Originally Posted By spyderboy03:
I'm curious how the barrel will shoot. I've got a SOLGW 18" 6 ARC barrel from their line made by Blackhole. Only 20 rounds through it so far so know idea what it will actually shoot yet.

Originally Posted By WeR0206:
I hope to get to the range within the next few days so I'll post an update but I'd still be in "break in" phase for about 100-150 rounds

Originally Posted By spyderboy03:
Oh 100%. I've got 2 6ARC barrels and both are shooting factory Hornady around 1-2". The second is a 12" Rainier ultramatch, but I go it used having fired "only 200 rounds." I need to clean it well and see if it tightens up. I also rescoped that rifle and went from direct thread suppressor to a brake with taper mount.

Originally Posted By WeR0206:
Break in session #1 is done. Put 55 down the tube today. No cycling issues at all but as expected this barrel is way over gassed and kicks like a mule (due to gas port being too big for the amount of dwell time) compared to my 18" PVA osprey 6 ARC barrel. I just bought an RCA adjustable gas key that I will use to tame it a bit along with an h2 buffer and a possible switch to a5 buffer tube which I already have on hand.

Groups tightened up nicely after about 40 shots and a little more speed. In the 10 shot groups I ignored the shots I pulled. These polygonal rifled barrels seem to shoot with less speed than their counterparts. For example with factory 108 eld-m's this barrel shoots avg of 2,447 while the 18" osprey shoots 2,626. I was expecting the 18" to shoot faster but not by that much.

https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/attachments/image_cropper_1291c304-911b-4130-809c-ba8e28f47846-71933-000009de2c192c01-jpeg.8785395

Originally Posted By spyderboy03:
Interesting. My 18" SOLGW (which is Blackhole) shoots the lot of 108gr eld-m around 2,550. That last group looks nice though!

How do you like the PVA? I had a 16" in 223 that was decent but sold it with less than 300 rounds as I was able to snag a Geissele SPR cut rifled barrel with phased array gas system a few months after getting the PVA. I almost got their 6 ARC but didn't due to the 1:8 twist.

Originally Posted By WeR0206:
Thanks! I think the speeds will increase a little after some more break in but we'll see. I doubt they will climb more than 20-30 fps once fully broken in.

The PVA is a hammer (also shoots sub MOA 10 shot groups) but it was under gassed (shooting factory 108 eldm's) for an 18" Rifle +2 system which has a super short dwell time. The gas port was originally 0.093" but it was short stroking (FTE, FTL, FTF) so I sent it back in and they opened it up to about 0.099" free of charge which was nice. Shooting the same ammo after port enlargement It fixed the failure to eject but still getting failure to lock and failure to feed with std carbine spring and 3oz buffer. I am going to reduce reciprocating mass and possibly switch to A5 buffer length to give me more weight options to play with. I may also use a low mass carrier from RCA, odin, JP, etc. if I need to further reduce mass. Trying to avoid using a reduced power buffer spring if possible but will use one as a last resort.

I live in CA so I can't use a suppressor but after talking with the guys at PVA I think most folks shooting their 6 ARC osprey AR-15 barrels are using cans so it adds extra dwell time compared to my setup. They were confident the .093" port size was big enough for unsuppressed use but for my sample of one it was no where close.