Heavy Palma, heavy varmint or light varmint contour?

[joeycoates]

I am in the process of getting things together for a 7-300WM build and I have a choice of one of these three barrel contours. It will be 1:8 twist with a finished length of 28" before a muzzle brake. The barrel will not be fluted as none of the 3 are fluted right now, and I just do not want to have even a cut rifled barrel fluted after the fact. I understand that a heavier barrel can assist with accuracy/harmonics, but would there be any other reason to consider one contour over another other than weight? All three are Kreiger barrels, and it looks like the heavy palma and the light varmint would weight pretty close to one another. For whatever reason I do not see as many palma contour barrels on here as I do the various varmint contours. The palma would most l I key mean less in letting on the stock, but that is certainly not a main consideration at this point, if the HS stock needs to be in letted then that is fine. Would there be any other reason to choose one over another except for whatever I thought would look the best? I am sure that any of the above would be plenty stout for 7-300WM. Once I have the barrel I should have all of the components other than the muzzle brake and should be about ready to send it off to have the rifle built. Starting to get a little bit excited as it will be my first built rifle.

 

[gebhardt02]

I tend to lean towards the heavier side for most applications. But you need to try to determine if you have a weight limitation for the rifle you are building and then select a barrel contour accordingly. The heavier the barrel, generally, I'd say the better harmonics and less likely to start throwing shots out when the barrel gets warmed up.

Geb