replacment barrel

[pwdrbrn]

oh soooooo many choices.....krieger lieja douglas and the list goes for ever does any one have a clue and reason to the best /should i just set up a vote???????

[Fjold]

What are you shooting?

Dan Lilja makes some of the finest 22 rimfire barrels in the world.

It's hard to beat Krieger's single point cut barrels for accuracy

Shilen's select match and Pacnor's supermatch are very well thought of but not in the same class as Krieger. ( I own all three)

Broughtons are getting really good reviews

Hart made their name in benchrest in the 60's and 70s

Kostyshyn probably made the best barrels in the world until they went out of business.


Douglas and Shaw are not even on the same school, much less class.

[ArmyMedicMoose]

dont forget about hart. i have two harts barrel. beyond great. very happy with them. plus they have a special any barrel installed to your action 600 bucks. that barrel,installtion, truing action.

[rero360]

Hart is GTG, I have one on my savage and its a tack driver. heard great things about Rock and Bartlein as well.

[mofugly13]

...Douglas and Shaw are not even on the same school, much less class.

Douglas makes a good barrel, scroll down to the equipment list:

http://internationalbenchrest.com/results/long_range/2011/White%20Horse/430/WhiteHorse430.php

[ott1]

Bartlein or Krieger. GA Precision uses Bartlein 5R barrels.

[kendog4570]

Douglas makes a good barrel, scroll down to the equipment list:

http://internationalbenchrest.com/re...teHorse430.php

16 out of 40 barrels on that list are Douglas. They must be doing something right.
More than one Douglas (Barnett) won the National Matches hung on an M14 or Garand in the heyday of the wood and steel guns.

[pwdrbrn]

fjold,thank's lots of info,on top of all this i find lothar walther,in germany hammer forged button,waiting on a reply as for the cal 338 lm, lieja is the berreta factory barrel dealer, but i am still scratching my brain been told krieger by so many very frustrating,factory barrel now has 1800 hand load's down it looking for replacement soon thanks for reply

[Wrangler John]

Roll Out the Barrel

Barrels aren't alchemy, or some arcane voodoo, or even rocket science, they are just rods of steel with a hole drilled through the center and then engraved with rifling.

Here are the barrels I use, in no particular order: Brux, Shilen, Hart, Schneider, Pac-Nor (lots of Pac-Nor), Douglas. Barrels vary by rifling method, with Brux being cut rifled and the rest on my list being button rifled. Douglas barrels are not lapped, the rest are.

No single manufacturer has a lock on producing accurate barrels, most use steel from the same source - IIRC there is only one steel mill rolling 416 stainless steel suitable for rifle barrels in the US. As long as they all follow the same or similar manufacturing process, the product will compare with all others. Deep hole drilling, reaming, first lap, rifling, stress relieving and second lapping, for a button rifled barrel. That's it - air gauged for consistency and scoped for internal finish and graded. Cut rifled barrels usually forgo the stress reliving step as the process doesn't stress the steel.

Time was when a factory barrel was made accurate during the straightening process, where a skilled craftsman bent the barrel to straighten bore curvature caused by drill wander. Douglas mentions curvature on their website.

Today, a barrel is made or ruined during the fitting process, turning and threading the shank, chambering and crowning. If a chamber is not axially aligned with the bore, and the threads have runout, these errors combine to wreck accuracy, as does out of round chambers, or ones cut with excessive chatter. Don't matter if its a E.R. Shaw, Lilja, Krieger, Obermeyer, or Joe Schmoes, crappy machine work makes or breaks the result. Looking at the equipment list tells you more about the smith that assembled the rifle than the quality of the barrel.

I purchase barrels based on delivery time or other market factors, or a proprietary exclusive of a manufacturer, Pac-Nor for example makes barrels for Remington 700 actions that are equipped with a barrel nut for swap barrel applications, and offers polygonal rifling options. So I recommend either purchasing a barrel from a quality manufacturer that offers the services you need, or picking up a barrel from a source with a large selection, Bruno Shooter's Supply for example, rather than worry about which premium manufacturer is the best, they are all that good.