Gunsmithing for Optimal Performance

Building and modifying firearms for ideal performance.

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Gunsmithing for Optimal Performance

When you are focused on accuracy, is adding another accessory able to bring you to the next level? For precision shooters – the age-old question is whether parts and accessories make the impact (that they seem to be able to in your mind) in the real world. In a day and age where many off-the-shelf rifles can get you pretty close to 1 MOA, which if any accessories can have the biggest impact, and are you fooling yourself trying to tighten up your groups with hardware rather than training and experience?

If it’s a hybrid model involving both hardware and “software” – where are the biggest impacts to be made?

This is an article that explores the relationship between what you think will make you better, what can make you better, and the value of the different variables in the equation of getting better at precision shooting. This article focuses on the AR platform because it’s a perfect platform to get trained on, and the ability to customize the modular system over time from a hardware perspective allows shooters to get better and upgrade their firearm as they go to match their skills. 

Are you fooling yourself and just trying to find a way to spend that money burning a hole in your pocket?

The short answer is no. There are plenty of improvements to be had with hardware components in the AR market. But the longer answer is far more complicated. Some of what you believe is marketing psychology at its best, and some of what you realize as improvement is just a factor of you getting better through trial and error, increased information consumption, and real world experience. It’s a combination of variables that go into your ability to improve on long-range efforts when focusing on precision shooting sports. 

But, yes, hardware does matter. Skills do matter. The harmony you create between the two of them matters most. 

And there are some accessories that have far less of an impact on our shooting than they seem to have prior to purchase. So, you’ll do well to prioritize your dollars for the hardware that makes the most sense from a value perspective and perhaps even on the training that may push you to beyond where you thought was possible. 

Reality Check

Practice makes perfect – not cool accessories. But that isn’t the whole story, is it? Let’s explore the idea behind incremental improvement and optimization on the backdrop of overall gains in performance.

A lot of precision shooters realize that the more rounds they send down range the better they get. But that’s true of everything, isn’t it? The more you experience something, the more you can digest what’s happening in real time and are able to make better judgments, and better adjustments, is what allows for incremental improvement over time anyway. 

Long-range precision shooting isn’t about immediate impacts so much as it is about long-term honing of skills. No matter how much is spent on a custom rifle, the shooter needs to be able to outperform the hardware. And as you go along – the percentage increases lessen, because you get into the cycle of optimization which is shorter up front and gets longer as you improve little by little. 

1. Don’t buy a gun that’s better than you just because you can, unless if you want to lengthen your learning curve – at least not at first. 

2. Prioritize dollars, and stack ammunition components

3. Learn to reload/handload

4. Emphasize refining your shot process – make every shot count, call it, and make every shot a routine delivery to ensure consistency

5. Ultimately, unfortunately, the AR platform is not going to be your best option for precision long-range shooting, but you can and should start on an AR because it’s super approachable and offers a lot of value

Note: while it may seem like it at times, this is not an article about how to shoot precision long range rifles. There are plenty of robust guides on that topic. This is about how you can avoid missteps in the market and on the procurement side of things, so that you can focus on the truly developmental and essential purchases that will drive you to be a better precision long-range shooter. Particularly, with the AR platform. 

Do you have your priorities straight?

Is it your goal to look cool at the range through showcasing awesome guns or awesome results? 

There is no right answer here. Car people show off their cars, even if they had nothing to do with building the engine or could not possibly harness the power the way a professional driver could. Some people indulge in watches worth more than most people’s mortgage notes. Some people buy $350 jeans. You like what you like. It’s ok to have great looking guns you are proud of. 

But the point here is about results versus loadout. And more specifically is the loadout you want, designed to get results in the form of tighter groups and faster sets and further distances? Or is it designed to get people to look at your awesome guns. Both are fine answers. There may even be a bunch of other reasons for bringing a specific gun to the range too. And that is also fine. 

If you are looking for end results that mean tighter groups, faster reaction times, and better on target performance for your chosen gun and you as the shooter, then your priorities need to involve more shooting, more focused and consistent shooting styles and the right purchases that lead to direct impacts on your ability to hit where you are aiming.

If in doubt about an accessory purchase other than optics (and sometimes with optics), buy ammunition instead with the money. That’s a no-lose situation for someone who is an avid shooter with money that’s burning a hole in their pocket.

About incremental improvement

Shooting performance improvement takes time. Yes, you can learn so much from binging on YouTube videos and reading blog posts and ultimately diving deeper and deeper until you get to the best figureheads sharing the best information. It’s possible to get yourself to a great place by simply digesting available information. 

Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell sometimes which information is best, and whether or not you are moving down the right track. A good litmus test? Real world improvement. If you’re getting better keep moving down that pathway until you hit a wall. 

At that point, reassess where you need to go, using the knowledge you gained as you improved in the most recent cycle of improvement. Your newfound wisdom will help you to further discern whether what you are hearing will be able to impact your progression properly. 

More about optimization on your performance

Optimization is the more incremental, “incremental” improvement, and really should be geared towards shaving seconds off your reaction time, or tenths of inches off your group size, and only after you have a solid base of all the technical, mental, and physical concepts surrounding precision shooting.

At some point you will outperform your AR. You may have to move on to something made from a monolithic chassis, or something that can get down to the accuracy level you really want to be at. Most people would be incredibly happy with 1 MOA out of a military design. Some configurations can push down to near ½ MOA for a few thousand dollars on the AR, but you’re not going to be doing that easily. And if you aspire to get to ¼ MOA, you will become very disappointed in the platform – it’s just not built for that type of accuracy.

Conclusions

At some point, you will not see gains in a single session of shooting. Because you can only push your hardware to its limits and improve so much each time you learn and experience it on the level you need to at that point in your progression. It’s the way this game works. Getting a 1% optimization improvement will be a goal someday. And as crazy as that sounds, you will be ecstatic when you can prove you obtained that 1% improvement at that point. Some people call that level of achievement in shooting “enlightenment” or “exaltation”.