? about bad barrel blank

I decided to try to thread and chamber my first barrel blank. I've had a Harbor Freight 9x20 lathe (I know, small Chinese lathe) for years and kinda taught myself how to use it. Since the bore is only .750", I'm limited on the diameter of the barrel I can work on. I made myself a spider for the headstock and the rear of the lathe to help dial the barrel in. I bought all the tooling I would need, range rod, reamer, floating reamer holder, go/no go gauges etc. The barrel I bought was a 27" (which I cut down to 24") 7mm and I was threading it for a Savage small shank and chambering it for a 7mm-08. Everything went really well and (at least I thought) I even turned the barrel around, indicated the muzzle and put a recessed target crown on it. I put the rifle back together and went to the range. It sighted in at 25 yards fine, but once I went out to 100 yards, it was all over the place. I thought it might have been the scope, so I bought a new scope, but never tried it again. I just took the barrel off and sent it to a good friend of mine to see If I had somehow screwed up. He checked out the barrel as best he could and told me that my threads were great and that as far as he can tell, the chamber to bore runout was .0012. The problem is with the barrel itself, it has a lot of runout in the middle of the barrel. He said he also put the reamer in the chamber and the range rod in the muzzle end and checked the runout of the OD of the barrel between centers and it was really bad. When I bought this barrel, I was told this was a brand new Wilson barrel and this is the description:
The Wilson Arms barrels are Select Match Grade, button rifled barrels; lapped and air gauged to .0002". It's too late to go back to the company I bought the barrel from, but should I try to contact Wilson directly? Any other ideas what I can do?

Tagging in

Here is the finished barrel next to the .243 take off heavy barrel.

I also duracoated the barreled action in green and installed it in a Hogue stock with a Vortex scope.

Like I said earlier, everything looks good, but it just doesn't shoot. As I'm sure most of you know from your own experience, I have a lot of time and money invested in this barrel. At this point, I guess I just need to chaulk it up to a lesson learned. I just bought a brand new ER Shaw Stainless steel 7mm-08 barrel all done for $230.

I have zero experience in what you have described, but I would certainly call Wilson and see what can be done.
Ask them as many questions (from a learning perspective) that you can- What would cause this? What do I need to do differently next time? Etc...
It's not really a lesson learned if you didn't learn anything.

Good luck and please keep us posted.

Ron

Thanks for the reply. At this point, I feel I've learned that purchasing a barrel from a reputable company, even if it's more money, is always the best option. I obviously didn't buy the barrel directly from Wilson, but from one of their vendors. Also, it's nice to sit back and say "I threaded and chambered this barrel" but after purchasing all the necessary tooling and the time invested, it's just not the cost effective way to go. I'm sure if the barrel blank was good, the rifle would have shot just fine, but I bet the new ER Shaw barrel will shoot just fine too. I jumped into this not really knowing enough about the process. It's partially my fault for not checking the barrel blank properly. If my lathe was longer I could have checked it between centers, but unfortunately that's not the case. I'm always learning. I just sent Wilson an email and I will follow up with a phone call on Monday.

Once you cut on a barrel blank, You are done with many manufactures and in away you can see their point. With that said, Chalk it up to experience and the cost of learning A good skill.

In the beginning, I found poor barrels and simply rejected them before I cut on them because I didn't know how to fix them. I worked out a good way to check them that cured 90% of this problem and started keeping records on the rejected barrel manufactures. It soon became obvious who produced the best quality consistently and who I didn't need to buy from any more.

I also talked to some of my favorite barrel makers and got their opinion on what was a reasonable amount of runout. Much to my surprise, One said "actuality you shouldn't have any, but we try to hold it below .0005 and to a maximum of .0015 after explaining my test procedure, He stated that If I found one of his barrels with more than .001 thousandths runout give him a call and he would send me a new barrel and try not to hold me up by waiting to get the rejected barrel back.

To date I have not rejected one of his barrels so I don't know about the replacement deal we made. I have unfortunately rejected one or more of every other brand I have tried and caught flack and poor customer service from most. some even told me that the industry standard was .007 to .010 runout. (I don't/won't use these barrels).

