The best Barrels made?

As stated above, today most barrels are of good quality. The critical need is to have a good gunsmith properly chamber and fit up the barrel. A good barrel in the hands of a poor smith is a recipe for disaster.
 
This will start a fight faster than anything else but here goes:

I have tried all of the major makers and on my competition rifles as well as sporters (going to Colorado when I get home from Nova Scotia to build a elk rifle in 338 Lapua Imp) Krieger is the choice. That being said part of that is driven by my smiths preference but Hart is my 2nd choice followed by Lilja. Unfortunately, had a couple of dud Bartliens that were made up for my LV BR rifle but some folks have had great luck with them.
 
This will start a fight faster than anything else but here goes:

I have tried all of the major makers and on my competition rifles as well as sporters (going to Colorado when I get home from Nova Scotia to build a elk rifle in 338 Lapua Imp) Krieger is the choice. That being said part of that is driven by my smiths preference but Hart is my 2nd choice followed by Lilja. Unfortunately, had a couple of dud Bartliens that were made up for my LV BR rifle but some folks have had great luck with them.


No fight from me. I think that all of the best barrel makers can turn out a dud now and then. If I recall, that is what prompted Kenny jarrett to start making his own barrels. I am curious as to what were the factors that determined that the Bartliens were duds.
 
Both tubes shot very poorly and using known loads as well as many others never could get the 5 shot deviation in velocities less than 60fps. At 1k this is very very marginal actually not acceptable esp coupled with the accuracy issue. When my smith scoped them they had tooling marks as well as some distortion on the lands----not good and to top it off it was my fault for not scoping them before we started but the shop was in the process of closing down and my primary smith was not there until after the chambering, fluting and brakes were completed.

Went back to Krieger and started winning again-----it happens but never again to me lesson learned about taking things for granted based on what you read and hear about someones product. One test is worth a thousand expert opinions.
 
best barrels?

Hello,

It would be an easier task to look at the ones to definately stay away from.

James
 
Agreed----Boots makes the some of the best BUT good luck getting one!! Long lead times...

No doubt, you are right and I believe for good reason. Boots makes the best of the best and it is for all intents and purposes a one man shop. I understand he is doing a bunch of GI stuff and by all rights, that comes first. I have a call in to him to get a 30" minimum taper 308 Winchester for my Remington 700 VSF with Jewell trigger, lead filled HS Precision stock, Harris low bipod, installed and set up right w/ 1/10" twist. I'm in no hurry. I am currently shooting a Remington 700P with a 30" Obermeyer 1/8" twist in F-Class Open. Sweet shooter when I do my part and dope the wind properly. 180 gr VLD's are the BOMB!
F/TR class w/ the 308 should be a blast next year too....
 
I have not yet used one but from talking to others if you are needing one soon I would go with a Brux, I am seriously considering ordering one myself.
I will be very surprised if Glen Sterling doesn't set a new IBS 600 yd HG record with the Brux he is using on his heavy gun, he has been banging on the door for some time now.
Last check Brux only had a 2 week lead time, which is kind of unheard of in the barrel business for the quality they are producing, and a cut rifled barrel to boot.

James
 
To Boss Hoss. Didn't you once say that those barrels where for an experiment that you and Speedy we're working on and it didn't turn out? How is something you are doing/testing/making new our fault that it didn't turn out?

Also we said to talk to us about what the problems you we're having and we would try to help out? That never really happened either. Other than the first barrel seem to be the problem and we made a replacement that was the last we heard of it for the most part.

Also we never got either barrel back to take a look at.

It's funny how just even just a couple of weeks ago in Tacoma, Wa at a bench match 8 new possible world records are pending. All our barrels to the best of my knowledge. Go check out Benchrest Centrals forums where they talk about it.

Also just recently at the Midwest Palma Championships Bryan Litz won the Palma portion of the match with our barrel and one of the F-Class 4 man teams set a new National record of score of 1757 with 57X's and I know one for sure and maybe2 or 3 out of the 4 used our barrels. One of the shooters was Larry Bartholome. Larry also won the F-Class championship for an individual and came in 2nd in the Wisconsin Long range championships later in the week.

And these are only a couple of examples.

Something doesn't add up here and this is getting old!

Bartlein Barrels
 
Frank---the 2 Barrels in question are no longer in my possession(the experiment as you call it was to see if your tubes would perform as good as you former employers product). I do not use your products because it must be right the first time. Sorry but that is the fact of the matter in this case. The bore scope examination showed some things that were not good with some distortion on the lands etc but it was early in your companies production life but when you wait many months past when they were promised and spend the money to have them fitted well that's the way it goes.

I also said that some were having good luck with them and btw both of those tubes came at the same time from you. The issue is closed with me and I chalk it up to lessons learned. Not everybody will have a good experience-----tell you what you have my order from the last 2 I ordered and if you want to send me another blank I will invest the money to get it fitted and will report back my findings after shooting it. With me time is the main consideration because I have precious little of it and now with fuel being what it is travel to matches is ugly so a non performing tube is considered disposable to me in the grand scheme of things.
 
barrels

my brothers shilen 6.5 won't shoot into 2 moa at 100. was installed by the best gunsmith in southwest. KREIGER, HART, BROUGHTON would be my choices. the others are good too. would not get a shilen
 
my brothers shilen 6.5 won't shoot into 2 moa at 100. was installed by the best gunsmith in southwest. KREIGER, HART, BROUGHTON would be my choices. the others are good too. would not get a shilen


That was my concern when I learned AFTER THE FACT that Shilen was turning out some less than stellar barrels.

I went to the Midwayusa.com website and found some reviews on the Shilen barrels sold by them. One reviewer discussed that his barrel was not concentric. That is a HUGE problem. I feel very fortunate to have 2 Shilen's that are indeed shooters.

I am curious about the newer names I am less familiar with, such as Bartlein, Brux, Rock.

I will tell you this, Craig Kostyshyn makes a very nice bbl too.
 
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