Originally Posted by
MTechnik
If you're shooting wolf or brown bear, it doesn't matter how nice the barrel is, the ammo isn't consistent enough to beat the groups you are seeing with the AK with similar ammo.
Now, if you step up from the $.20/shot wolf/brown bear/silver bear to $.45/shot Prvi Match ammo, your group size will drop to sub-moa if not for occasional flyers. It isn't until you reload or buy the GOOD $.80/shot ammo that you get sub half-moa groups out of a good upper, extracting every bit of performance from it.
(xm193 will get 1.5" groups, which is much better than the 3"+ groups seen with wolf/brown bear... but the Prvi still fragments, making it my preferred option for that price range.)
Also, about the bull barrel.... I have one. It is HEAVY. It is definitely a bench gun only. And it holds a LOT of heat, taking a while to cool down. If you don't need to shoot long strings of ammo between cooldown periods, I'd recommend a thinner profile than the standard 1" bull. 20" of 1" thick stainless steel is heavy.