The point is, test all barrels before you cut on it and decide to except or reject it and live with your decision. In the old days barrel makers straightened there barrels because of bore runout. Now with the latest equipment and testing instruments, the problem has diminished considerably and only their acceptance is in questioned as to how much they will allow and ship to the customer.

You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear (Quoting a fellow member) so start with as good a barrel as you can and as you perfect the Smithing part, accuracy will improve. As you progress, try to improve every operation of the work.

Just My opinion and process.

J E CUSTOM

JE Custom, what's your take on Wilson barrels? I've always had a good experience with their AR 15 barrels.

I've chambered a few of those Wilson barrel blanks and they have shot pretty dang good for me, they are not top quality but your also paying half the price for the barrel blank so like JE said its up to you to decide if it meets your standards or not.

Please explain your chambering method and indicating method more... Do you have an outboard spider as well? Just asking because I see your inboard spider and a steady rest setup, were you also holding it on the outboard side when chambering? There are a lot of ways to chamber and each has its benefit in my eyes. I only chamber one way that works for me and gives me the quality I'm after, I have changed my method over the years to produce better results that I'm after.

Wilson sells more barrels than nearly every other barrel maker combined...so yes you may have gotten a "bad" one. But to say they are sub par quality just because they are cheaper than others is wrong...I don't hear many people complaining that Cooper's don't shoot well...

Here is my outboard spider. I was holding the barrel with both the inboard and outboard spiders. I used a range rod in the bore and indicated it as close to zero as possible by using both spiders and moving the indicator close to the barrel and further away. I really don't recall how close to 0 runout I got it, but this is a hunting rifle and I really wasn't looking for every last 10th. In your opinion (taking my setup out of the equation for a second) if my chamber to bore runout was .0012", shouldn't that have shot good enough for a hunting rifle? Here is my target a 25 yards

Then I moved out to 100 yards

I just want to make it clear that I'm not posting this to bash any barrel maker. Like I said, I've used Wilson barrels in a lot of my ar 15's with great success. Most of this seems to fall on me since I didn't check my barrel before I started the threading and chambering process, which was mainly due to my inexperience.

Here is a Wilson barrel chambered by a reputable dealer that I purchased on ebay. This was shouldered & chambered for a 700 and test fired by the dealer and he told me the chamber was "perfect". He would not refund my money but only credit me on another purchase from him. As my rage got the best of me I headspaced it for my 700 and shot it to prove a point....surprised me....actually shot pretty fair for that ugly of a chamber. I attribute it to Wilson's hand lapping not the dealer.

Another story I shortened a Shaw 6.5-06 once from 24 to 19". The bore was .008" off center at the muzzle after the cut. I rechambered it to 6.5/257 Bob A.I. then indexed the curvature to shoot 12:00 and did not have enough moa in a Bushnell elite to zero. After switching scopes it turned out to be 1/2 moa. Since I have set it back and rechambered it to 6.5 CM and it still shoots 1/2 moa.

My suggestion is to give yours a chance. Try it with your new scope. Work up a couple of different bullet/powder combos....You can take pride in your work and eventually be able to brag about it.

Did you try anything except that one load? Hard to blame a barrel if you have not, and have only shot it a few times.
What were the reloading components used, loading process, and recipe?
What was your ES/SD?
Bedded the Hogue stock? (Which I hate flimsy Hogue rubber coated Tupperware stocks to begin with)
With so little info, it is hard to justify the barrel being bad at this point.

You haven't enough lathe for what you are trying to do. You didn't dial-in close enough. The goal is to within tenths. You have too much run-out at .0012". That is not "good enough" for a hunting rifle. What about the load you are using? Many times, a barrel can be finicky. Try a different load. Try a different bullet. Try a different primer. So far, you have only blamed the barrel. There is far, far more to an accurate rifle than the barrel. True, a real 'shooter' won't be built using a defective barrel, but neither will it be a 'shooter' with a poor stock, trigger, scope mounts, ammo the barrel doesn't like or anything else. At 25yds. those bullets should be making just 1 ragged hole. You don't say how you are shooting either. Off of a rest? Using a Lead Sled or a bi-pod? Lots and lots of variables to consider here, not just the barrel.