Who is the go to for a barrel chop and profile for a RECCE build lately? Seems both D.Wilson and Adco are not offering it now.

Is the Corncob still the only way for a delta clone?  I finally have my S&B short dot. But no corn cob as of now.

Well that sucks. I'd hate to turn my AEM5 into a paper weight if no one does the appropriate barrel work anymore.

I've been thinking about getting one of these to make it simple

15.1" Thoroughbred Armament Company RECCE Starter Kit

They sell the barrels individually too.

That's not a bad backup, but I was going to get a 416 chopped for the AEM5. Not anytime soon but maybe this time next year.

Were there previous issues with lilja 17in recon barrels having gaped gas ports? Mine is gauging .091, supposed to be .080

Anyone know why they stopped? They were the go to’s for anything AE.

D.Wilson mentioned the back and forth between himself and the customer for one job was too time consuming.

It only takes one dumbass to fuck it up for the likes................  @bigbore is ADCO out the bidness too??

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No way would I open up a firearm related business now days. Years ago I had an opportunity to invest into an AR manfacture local to me. I say manufacturer but really more of a parts assembler who made their own billet uppers and lowers. Anyways, I thought about it for half of a second before I remembered how much of a pain in the ass some people are. I passed. I am not built for customer service. Now days it is even worse. I read a post on here the other day from a guy who after shooting his pistol it was showing wear. He seemed to think that because it was $1,200 pistol it shouldn’t show wear. He was wanting to send it back to the manufacture to be refinished. Gotta look right for the gram I guess.

Thanks for clarifying. Could you mitigate these issues by only accepting AE collar work to a select few barrel manufacturers?

 



@bigbore so are ya doing contours and cut'n threads or ya out big dawg??

Not gonna lie. I plan on sending a barrel to you next month and I was planning on doing this exact thing to make sure you know where I want it cut and where the shoulder should be.

What if we don't know where to have it cut? Like I have no idea where to cut to fit an Ops Collar assembly on a 416 14.5

Math is not hard. If you have your upper and another SPR cut barrel simple math can give you exactly what you need.

The machine shops job is to machine what the customer asks for. Not to do more work than what they are being paid for.

Fuck. Yes. Post of the year right here.

So there ya go all and whoever said ADCO was out!  They're still in now get ya shit right as for me fuckkkkkkk I got my CLE's...................

Who is everyone using for their barrel now since CLE is out?

The issue on this one is a little more nuanced/complex. In the cloning world (what this thread is dedicated to) we're often trying to copy setups that were done inside small units by small barrel shops / armorers. And all we have to go on is pictures / aesthetics. For the 416 barrel specifically, it's a difficult one to specify for a machinest because we don't neccessarily have specifications, dimensions or diagrams to work off of, all we have is pictures and a base knowledge of the system.

With the 416, it's more about where the collar sits than a specific barrel length. So it's like we want to index everything off of exactly where the collar should be, but that's a hard thing to specify for a machinest because we can't test fit the collar without the front section of the barrel being turned down first. It's almost like it needs to happen in 2 operations.

And then, you mix in all the whacky 416 clone barrel profiles that have come out (Brownells I'm looking at you), different collar lengths that are on the market (by sometimes even different manufacturers) and whether or not the barrel is concentric and it basically just makes the machinest's life hell for that particular build. But we're also stuck as consumers with not really having a lot of options or the ability to sit down with the machinest and discuss it in person so everything is clear. It's a tricky project to describe with masking tape and typed out text.

From what I can tell, the 416 project only really works if you follow a specific receipe:

1. ONLY use a genuine HK416 14.5" barrel or Nefarious Arms 14.5" HK416 barrel. These are the only 2 barrels that I'm aware of that have the correct M203 cut and profile to work specifically for this recipe. No MR556 barrels, no Nefarious barrels that are other lengths/profiles, no brownells barrels, etc… The HK barrel is obviously the best one, but given its price and rarity, it can be difficult for people, so the Nefarious is the next best option.

