5 Attachment(s)
Review : Faxon Firearms 14.5" Pencil Profile AR15 barrel
For those interested in building lighter weight AR15's, these barrels are the best on the market in my opinion.
Specs here: 16" PENCIL, 5.56 NATO, Mid-Length, 4150 QPQ - Faxon Firearms
And available locally at NZAR15
Comparison to other common profiles:Attachment 53856
L to R: Stag Arms 20" HBAR, CMMG 16" what I'm going to call a hybrid profile, Spikes Tactical 16" Govt, and the 14.5" Faxon Pencil.
I fitted the barrel to an Anderson Mfg "light weight" upper, which to me is a standard A3 upper minus dust cover and Fordward Assist. The barrel extension was a tight fit to the upper. I used an ALG Defense 12" MLOK handguard, which is very light weight and in my opinion excellent.
I picked up a second hand RRA AR15 BCG to complete the guts of the upper.
I test fired the upper off a bench at 100m. Loads I tried are as follows.
68gr Hornady BTHP, 26gr 2206H, ADI Brass, CCI450
65gr Sierra Game king with same as above
55gr Nosler SP, 25.5gr BM2, same case and primer
These loads have worked well in other rifles so I used them as a preliminary accuracy indication.
Apologies for the messy targets. Other people were using the range and couldn't be bothered changing them.
Attachment 53857
6 round group with the 55gr Nosler
Attachment 53858
9 shots with the same load as quickly as I could accurately shoot.
Attachment 53859
Attachment 53860
Two 5 shot groups the SGK's
It hated the 68gr Hornady so I didn't bother measuring.
These groups were all shot with the barrel quite warm as i wanted to see how heat would effect the group size, which it seems to not do so much, but I will have to test and see how it effects the MPI.
I think these results are quite promising and I am curious to see how it goes with further load development. But I've got half a mind just to run the Noslers and GK and go hunting. I'm pretty impressed.
