Building A Midrange Rifle

November 22, 2023

Specific golf clubs are made for specific distances, and so are guns. Here the author goes over what makes a good midrange rifle.

For many shooters, there’s a degree of skill declination at 300 yards. When I grew up, I shot matches at Camp Perry. We were shooting World War I and World War II-era rifles at 200 yards—at targets substantially smaller than these guns were designed to fire at, and I recall how far away 200 yards seemed in that vast space. Even when firing full-power 7.62x54R and .30-06 at what many shooters would consider a “short” distance, there was a noticeable change in point-of-impact across the line when wind came.

Never is a bullet free from the influence of its environment. If you think you’re going to get immediate and consistent first-round hits with high-end long-range rifles, you’re sorely mistaken. No amount of money spent can guarantee hits. All that cash does is decrease variables and, in theory, make your rifle more consistent shot-to-shot so long as your ammo is of equal consistency and quality. Accuracy features, such as “match-grade” parts, heavy or thick barrels, adjustable stocks or chassis and top-shelf optics are really consistency features that reduce the amount of variables in how you interface with your rifle.

Midrange-rifle-three — Three AR rifles and three very different configurations. All of these are effective midrange rifles; however, each has strengths and weaknesses. The .224 Valkyrie (middle gun) with Vortex 4.5-22x optic and adjustable Magpul stock is very accurate, but it’s much heavier and longer than the others. Likewise, the lightweight carbine with a Faxon pencil barrel (top gun) is very fast and easy to handle, but it heats up quickly. The M16A1 (bottom) is a great rifle and extremely soft shooting. Not one is better than the next; it all depends on what features you want to prioritize.

Because environmental factors are always going to be a variable you can’t control, you end up controlling variables on the gun. The general trend is that the closer the target is to you, the less you need consistency features. Barrels get skinnier (weight savings at the price of heat buildup), calibers smaller (more ammo at the cost of projectile weight/power) and sights/optics with bigger aiming points.

In turn, shooters end up making up their guns like golf clubs: “This is my CQB gun in .300 Blackout. This one is my DMR in 5.56. This rifle is my long-range rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor.

This golf club mindset is very detrimental because it encourages selection based on an imaginary barrier. Why practice with an 8-inch .300 Blackout AR pistol at 500 yards, when it’s a close-range gun? Why shoot your $5,000 precision rifle at 200 yards? That’s like drinking a bottle of 10-year-old Rip Van Winkle with your McDonald’s drive-thru!

Tuebor-precision-heavy-Midrange-rifle — This bolt action on a stainless Tuebor Precision action features a heavy stainless Brownells M24 barrel and is too heavy to be considered a practical rifle for medium distances. It’s just too slow moving, but it is extremely accurate.

Ballistic Procrastination

Shooters caught up in the minutia of one specific facet of precision are, to me, stuck in procrastination. Worrying about spin drift at 1,000 yards is a waste of time if you still scratch your head on wind at 500. Worrying about wind at 500 yards is pointless if you’re not able to do basic holdovers at 300 to 400. When you’re hungry for a sandwich, you don’t start off with buying the deli.

The same goes for close-range skills, where there’s a heavy emphasis on speed, reloads and clearing malfunctions. Close-range skills have their place, but in no way does this translate to hunting or shooting at medium distance in general. I’ve been hunting for a long time and never have I had to perform a “tac reload” or “transitioned to my sidearm.” It’s good to know, but these things won’t make you a better shooter when you need to take your time and observe your surroundings and general environment.

AR-Trijicon-reflex — Non-magnified sights are at their best inside 300 yards. You can, of course, shoot farther, but you’re asking a great deal of your sights when low-powered optics, such as the ACOG or a common 1-6x available these days, can dramatically increase your precision. A red dot like this old-model Trijicon Reflex is capable at long distances, but it offers no reference point in terms of drop.

The 300-Yard Meat Grinder

For many shooters, 300 yards is long shot. When hunting, 300 yards is a long shot. Long-range hunting is talked about constantly, but it’s absolutely not the norm, nor should it be.

The idea that 300 yards is long range will get you laughed at by some people, but “long range” begins when you really need to start actively observing the environment around you. The environment always has an impact, but with many rounds you can cheat … up to a point. With a .338 Lapua or 6.5 Creedmoor, you need to pay far less attention to the details at 300 yards, but swap in a .30-30, .300 Blackout or a .450 Bushmaster, and 300 yards is long range for them.

The thing with midrange rifle distances is that they can be exceptionally unforgiving. Many guns made in the “designated marksman rifle” style have a number of consistency features, but they’re substantially heavier and longer than their close-quarters brethren.

