MRA barrel review

fellers88

fellers88

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Going to start a bit of a review that I will update with pictures as I go.

Recently purchased a MRA 18.5, 223 Wylde, stainless fluted barrel from TNA for the WK180C to mess around with and see if any accuracy could be gained with a new barrel. Factory barrel produced 1.5-2 MOA groups with quality handloads.

Initial look at the barrel showed two things I wasn’t impressed with... the chamber was not smooth as advertised and had clear chatter marks from the reamer. Secondly, the flutes are not symmetrically lines up with the gas port and indexing pin. Ie when everything is assembled the flutes will be off kilter. Oh and the gas port is not the same size as the takeoff barrel.

So we will see how this goes... they do have a MOA guarantee so if this shoots lights out I’ll overlook the cosmetic issues. Will report back in a few days after I’ve had a chance to shoot some groups.

Shaun
 
Bang for buck I put a Norinco 20” pencil on my Modern Sporter I can get 1 to 1.25 moa with Frontier ammo. I was considering the MRA barrel but decided for $120 I’d try the norc. So if you aren’t pleased with results. Try one of those.
 
I have a pencil weight, shoots decently, however the extension seems to be out of spec, only 1/3 hand-guards I own will the barrel nut fit over the extension to thread onto the receiver. Not cheap hanguards either, a Fortis switch won’t fit, nor will my Cross Machine Tool.
 
robab said:
Bang for buck I put a Norinco 20” pencil on my Modern Sporter I can get 1 to 1.25 moa with Frontier ammo. I was considering the MRA barrel but decided for $120 I’d try the norc. So if you aren’t pleased with results. Try one of those.
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You got a 1 in 9 or a 1 in 12?
 
I just finished installing the same barrel on my wk180c. Did the barrel break in and finally took it out for accuracy test last Saturday with some hornady 68 gr bthp hand load. Best group from the ladder test was about 1.1 moa. I might be able to bump it up a notch by refining the load.

I'll also report back if I achieved 1 moa. At this point it feels like a 1.5 moa barrel with run of the mill ammo.
 
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Did the barrel break in today with a wide variety of hand loads. Pretty disappointing... nothing smaller than 2.5 MOA with a 6x optic. It cycled everything perfectly despite the smaller gas port but man some of those groups were brutal. I must add that I also installed a TNA handguard that fits over the gas block. It doesn’t give any more room than the factory forend but It doesn’t look like it’s touching either so I don’t think that would affect group size.

Diegocn- how many rounds deep are you? Did your groups shrink after break in? I’m maybe 50 rounds in with 55gr bullets. Maybe I need to try something heavier. Will be grabbing some factory loads to play with this weekend.
 
fellers88 said:
Going to start a bit of a review that I will update with pictures as I go.

Recently purchased a MRA 18.5, 223 Wylde, stainless fluted barrel from TNA for the WK180C to mess around with and see if any accuracy could be gained with a new barrel. Factory barrel produced 1.5-2 MOA groups with quality handloads.

Initial look at the barrel showed two things I wasn’t impressed with... the chamber was not smooth as advertised and had clear chatter marks from the reamer. Secondly, the flutes are not symmetrically lines up with the gas port and indexing pin. Ie when everything is assembled the flutes will be off kilter. Oh and the gas port is not the same size as the takeoff barrel.

So we will see how this goes... they do have a MOA guarantee so if this shoots lights out I’ll overlook the cosmetic issues. Will report back in a few days after I’ve had a chance to shoot some groups.

Shaun
Click to expand...

There have been quite a few people complain about rough chambers on MRA. I emailed them about mine and they blamed it on me. Not buying another MRA barrel.
 
Hornychief said:
Wow. That settles it for me, no buying MRA
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He said it was from the salts in the chamber. :rolleyes: I even bore scoped it

rjwgDo8.jpg
 
Lots of choice for barrels out there but mra is ready to go for wk. I think that's why it's a no brainers but I'll be converting mine to mid length and changing the barrel out when rwa has stock again
 
Thanks for sharing. The MATCH 5R NITRIDE 223 WYLDE BARREL is on sale right now on their website. Makes you wonder why they are on sale (~$150 off)...
 
Hornychief said:
Lots of choice for barrels out there but mra is ready to go for wk. I think that's why it's a no brainers but I'll be converting mine to mid length and changing the barrel out when rwa has stock again
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Extremely happy with how my mid length conversion turned out. I would have used the IBI barrel RWA was selling if I didn't already have this MRA barrel. It is a good barrel (none of the defects others have reported) but I do have another MRA barrel that has the gas port drilled a few degrees off from TDC. The last couple barrels I've ordered were directly from IBI.

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jiffx2781 said:
Extremely happy with how my mid length conversion turned out. I would have used the IBI barrel RWA was selling if I didn't already have this MRA barrel. It is a good barrel (none of the defects others have reported) but I do have another MRA barrel that has the gas port drilled a few degrees off from TDC. The last couple barrels I've ordered were directly from IBI.

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How does it shoot? Any difference in weight?
 
Hornychief said:
How does it shoot? Any difference in weight?
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Never weighed anything but I would say it feels similar or maybe even a tiny bit heavier than it did with the factory barrel. The factory barrel is a pretty light profile. The MRA barrel is a much heavier profile before it is fluted and I doubt that the fluting reduced the weight to what the factory WK barrel is. But even if it is slightly heavier it still feels very nice because the WK has a lot of weight in the rear of the rifle to balance things out.

The barrel shoots good enough for me. I had it on an SLR prior to putting it on the WK and in all honesty it shot a bit better on the SLR. I get comparable groups with it out of the WK except there is sometimes a random flier that will open the group up a bit. This barrel didn't produce fliers when installed on the SLR. I attribute the WK's fliers to the gas block having little clearance inside the handguard. Although it doesn't touch it is close enough that I suspect it makes contact occasionally when the gun is fired.

On the SLR the barrel (depending on ammo) would consistently shoot in the .8 - 1.25 moa range. Less than 2 moa with bulk fmj ammo.

On the WK I've accepted that the barrel is a 1 1/2 moa barrel with quality ammo. Often groups have several shots in a nice cluster but then there's that one flier that take it from a 1 moa group and turn it into a 1 1/2 moa group.

Overall I'm happy with it. Accuracy is more than acceptable for what it is. Never expected it to be a precision rig. I have other rifles for that.

It is coyote accurate to a little over 200 yards and that is all that matters to me :d
 
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