The concept of “accuracy” reaches far beyond a 3 or 5 shot group when you shoot your rifle in competition or varmint hunting, where 3 or 5 shots is nothing. It isn’t unusual these days to find off the shelf, inexpensive rifles that guarantee “MOA accuracy” out of the box, limited to a 3 or 5 shot string. But when you get up into 10, 20, and even 100 shot strings, it is a virtual guarantee that the accumulated heat in your barrel will throw your shots into a much bigger circle than MOA, (which is roughly an inch of dispersion at 100 yards). Back in 2010 we first examined a product called the “Straightjacket” from Teludyne Tech that was designed to cure the effects of heat in rifle barrels. The Straightjacket is a 1 1/4″ wide sleeve that is fitted around your existing barrel. It is filled with a heat-wicking media of a proprietary metal alloy, and the overall system is much less weight than would be a comparable 1 1/4″ heavy, or bull barrel. Our original look at the Straightjacket was on bolt guns, but now in its 4th generation of the Straighjacket, Teludyne has come up with a system for the AR-15 that is said to make your best 3 shot group into your average 10 shot group. What we originally called the “Ultimate Accuracy Makeover” has become the “Ultimate AR-15 Makeover,” and we got some amazing results from our two test uppers. The Straightjacket is still a niche product for people who shoot a lot of bullets, fairly quickly, at things far away, and it ain’t cheap. AR-15 upper conversions are currently $1049 and bolt guns can be converted into Straightjacket guns for $849 ($1049 titanium). From its introduction to this day the Straightjacket challenges everything we “know” about accuracy, and that alone makes it exciting to play with, and worth the investment if your budget allows it.
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Teludyne StraightJacket Proof from H.P. White
Finally nobody has to believe GunsAmerica that the Teludyne StraightJacket is nothing short of a miracle for rifle accuracy over sustained fire. If you read our original article, Ultimate Accuracy Makeover, but didn’t send your gun to Teludyne, you may want to beat the crowds now because they have enlisted the H.P. White testing organization to certify the results, and you can download the PDF of the report.
Extreme Accuracy Makeover – The Teludyne (TTI) Tech Straightjacket
When I first heard about the Teludyne Tech (TTI) “Straightjacket,” I was extremely skeptical. I have seen literally dozens of products come and go over the years that claimed to increase accuracy by “reducing barrel harmonics.” I thought that the Straightjacket, if I bothered to waste my time on it, would turn out to be just something else to throw on the pile with all of the bore treatments, weights, stocks, stock beddings, even something resembling electrical tape, that have crossed my path over the years. Nothing, in my opinion, could make a big difference in long range accuracy beyond what we knew up until now. If you want a rifle that would reliably shoot sub-MOA, you had to work up loads, build your own consistent match ammo, bed or free float the action, get the best trigger, the best stock, and especially the best and most expensive barrel. Teludyne wasn’t going to convince me that match grade accuracy would come out of a regular stock rifle with their “new technology.”
The most absurd about thing about the Teludyne story is what they want you to do with your gun. This is no “try it and see if you like it” product. They want you to send them your rifle, after which they will take it apart, press fit (at something like 50,000 pounds of pressure) a steel sleeve around your barrel, then they fill that sleeve with a proprietary compound, filling in all around your barrel. Then they weld a permanent cap on top, grind and sand your stock down to fit the new inch and a quarter thickness of your new “Straightjacket”ed barrel, then put the whole works back together and send it back to you.
Who in their right mind would send a perfectly fine but maybe not as accurate as I’d like it to be rifle out to be modified to such a degree, with experimental technology? This is a permanent deal. Love it or hate it, your rifle will never be the same.
Well it turns out that I was willing to do it, with two rifles in fact, and you aren’t going to believe the results. You are however welcome to come to sunny South Florida this winter and try them for yourself if you like. I know the discussion boards will be buzzing with disbelief as soon as this comes out and I welcome all comers. I feel priviledge to be one of the people who got a Teludyne gun “back when nobody knew about them” and I plan to keep my guns and shoot them a lot.
Return of the Straightjacket Done Tactical: Falkor Defense—SHOT Show 2017.
Falkor Defense has come out swinging with a couple of different products this year. Falkor is most famous for magnum cartridge AR-style rifles, notably in .300 Winchester Magnum. That is a lot of cartidge to get in semi auto, but apparently Falkor fears no challenge.
Colt vs. Gorilla – Match AR-15 Ammo Review
The concept of “match ammo” surprises some people. Guns go bang and the bullet makes a hole in whatever the gun is pointed at, right? Yes, and while almost all ammo will function and do some damage downrange, there is a huge variation to how precisely the ammo is manufactured. You can set the automated ammo machines for 5 rounds a minute or 500 rounds per minute. But at 500 rounds per minute, the precision of the ammo sharply declines. It takes time to make sure that powder is measured precisely, that primers are seated corrected, and that bullets are inserted and secured evenly. Handloaders know this, because they do all of these steps one at a time, when making “match quality” ammo, but with the high price of ammo these days, it has become profitable for more and more new manufacturers to get into the game of match ammo and produce some really amazing results.