2. Use ONLY a short collar made by Ops Inc. / Allen Engineering.

3. The collar on AR-15 builds would normally rest up against a small shoulder machined into the barrel profile. However, on these 416 builds, it looks like what was done is the collar instead rests up against the taper behind the M203 cut. So the front section of the barrel needs to be turned down in order to slide the collar on first. Once that happens, you can slide the collar on and twist it a bit to "score" the barrel with a small mark to you can see exactly where on the taper the shoulder inside the collar sits.

4. Once you have that little mark from the collar on the barrel, you can then measure the exact length to cut the barrel. Basically everything needs to be indexed off of that mark. But we can't create that mark until the barrel profile up front gets turned down first. IIRC it's 2.4" from the collar shoulder but I could be remembering that wrong.

This kind of thing is extremely difficult to explain to gunsmith shops over email. Especially ones that are unfamiliar with the Ops Inc. system in the first place. Steve, your shop is the best on the planet for this type of stuff IMO, but I've always been nervous about sending this particular project in to you guys specifically for this reason, because I'm not confident enough in my ability to explain it right.

What we really need is a shop that understands the Ops system to do one of these successfully and then "document" it so that it's specific specs for anyone else that wants to do this project. But it'd need to have requirements like *only* those 2 barrels and *only* the Allen short collar. The minute some dude comes along with a different barrel or different setup in some way and tries to do it it'd fuck the whole thing up and then I'm sure they'd whine about it. And what shop would possibly want to deal with that? Exactly why I'm not surprised that D. Wilson discontinued it.

It would also be rad if there was some good supply of the barrels out there where we could just get massive group buy run done all at once and then keep the spares for sale for anyone wanting to do the project in the future. I feel like a smithing shop would be far more willing to invest the time in helping us figure it out if it was going to be for 40 barrels all at once instead of 1 barrel every 4 months.

It's just a weird hobby and this stuff is hard. And in general our collective behavior as a community, being cheap and whiny, doesn't exactly make shops want to work with us to figure it out.

That's not really an accurate statement. The 416 specifically has some extra complexity vs. a normal SPR/AR-15 project.

Making an incorrect blanket statement about a project that you have no experience with isn't hard.

Math isn't hard, sure, but obtaining a precise location from a precise measurement on a tapered section of a barrel when you can't actually put the other part on it IS hard. And it's especially hard when you mix in multiple barrel manufacturers and even tolerances within the same manufacturer.

Nobody said anything about getting a machine shop to do more work that what they are being paid for. The people trying to do this project are more than willing to pay a shop to work with them to figure the specifics out. But it's a hard thing to do virtually.

So, what ADCO is saying is people send their barrel in and assume they know all this bespoke info about a clone which has no hard numbers for them to go by.

Also, when I say math isn't hard and how people should put a little more effort into what they are doing I mean that no matter what there are hard numbers someone can go by no matter how intricate the details are on where the muzzle is to where the back of your suppressor will end up. The back of the collar might vary based on what collar is used but again that is just a number which can be added or subtracted.  

If you have a 14.5" barrel and you need the collar to sit just past the gas block on a 416 and you also have another SPR contour rifle sitting right next to you you can take your trusty fat max and measure from the muzzle to the back of the collar. Then apply that number to your 416, then mark where the muzzle needs to be and subtract the distance from your 14.5" muzzle to where it needs to be. Then tell ADCO it needs a barrel chop to 13.1" then an SPR contour or whatever magic needs to be done to run this collar on this barrel.


If it requires a special collar. Buy the special collar and factor it into your dimensions and send it with the barrel

When I say "you" I am referring to whoever  the customer is.

I'd wager the info these clowns are sending to Adco and D. Wilson for these special SPR contour setups are nothing like what you, TinyCrumb, would send. So, now Adco has to blanket statement stuff because no one wanted to do some math or work and just wanted someone else to do the work for them.

