At 113 yards actually according to both a Swaro 1500 and a Leica 1600B rangefinder as that was where we could place the target safely and in front of 7 witnesses.
I don't for an instant think you were doubting, one of the haters will pipe up sure as hell though.

 

[Stevebot-7]

very impressive.....
This is definitely going to be my next yote gun but I won't be ordering one till the spring as I just dropped quite a bit on other projects.....
Do you have any idea what kind of wait time I would be looking at ?

I believe they said first batch of current preorders is expected spring 2015, and second batch is expected fall 2015.

I'm going to be doing everything in my power to be on that second order. May even have to sell some guns...

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

What is the barrel life on the stainless 18.6 CFW barrel compared to a chrome-lined. I heard it was about half, that is all I was concerned about.
I guess that brings up the second question, is the CFW barrel stainless also?

Proof Research CFW barrels start off as conventional stainless steel barrels, they are then machined down to a very thin profile, then wrapped in Carbon Fiber composite. THEY claim they last longer due to heat dissipation.
http://proofresearch.com/the-products/barrels/
Our experience is that they like all barrels when it comes to life expectancy depends on how hot you allow the barrel to get.
Typically a stainless match grade barrel in 308 has about a 5000 round life span if you do not heat it up enough to cook dinner over on a regular basis. Given the improved heat dissipation of the CFW barrel they should in theory last a little longer. I don't know who you are getting your intel from as far as barrel life of a CFW being half, but your source would be wrong.

Putting this all into prospective for you the accurate life span in seconds of a match grade stainless barrel in 308 is roughly 6 seconds. A chrome lined MG barrel lasts 8 to 10 seconds.

 

[purplezuk]

Barrel swap would be 15 minutes or less with the right tools. This is no different than any other gun as far as barrel wear is concerned. The only difference being that this gun starts life as very accurate and will start to loose that accuracy whereas many others start out without the accuracy and simply get even worse.

 

[farshot]

sooo...you are saying that a .308 barrel bought from a third party manufacturer by ATRS will have less life than that same barrel put on another rifle because its accuracy may drop after 10,000+ rounds? I dont follow the reasoning here by Jony.

Maybe one would change the bbl out after 5000 if you wish to stay on top of the accuracy curve. Maybe one doesnt care about top accuracy but many would change out a bbl with less rounds.

As was said, if you wish to make it go bang and hit a steel plate, I have no doubt it will do so for a long time.

 

[purplezuk]

Hmmm. When ar308 goes non- restricted, I will wait and see if there will be price drop on these bad boys. It's a toss up between this and armalite ar10

As stated earlier in this thread, these rifles will never really go down in price due to the size of the Canadian market. These are a low production, custom rifle made in Canada, and will probably never be able to compete on price alone. That being said, the "premium" price we pay for these isn't that much if you do a true apples to apples comparison.

I truly belive the day you are waiting for will never come and the AR family of rifles will always remain restricted, although I hope I am wrong.

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

Hmmm. When ar308 goes non- restricted, I will wait and see if there will be price drop on these bad boys. It's a toss up between this and armalite ar10

I would not hold your breathe whilst waiting for the AR platforms to chance legal status.
The Armalite rifle is certainly a decent rifle, IF you want a rifle with the restrictions of use it has been given by the government.

 

[alberta tactical rifle]

Is it a bit risky to use those last two words together? considering how the lab likes to make classifications, based on those two words?

Their wording in the report is that our "Modern Hunter is NOT an AR10 variant "as this firearm is derived from an amalgamation of several different designs and does not trace its design lineage directly or uniquely to a prohibited or restricted firearm.", and as we have never manufactured an AR10 have distanced ourselves for any claim that we have simply modified a rifle we already produced in an attempt to skirt the laws.

This thread is getting very long so time for another clean up.