Quality .308 AR's

[Mitch1993]

I know the opinion around the site is to go Knights or HK in the way of .308 Stoner rifles generally speaking. I also know that Jack (I believe his name is) from Knights said in I think the .308 Gas Guns modcast that there are many other quality .308 AR's out there. Well call me Dutch but the Knights pricetag is hard to swallow, yes I know they're amazing rifles. I came across this on POF rifles.

https://pof-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AfterActionReport.pdf

Would this be considered conclusive or not good enough evidence? Another question, what are everyone's favored brands for this kind of rifle? Looking to put glass on it and shoot out to 800 or so. I put this in the carbines section because I'm just focusing on reliability here, sorry if it's not in the right place.

Thanks

 

[Dpvaz56]

Idk much about POF.

Good to go:
Knights
HK
LWRCI

Safe bet:
ADM
SOLGW

 

[Gypsy EDC]

Primary weapons systems

 

[Bub]

What's the opinion on the Daniel Defense .308?

 

[Nate Osborne]

All,

Please provide your personal experience with your recommendations. Simply listing a brand/make/model does not add to the discussion. In short, remember to include the 'why.' This will help perpetuate P&S as a quality source of information for everybody.

Thanks much!

-Nate

 

[Ridgedaddy]

For most conventional shooters a PSA .308 will perform every task you need it to.

Id be hard pressed to tell the average Joe that he needs to go spend up to 5 grand for a .308
That's just bad thinking.

What purpose do you need one for OP?

 

[Bub]

Nate, I'm kinda on the same page as Ridgedaddy mentioned above. Most of the .308 guns are in that 4-5g range add an optic and you are suddenly in the 6-8 neighborhood. I think a lot of us are interested in .308 ARs since we shoot 5.56 ARs and are comfortable with the platform. However, we would like a quality gun without completely breathing the bank and still staying away from the bottom tier stuff that won't hold up. For .308 this may be impossible which lead to my DD question. I really haven't heard much about the DD .308 guns since their introduction. I would be interested in hearing about other options as well. I have no doubt the Knights, LWRC,... are great products.

 

[Nate Osborne]

I personally have only had limited experience with the PWS and the Daniel 308 rifles. I had a coworker order a 16" PWS that he had had for about 3 years now. He was one of the snipers on the local SWAT team, so he got it more as a semi auto version of the 16" Remington 700 he had. It got some glass in the 4-16-ish range and was shot mostly prone or in some stable position for precision work, not so much as a heavy carbine. Long story short-I don't have the sort of volume on that gun for me to really talk about long-term durability or reliability beyond saying that it was gassed reasonably, and we were able to adjust it for unsuppressed use, or with his Saker 762 attached. It seems like the PWS price has come down in the last year or so, and I would say it would be a serious option to look at.

For the DD guns, I have shot 4 of them. 3 were the 16" version, and one was the newer 18" version. All had the Geissele trigger that comes with the gun. One had a red dot, one had a 1-8 trijicon, and the others both had higher magnification of some sort. I shot one sample suppressed. I found that Daniel seemed to also gas their 308 guns very reasonably. They were reliable unsuppressed, but not too gassy with a sandman-s attached. The ambi controls were easy to get to and use, but not so large as to be easily activated accidentally. The front of the gun is actually pretty light, mostly due to the slim handguard. Having a mini 308 can like the Sandman-K would make for a pretty stellar package. The ball detent charging handle was quite hard to use initially, but I tried a gun that was about 6 months old that had been shot a bit, and it had really loosened up and was much easier to use. You start getting up there in price with the DD, but I was impressed with all 4 samples. Accuracy was also very acceptable.

I will be the first to admit that I have very limited experience with 308 guns in general, so I'm hoping there will be additional feedback from people with round counts in the thousands rather than the hundreds like me who can give better feedback as far as what is going to last over time.