SureFire 60 Round AR-15 Magazine – Range Report
This is an official heads up from us and SureFire to all the readers of GunsAmerica Magazine & Blog. We had planned to get this review out next Monday but because of the impending election tomorrow, it is prudent that it goes out today. No matter who you are voting for and who is elected, there may be a run on high capacity magazines. There are plenty of 30 round AR-15 magazines around, but if you have been considering one of the new 60 round SureFire mags, they will most likely dry up pretty quick if there is a nationwide run on them. There is no magazine like the SureFire for the AR-15, and it comes in both 60 and 100 round varieties, but the 100 round has been sold out and backordered for months. As of today there are plenty of 60 round mags available, and though they are pricey, $129 each, compared to a 100 round Beta-C mag they are competitively affordable. After the nightmare of Hurricane Sandy, which is still going on in New York and New Jersey, every American should understand that they are not exempt from disaster and having to defend life and property. Sixty rounds of .223/5.56 with no mag change is a heck of a defense. If you can afford one and have been putting it off, now would be a good time to order the 60 round SureFire mag.
Burris Eliminator Laserscope – Rangefinder Built In!
Blowing the shot can be caused by a lot of things. You may not have zeroed your rifle properly. You may not have been able to get a steady rest in time, or more often than not, you may have figured out the wrong holdover. Even the best shooter, given the pressure of a shot that needs to be shot right now, can blow a big shot, without even having to do quick math and calculate a holdover. Anyone can blow a shot, all factors considered, so any advantage you can pick up from your gear, the better.
We have covered several “rangefinding” scopes in the past. Some require math and some don’t, but by far the most advanced range estimating scope out there is the Burris Eliminator Laserscope. It has a built in rangefinder, and after you set it up for the ballistics of your rifle and cartridge, it gives you a .33 MOA dot for exact holdover. Sounds too good to be true right? At a pricetag of $949 MSRP, this is not an inexpensive toy mind you, but it does work. We got a chance to put the Burris Eliminator through its paces, and it works pretty good actually
Zeiss Rapid-Z “Zero Math” Riflescopes
Try to quick calculate the “minutes of angle,” or MOA adjustment, for your riflescope on an big bull elk 435 yards away. Go ahead, try it, with the ammo you plan to use this hunting season. Some of you will say “no problemo” and easily be able to calculate the correct click adjustment or holdover quickly and quietly in your head.
The rest of us are a little too excited about the elk to have a clear enough head to do that. And many of us have little if any ability to calculate these kinds of things in our head on the fly even on our best day with no elk in the picture.
This has led to the advent of what I call “Zero Math Riflescopes.” With a Zero Math Riflescope, the lines in the scope reticle have already been pre-calculated at given distances for the ballistics of the load you are using. We’ve already covered this somewhat on the Nikon .223 series, but those scopes are really for only one load of one caliber. The lines in the reticle, or the clicks on the turrett, match the distances if your velocity matches the standard value for that caliber, in this case 2340fps. for .223. But what if you have a shorter barrel than the test barrel on the ammo, or your handload doesn’t match the published numbers for factory ammo velocity?
The Zeiss Rapid-Z Reticle series, tested here on their Victory FL and Conquest riflescopes, calculates these numbers (click here to log in to the calculator) for any big game hunting caliber, and provides you with easy holdovers for distances from 100 to up to 1000 yards. The scope does this with no math whatsoever, and the online calculator explains how to make sure you scope is set correctly so that the 100 line hits at 100 yards, the 200 at 200, the 300 at 300, all the way up to 1000 at 1000 with the Rapid-Z 1000. Check out the pictures of the reticles here on the side. As you can see, they all have these what seem arbitrary lines, but they aren’t so arbitrary. The Rapid-Z calculator on the Zeiss Sport Optics website calculates the correct power setting on your riflescope to match these lines to actual distances downrange based on your ammo.
Rob Leatham Designs a New XD(M) for Competition – The XD(M) 9mm 5.25
Changing the way you think about polymer pistols is not an easy task, but this is exactly the goal of the new Springfield Armory XD(M) 5.25. They have taken the world class XD(M) design and matched it with new features designed specifically for competition shooters. Designed by the Springfield Armory team and world champion shooter Rob Leatham, the XD(M) 5.25 is everything you could want in a competition pistol out of the box. At some point they will release a tactical version, but this first 5.25 was made to be on the cutting edge of what you expect from a target and competition pistol. It is made to change your view of what a polymer pistol can be. Read More…
Today’s Armalite AR-10 Battle Rifle – Gun Review
As battle rifles go, probably the most misunderstood of them all is the AR-10. It almost beat the M-14 in replacing the M1 Garand, and its design was actually copied for the AR-15. Made by Armalite in 1956, when the company was owned by Fairchild Aviation and Eugene Stoner worked there, the Armalite AR-10 has a long and storied history. Fidel Castro even bought some. Today’s AR-10, brought back to life by Armalite Inc., is a more mature rifle than the guns of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Read More…