I just got off the phone with one of the top barrel makers of 5r rifling and this is what I learned. My feeling about the 3 groovers was that they lasted longer and I didn't see any loss of accuracy so I thought the marriage with the 5r which cleans up better would be a good thing. He says that the reason the 3 groovers appear to last longer is because when you compare them to another button rifled barrel, they probably will. Because the button rifled barrels have displaced metal, they tend to loose larger chunks of material when the throat erodes and the wider lands in the three groove tend to help overcome that so accuracy doesn't suffer as quickly even when the throat is erroded. He says that a cut rifled barrel would not act in the same way because the metal isn't displaced but rather cut out. It never dawned on me until just now, but with that logic, the 3 groove with CUT rifling should then last even longerlightbulb! He did say that the odd number of lands were SOMETIMES an advantage over having the grooves cut directly accross from each other in the jacket as would be the case for a four groove for ex. He also said that he felt the 90 degree rifling was a slight advantage in small caliber bullets especially with short bearing surfaces........Rich
This sounds like a barrel maker that makes nothing but cut rifled barrels.
I have lots of buttoned rifled barrels and a bore scope and have never seen any chunks
missing from the throat Even in the 3 grove barrels.
There has allways been a controversy over cut verses buttoned rifled barrels and there allways
will be. Cut rifling done well is a very good process but so is a buttoned rifling. and the fact that
the buttoned rifling will last longer than cut rifling with the same use makes me lean towards
the buttoned barrel on heavy use barrels.
Mainly it is the quality of the barrel that makes a difference in accuracy. In over 50 years of
shooting I have owned many fine rifles ,some cut rifling and some buttoned And when the
masters were building the cut rifled barrels and buttoned rifling was still in it's infancy they
were better barrels but once the bugs got worked out the buttoned barrels were there equal.
A good barrel maker does not have to run down his competitors, his barrels will sell them
selves. I can remember when stainless barrels were not well thought of and now they are 80
to 90 percent of all the custom barrels made.
I have looked at almost all barrels with my bore scope and have narrowed it down to 3 or 4
barrel makers based on quality and performance and the mix is 50-50.
Get what you want but don't expect miracles if you listen to a snake oil salesman.
This is not intended to incite the barrel gods, I just don't trust the guy that has nothing
to say for his competition but how bad his process or quality is.
J E CUSTOM