@Thanos7856

https://craddockprecision.com/rtr-223-wylde-15-1-recce/

https://www.thoroughbredarmco.com/product/863/

No experience with either but hear nothing but good out of Craddick and mixed on the Thoroughbred barrel..............I'd buy either the Douglas 16" or 18" mk12 barrel and send it to @bigbore for a chop................................I have two CLE 15.1 RECCE barrels (1 in 556 & 1 in 6mm Arc) and Eyekahn has the most experience behind this cloned build so we should be able to get the measurements together.  Maybe bigbore already knows fuck me if I do I got lucky ordered in Oct 23' and was one of the final runs from CLE before they went dark....................

Nice video. The Brownells HK platform barrels were such a mess. Their 417 barrel gas block location was completely off for similar reasons. I checked multiple with the same results.

Thanks. It's quite amazing just how bad they did with them. I've even heard of people's rifles malfunctioning because of the extra length in the piston system but I haven't verified that myself. The only redeeming quality that I can think of is that at the very least it put a ton of readily available barrel extensions on the market. So we could always buy a crappy Brownells 417 barrel, pull the extension, and then get a custom barrel maker to do a proper one. I've always been secretly hoping that Marvin would do 417 barrels as well since he did such a good job on the 416 ones, but I believe the barrel extensions are what's holding him back. Still have my fingers crossed though.

So are these rifle gonna go in this thread or  

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Big thanks to TinyCrumb for the heads up!

Nice!

That’s going to be a super cool, unique build.

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Full picture. Some great 416 recce details.

That's a lot of HK in that picture

Back when HK sponsored Dev... those were the best of times.

https://www.nightforceoptics.com/riflescopes/limited-run/nxs-25-10x24mm/?utm_source=Nightforce+Optics&utm_campaign=4b04f37aac-NXS_2.5-10_Limited_Release_2024_06_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4b04f37aac-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=4b04f37aac&mc_eid=9e0dc28667

I've been trying to find where to place the order but I haven't seen anything from a dealer.

Mike High and Euro

https://www.milehighshooting.com/brands/Nightforce.html

https://www.eurooptic.com/nightforce-nxs-25-10x24-rifle-scopes.aspx

appreciate you sir!

Damn I really want to grab one.. Funds no allowy

Sportsoptics has them free shipping and they taking care of the tax.

https://www.sportoptics.com/nightforce-nxs-2-5-10x24-c538.html

damn. Mile High had tax but free shipping. I aint complaining too much. Beats resale prices by a mile.

Damn OOS already

Hit up Bauer precision, Mike over there said they had some on order.

Thanks for the heads up

I ended up calling eurooptic and they got me one after my post. They haven't even gotten theirs yet so it's all pre orders.

Midway ain't showing no love on shipping or taxes  but show both in stock\

ETA: For those looking for the 15.1" Recce Barrels here's a lil infor from Craddock Precision....................

Well I got the NSW 15.1" tore apart for cerakote and the 2008 made 2.5-10x24 sitting idle!  Meanwhile I'm thinking about doing the OG Seal Recce as I have the 2.5-10x32 from 2012 and my newly released 2.5-10x24 arriving tomorrow alongside the FN upper/lower and B. E. Meyers 249F.  So all I need is the Lilja 17" which is in stock so question is for anyone that has built that rifle do you enjoy it?  Is that Lilja a fucking shooter or what?  Got my new batch KAC RAS in Monday so just gotta order the barrel.





The 2008 x24 was sent in for reticle change many many years ago so it's MOAR/MOAR, the 2012 x32 is MilDot and the 2024 x24 is Mil/Mil

Another question I have two sets of NF rings one set of A203's and what is supposed to be A110's but they have no markings??  I sold my original set last year got these later last year in a scope trade so do you guys know if they mark the 110's or not??





Might just order a unimount and call it a day for the new x24

Mounted the 2.5-10x24 from the previous drop