Barrel recomendations for ar10

Brainstorming for the last few weeks and I'm starting to go all over the place now. Lets say your building a 308 ar10 style rifle. You have:
Aero m5 upper
Aero bcc
Aero complete m5 lower (nothing fancy parts wise)

Now ive been looking at faxon, BA, criterion mostly and play to use it as a heavier hitter multi function rifle. Meaning bang steel, play with load development and shoot paper, hunt deer, shoot pig, maybe throw some lead at a ground hog or two for some 300 yard or more one shot hits with wind calls. Bassically just more umph then my 556 loaded down with 77 grain stuff. Realistic shooting will be 0-800 on paper and steel 0-400 on deer depending on data and energy.

I dont plan on humping it for miles, but I dont want to haul it in a truck to be able to use it. It will have a silencerco chimera on it most times because I have it so why not.

I like the idea of 16-20 inch for the barrel, so I jumped right into 18 to look to split the difference. I like the idea of the faxon big gunner profile, ive had hands on with all three companies barrels but not in 308 and its almost at a point of roll the dice on out of the 3. Then I'll think about 16 inch, loss of fps and blast getting closer to me. Along with gas, but its lighter and handier to lug around, enter exit cars or deer blinds, and take impromptu shots.

Then I go the other way with 20 inch. Speed helps everything. And then come back to 18 and hope its okish.

All 3 do military pricing. All 3 have produced some shooters, and some not so great shooters, but they all have good customer service.

And those are the only 3 I'm really looking at. Plan to shoot 147 smh or hornady 150 fmj for cheap blinkers. 168 or 175 smk for range, and some kind of gameking/nosler whatever is cost-effective and shoots goodish for animals.

I'm not a quiter so I dont want to just sell it off, I do have 556, 300aac, 6.5 grendal, and an m&p 10. But I feel out on building, tuning, reloading, that kind of rabbit hole. So, what would YOU DO AND WHY?

https://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=233190

This probably the best thread on the subject, but you can do a search and come up with a ton of other ones.

I think its really comming dow, to the faxon gunner profile. Going to crunch numbers on 16 vs 18 vs 20 for terminal energy on traget under 600 yards.

Have a 16" faxon gunner and 18" BA fluted heavy on M5 receivers. They perform about how you would expect. Both are 1MOA with match, 2-3 MOA with FMJ, but the gunner opens up a little after a few rounds, the fluted is still a tack driver after a couple rapid fire mags.. the Gunner is stupid light and really nice to carry or shoot from positions without much support. Also note my gunner had AR10 carbine gas, not mid length, a slight difference in gas tube length, but important for function. Extension to gas block shoulder 9.875=mid length, 10.125=AR10 carbine length.

I have experience with Faxon's 5R rifled heavy fluted @ 16"

It shoots sub MOA with 168SMKs (factory loads)

I cannot recommend Faxon enough.

18" 1:10 twist will work pretty well for most applications.

Under 18" in a 308 is where you start to see meaningful velocity loss. You also start to get noticeably increased recoil. I would go with your gut feeling and split the difference at 18".

I'm thinking its now between 16 and 18" faxon gunner. The pencile profile is nice thats its a few oz lighter, but with the chimera on the end of it I think it will feel wonky.

The gumner having more mass back towards the chamber will hopefully offset that some. Or atleast thats whats going through my mind at the moment.

shocker998md said:

I'm thinking its now between 16 and 18" faxon gunner. The pencile profile is nice thats its a few oz lighter, but with the chimera on the end of it I think it will feel wonky.

The gumner having more mass back towards the chamber will hopefully offset that some. Or atleast thats whats going through my mind at the moment.

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In 308 the gunner and pencil are essentially the same profile, the gunner has a 2" block journal length for a FSB, the pencil is a 1.1", all of 2oz difference in weight between the 2. They are 4 groove rifling, (Faxon premium is 5R, BA premium is 6 groove). It is definitely not a skinny barrel, still .750" journal, still pretty thick, basically a mid-contour till the journal, then a lighter profile out from there. I run my 16" gunner suppressed all the time, shift with/without isn't all that bad, maybe 3MOA, where my 18" 46oz heavy fluted BA shifts about 1/2 that, but is more than a full pound heavier and very noticeable. There really isn't much velocity difference, about 50FPS with most loads between my 16 and 18, although the can can add a few FPS too, and with temp variations etc there really isn't much difference within 600 yards or so. IMO if you need it to be mobile, or shoot from positions with a long handguard/low pro gas block go with a 16" pencil. If you want noticeably better velocity and accuracy, bulk/weight isn't as important, and plan to shoot off a bipod or bench, go with a 20" heavy fluted.