By Jim Dickson | Contributing Writer
AR rifles (short for Armalite rifle, not assault rifle) in the past have been handicapped by limited calibers being primarily offered in 5.56 and 7.62 NATO.
The one most missed by hunters is the .30-06 which comes with factory loads from 110 grains all the way up to 220 grain bullets offering more versatility in factory loads than any other hunting caliber.
Adequate for any North American game the .30-06 with 180-grain or 220-grain bullets is the gun many Alaskan guides want to see their clients use just as many African guides prefer to see their clients use it for non-dangerous plains game. The reason is simple. The .30-06 has the most power that the average hunter can use without flinching.
Put a magnum in the average shooter’s hands and you will see his target scores plummet. The .577 three inch nitro express may be my favorite hunting cartridge but there is no way that I would recommend this ferocious kicker to anyone except someone used to the ultra-big bore stopping rifles. Most people simply hit better with a .30-06 and that means less missed, or worse, crippled game getting away. I have always believed in the European hunting ethic that if you cannot make a clean humane kill you should not take the shot.
Long America’s favorite hunting cartridge, its presence in the popular AR platforms is long overdue, a situation that Bear Creek Arsenal has addressed with a beautifully crafted .30-06 AR. Because it is a semi-auto designed to absorb some of the recoil most people will shoot noticeably better with this .30-06 than they will with a bolt action chambered for the same round.
The ability to make fast follow up shots at a heart shot deer to stop it piling up in front of another hunter’s stand or even getting lost is extremely valuable. A heart shot deer can run 100 yards and it may not run in a straight line. That’s 100 square yards or more that he may die in and if the hunter cannot track him that is a lot of ground to cover in a search pattern. Let’s face it. Most hunters today are far from being true trackers. They need to break the game down before it gets lost forever. That’s where a good semi-auto is priceless.
When the gun arrived at Reeves Ace hardware in Clayton, Georgia their reaction was that this was a really good looking gun. It is precisely made and finished and cycles smooth and flawlessly when shooting. Quality is top of the line and the company is so confident of their rifles that they back them with a limited lifetime warranty. You don’t see many of those.
Another thing you don’t often see is the factory test firing each gun for accuracy at 100 yards before it is shipped like Bear Creek Arsenal does with each individual rifle. This rifle shot a 1 3/8-inch 5-shot group at 100 yards.
These people are taking no chances with their quality. When you buy one of their guns you can be sure that it will shoot accurately and reliably. I have seen some of our oldest and biggest companies ship complete duds that they obviously had not test fired. You don’t have to worry about that with Bear Creek Arsenal. They are out to make a name for themselves, and they are going about it the right way making the highest quality guns and individually testing them before shipping.
This is 10-pound 9-ounce rifle just as it comes from the factory which is a great aid for steady off hand shooting. Other people seem to be able to find a rest for their rifle when they need it but in all my long life I never had that option when an important shot had to be made and always had to shoot off hand. Hence that is the way I do all my practice shooting.
The gun is 42 ¼ inches long and sports a barrel and flash hider 21 ¾ inches long. The trigger is a Velocity Precision Engineering drop-in single stage model that breaks clean at 3 ½ pounds as measured with a Lyman Mechanical Trigger Pull Gauge from Brownell’s gunsmithing supplies.
I have found that the mechanical trigger pull gauges are not only cheaper but also give more consistent results than the more expensive electronic trigger pull gauges which also cannot be repaired when the electronics die, sometimes in as little as three years. The buttstock and pistol grip are made by Magpul and both contain compartments that can store cleaning supplies.
One feature that the troops in Vietnam wanted on the M16, the rifle that started the AR craze, was a conventional cocking handle on the side. They never got it, but this one has it and it is a big improvement.
The gun comes with no iron sights as most people hunt with a scope these days. I mounted a Bushnell Prime 3-9 X 40MM scope using a Bushnell thumb nut SPR optics mount for AR rifles as the straight line stock prevented me from seeing through the scope with lower mounts.
This is a super accurate rifle that can take advantage of this scope to become a real bean field shooter engaging wild hogs at extreme distances across wide flat crop lands. As Betty and I never let rain stop our hunting I am particularly impressed with their EXO barrier protection on the lens that repels water, oil, dust, and debris as well as the good job they did making the scope waterproof and fog proof. Also this powerful scope weighs a mere 14.7 ounces.
For hunting I prefer the 3X setting with its wide field of view only dialing in the higher settings if I need to inspect a buck’s antlers or even to be sure that he has antlers in thick brush. At extreme long range the ability to magnify your target so that you can see to place your shot more precisely can be a big help. It is better to find the target and lock onto it at the 3X setting then dial up the magnification as needed while still keeping the target in view in the scope than to try to hunt for the game with the limited field of view of the higher magnifications for by the time you find the spot where the game once stood it may be long gone. For the hunter wanting a variable power scope I don’t think you can do much better than this one.
To mount the scope I made good use of a Hoppes 9 Gun Vise. This is the best invention yet for holding a gun safely yet firmly while working on it. I hope that I never have to be without one. Once the rifle was secured I used two products from Brownell’s gunsmithing supplies, a Wheeler Fat Wrench firearms torque wrench for the screws and a Real Avid Master Scope Mounting Kit. This kit has a precision reticle level, a torque driver with a full set of bits, and a laser bore sighter enabling anyone to do a professional job of scope mounting. It is well worth investing in. In general the scope rings will require a T15 or T10 Allen wrench torqued to 15-20 inch pounds and the scope base attachment will need 25-30 inch pounds with the torque wrench. Imprecise tightening can affect the scope’s performance so invest in the right tools and do the job right.
As I like a sling on rifles I added a Magpul M-LOK GI Sling Swivel from Brownell’s gunsmithing supplies and a nice new M16 sling from Forest Park Army Navy Store in Forest Park, Georgia. I have always liked the Vietnam era silent sling for the M16 and use them on all my guns.
Since this is intended as a hunting rifle it comes with two 5-shot magazines instead of a 20-round magazine as many states do not permit high capacity magazines for hunting.
Thanks to the recoil buffering of the semi-auto AR design and the weight of the gun the recoil is just a small fraction of the recoil that you get from your average .30-06 bolt action sporter making this a very pleasant gun to shoot. For some strange reason Magpul makes their stock to start out at 1 ¾ inches wide just behind the receiver and then taper down to 1 1/8 inches wide on the butt plate. If they would make a broad military style butt plate 1 ¾ inches wide like the military M1903 Springfield they would cut down the already small recoil a lot more. If a sorbuthane recoil pad was added to that increased width I don’t think that you would feel any recoil at all.
I had more than 850 rounds to shoot through this rifle consisting of:
300 rounds of Black Hills ammunition consisting of 100 rounds of 178 grain ELD-X and 200 rounds of 150 grain CX
217 rounds of Privi Partizan M2 Ball 150 grain FMJ
120 rounds of Hornady ammo consisting of 60 rounds 150 grain Interlock and 60 rounds of 180 grain Soft Point
100 rounds of Remington 220 grain Corelokt (my favorite 30-06 bear and boar bullet weight)
120 rounds of Steinel Ammunition Co. M2 Ball 150 grain FMJ
Through it all the rifle functioned smoothly consistently validating the factory test target.
For generations the .30-06 has reigned as America’s most popular big game cartridge for deer, bear, boar, or anything else big that needed shooting. In recent years the AR rifles have become one of the most popular forms of hunting rifle. It’s about time that the .30-06 and the AR got together and this is a masterful job of doing it that will leave no one disappointed.
