XCR-L, Heavy Barrel to Light Barrel, Has Anyone Made the Swap? Need Info!

Travis Bickle

Travis Bickle

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Finally picked up a used XCR-L.
Have worked on it a bit and decided that I really like the rifle, the design. It's an awesome, simple little non restricted rifle for sure!
It came with a heavy barrel however. I'm not one for heavy barrels at all especially on a semi auto, black rifle, bullet hose style firearm like this.
I am debating selling the heavy barrel for a much lighter barrel and well balanced XCR over all.

My question to the masses is: Has anyone switched from a heavy barrel .223 to a light barrel .223 and noticed any real change in accuracy?

I'm getting about 3"-5" groups at distances out to 115 meters with a set of iron sights and good quality ammo. I don't want to know about how many .04ths of MOA that you can shave off.
The rifle is average accuracy and as good as I expected and would have hoped for for what it is. I don't expect it to get any better. I'm just wondering if there is any feed back from people who have noticed any REAL world applicable change in accuracy between the barrels.
 
I have both barrels with 9" twist. Don't see much difference on a cold bore shot with either barrel. Sometimes my thin barrel shoots better than the thick one but that could just be my shooting. The thin barrel heats up faster but have not seen any dramatic loss of accuracy when shooting five - 5 shot groups, then a rest.

The XCR in keymod is a very nice gun. I like mine.
 
I figured that much.
Next question then, does it matter if I put a "keymod" light barrel on my older style non keymod XCR?
Are all barrels interchangeable? Between the keymod version and the previous version (which I have)?
 
Barrel are the same but you can have the older bolt carrier with early versions. Type 1 to type 2 upgrade may be needed if you do calibre changes. But not to go to thin barrel.
 
I wouldnt do this:
- barrel is expensive
- if you are target shooting the pencil barrel will heat up and string shots.
- you already have the quad rail version which is heavier to begin with.
 
I went from a heavy barrel on my XCR-M to a light barrel on my XCR-M. It does not string shots at all when hot. Not even a bit. It shoots every bit as accurately as the heavy barrel did and is a heck of a lot lighter. Go for it!
 
saskcop said:
I went from a heavy barrel on my XCR-M to a light barrel on my XCR-M. It does not string shots at all when hot. Not even a bit. It shoots every bit as accurately as the heavy barrel did and is a heck of a lot lighter. Go for it!
Click to expand...

Aye, stringing shots is not something I can agree with.
I had a 20" pencil barrel AR a while ago and the thing shot extremely accurately. Better than my heavier profile carbine barrel.
The only thing I noticed was that after about 10 rounds or so of fast shooting the barrel would heat up and the groups would expand universally but we're talking opening up about an extra inch or so at 100 meters. So basically when you have a rifle that is a 2-3 MOA rifle anyhow, what difference does it make? lol

The XCR is no precision rig lol Just like it's brothers, it's an averagely accurate semi auto battle rifle design.
I'm going to be banking on a trade for a XCR pencil barrel I think. Hopefully I can find someone interested in swapping a 1:7 heavy barrel for a pencil barrel. Thanks for the info guys!
To the EE! :rockOn:
 
The only thing I noticed was that after about 10 rounds or so of fast shooting the barrel would heat up and the groups would expand universally
Click to expand...

If you are ok with that have at er!
I had similar experiences with AR's and I don't like sitting for 10 minutes after 2 mags letting the barrel cool down.

I rather doubt that you'll find a trade: the pencil barrel is all the rage right now.
 
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