The AR rifles in this article show this well; the lightweight, 16-inch carbine with irons and a red-dot is very capable at 200 yards from any position, but 300 yards requires stability … and the irons and dot allow no magnification. Despite being faster handling than the Brownells M16A1 build, it isn’t any more capable once ranges increase to 300 yards, where they become equals. With a fixed zero at 50 yards each, these guns are capable of repeated hits on an IDPA target up to 350 yards, and then things begin to drop off—literally.

Brownells-M16 — The Brownells-based M16A1 replica here has original Vietnam-era furniture and sling. This rifle is extremely fast handling and very accurate for shooting at 100 to 300 yards. It’s lack of magnified optics makes hits hard to come by at longer distances.

The two .224 Valkyrie builds are another story: one with the new Vortex 4.5-22x, and the other with a Geissele 1-6x. These are light rifles—only slightly heavier than the 5.56mm ARs—but more powerful at all ranges thanks to the heavier weight of the 90-grain Federal match rounds.

These rifles, one designed for precision with a matched Next Level Armament receiver set and the other for speed and suppressor use with the new SilencerCo gas-defeating charging handle and ambi lower, have optics with a dedicated mil-based reticle and stretch out the effective range of the rifle considerably.

Midrange-rifle-feature-AR — One of the .224 Valkyrie builds featuring a 22-inch Faxon 1:6.5 twist barrel. This build also has a Faxon carbon-fiber handguard and is based on the new SilencerCo ambi lower. It also has SilencerCo’s new gas-defeating charging handle. This is an example of a great close-to-midrange rifle that offers light weight, great power and flat trajectory.

However, these are basically turbocharged carbines and, while hits become easier 500 yards, they also have issues with the wind at close distances. They’re .22-caliber bores, so while it’s possible to cheat a bit and make rapid hits at midrange, you still must pay close attention to drop, drift and heat buildup as the ranges extend.

Finishing out the carbine class is the new Springfield Hellion, a variant of the Croatian VHS rifle. The rifle offers a compact overall size and a full-length 16-inch barrel. And, due to its small size, it performs well at close range but also offers surprising utility at 300 to 500 yards. It’ll never be an accuracy machine, but thanks to its longer barrel, it allows for just as much practical utility as the M16A1 or lightweight AR carbine.

Springfield-Hellion-Midrange-rifle — The new Springfield Armory Hellion in 5.56mm is a very compact and handy rifle. It has a full-length barrel being a bullpup design and is ballistically, but not necessarily ergonomically, on par with the common AR-15.

Getting into bolt actions, we see the widest field of potential applications. The rifles in this article are both in 6.5 Creedmoor, one full stainless and the other carbon-fiber and titanium. This weight and feature class is heavy for close range, but when it comes to shooting and hunting in general, the mid-weight bolt gun is next to impossible to beat.

The Vortex Razor Gen III 6-36x and piggybacked Trijicon RMR, allows for both snap shooting and shots past 1,000 yards. The 13 MOA RMR is zeroed for impact at the top edge of the dot for 100 meters. Simply placing the dot on the center of a target and firing keeps the rifle on target to about 300 meters with an IDPA-size plate. It’s extremely fast, but lacks precision for small targets.

This style of rifle, with a full 24-inch barrel and completely adjustable stock, is certainly not the lightest or fastest handling, but it dominates the rest of the field beyond 200 yards. At a certain point, compact size and low/no magnification is what limits effectiveness at medium ranges.

Long-range-Tuebor-precision — A carbon-fiber Proof Research barrel ending in a compact Rearden suppressor mount/brake, Tuebor Precision titanium action and an optics package featuring the new Vortex Razor Gen III 6-36x, Spuhr mount, RMR, and Scope Chaps protective cover makes for an incredibly accurate, low recoil and portable combination that works from 100 to 1,000 yards.

That Happy Medium

A mid-caliber rifle, like something between a 6.5mm and a lighter .30-caliber, in a weight you can shoot offhand and move easily with, is the dream setup across the board in terms of balance between consistency features and field utility. It really comes down to the level of performance you’re looking for in your midrange rifle.

Midrange-rifle-sight-radius-comparison — Sight radius isn’t always a factor these days, and here you can see that the lightweight 16-inch carbine has, for all intents and purposes, the same sight radius as the full-size M16A1. In theory, they should be just as precise in terms of what your naked eye can do with them and will be very similar ballistically from 16- to 20-inch lengths.

It’s possible to have “a little too” much in some areas, such as optics and weight, but if you’re balancing with a cartridge powerful enough, these little excesses become benefits when the environment comes into play.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2022 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

More On Precision Shooting:

Precision Rifle Upgrades: From Stock To Sniper Superstar
Nine Long-Range Shooting Fundamentals To Master
Accuracy Enhancing Support: Choosing A Bipod
Legacy Skills: Becoming A Well-Rounded Long-Range Marksman
Becoming Your Own Spotter

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