Resting your barrel on your rest can destroy your accuracy. Everyone knows this right? Well not really, there are a lot of people at the range or in the deer stand that rests the rifle on the barrel.
I’m sure that you have heard people say that resting your barrel on the edge of a deer stand doesn’t affect accuracy. Well, we have some evidence to show that is not the case.
Three targets are set up down range at 50 yards. The first target is the control group using the handguard for a rest. The second target is shooting resting right on the first part of the exposed barrel. Finally, the third target is shot resting on the end of the barrel.
First up is a standard AR-15 with a 16″ with a thin pencil profile barrel. Resting off at the edge of the handguard produced a 7.5″ average shift straight up and slightly to the right of center. Keep in mind this is at 50 yards so at 100 yards you could miss by over a foot!