.0002" is stupid accurate. Very impressive
Ordering Prefit vs barrel blanks
- Thread starter TBuckus
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Nick@Straight-Jacket
Official LRH Sponsor
It is, I remember when we hired our head machinist and told him what we expected for tolerances, he looked at me said "WHAT! Why?!" LoL we take huge pride in our barrels, and are pushing to prove that we can provide folks with a Pre fit Barrel that will compete with the very best hand set barrels.
Nick@Straight-Jacket
Official LRH Sponsor
We will be offering them next year, begrudgingly I must add. I really dislike barrel nuts! Lol
But we get asked so much for them so much that we will listen to our customers and start building them.
On a side note, a savage set up with a shoulder and doing away with the barrel nut will shoot lights out! We charge 350$ to chamber/thread/install the barrel, plus the cost of the barrel. You can ship us you Barreled action and we can return direct to your home
Nick@Straight-Jacket
Official LRH Sponsor
It's a much better way to "lock up" the barrel. Not only is the barrel able to repeatably come on and back off the action, the shouldered barrel has a nice perfectly flat machines surface to lock onto the recoil Lug that matches the bore line. Now a barrel nut "can" be done as accurately. But it's normally not the case.
Nick@Straight-Jacket
Official LRH Sponsor
We may do them in the future. However our Prefit barrels now only come shouldered. Meaning we don't use barrel nuts. However amongst growing pressure we may end up offending them in the future. We are however will to fit a barrel for your action for the cost of the barrel/lug/ and 350.00 for chambering/threading and instal.
.300 Dakota
Well-Known Member
Above is a bare-bones do-it-yourself custom gun built on a $200 Savage Axis long action. It wears a Criterion 26" Heavy Sporter contour prefit bought from Northland Shooters Supply. The stock is a Boyd's laminate sanded out to accommodate the slightly larger barrel contour, and had the recoil lug built in. No bedding added. I replaced the trigger springs to get it down to around a pound and a half of pull weight, and added a threaded bolt handle to accommodate the large tactical knob. 1" Pachmeyer recoil pad. Minimum headspacing using a Go Gauge only and a piece of Scotch tape on the head of said Go Gauge to serve as a No-Go.
I originally put a Shilen Select Match 26" Prefit in .308 Win of the same contour and used an AT-One stock from Boyds. They sent me a long action stock (as ordered) with a short action mag well. Felt like a 2x4. Try as I might, I got the Shilen .308 "Match" (.340" neck) to do no better than 0.625". That's good, but not quite what we generally want from a "custom" gun.
Enter this one. I changed everything out and mounted a Nikon M-223 3-12x40 (or 42?) scope (what I had handy that would fit with the slotted bases and Nikon one-screw rings). I made several loads using proven components and 160 grain Accubonds exclusively. This is a 1:9 twist barrel. Surely it will shoot an Accubond if it will shoot anything. Best group I got out of 5 loads approached 1.125". Obviously disappointed, to say the least, I went back to the drawing board with my loading skills. I am using Hornady brass, not Nosler. I felt it of sufficient quality to be sorted through to find groups that should print well on paper. Again using proven powders, I changed from the magnum Federal 215 Gold Match primers to CCI 200 standard large rifle primers. This time, I went with 180 grain Berger VLD Hunting bullets and Woodleigh Weldcore 175 grain pill touching the lands. I also threw in a couple loads of 130 grain Speer Hot Cor rounds just for fun.
Below you see the results of the best 180gr Berger group measuring 0.375" center to center. (Tape measure is slightly askew from my camera angle, so the measurement appears to not start directly on a number nor end at exactly 3/8".) (Yes, there are 3 shots, not 2. 2 went through the hole to the left.) Also pictured is a more typical "cloverleaf" or "triangle" that resulted from a 175 grain Woodleigh Weldcore group that measured 1/2" exactly center to center. There was a .800" group with one volley of the 130 grain Speer Hot Cors even with a jump of .170" to the lands, not pictured (not worthy says we).
Are these the best this rifle can do? i dunno. I was shooting off my tailgate leaning forward from a plastic lawn chair about to fold in half from my weight, with my arms in an awkward position. And the barrel isn't broken in yet (or wasn't when I started the day).
I have a McGowen 284 Winchester 26" large shank prefit that hit 1/2" with it's best load so far and has shot NOTHING larger than 1 MOA. And that was the 160gr Accubonds. It didn't like them as well as other fodder, either. It's a 1:8 twist.
I have had only 1 chambered blank do better and that was a Douglas Air-Gage in a 300 Dakota. It shot solid 1/4" groups. I have a Bartlein 3B right now, that has never made it as low as 3/4" in 6.5 PRC. It was done to replace a Mullerworks barrel chambered in 300 RCM that would only get to .800". I've had a couple of Brux barrels that would hit 1/2", and a Hart that touched 3/8" with one load. Had a Krieger or two that went to 7/16". I have had around 10 or 12 factory barrels that went to 3/8" and of those few that went all the way to 1/8" and of those 2 or 3 that have shot one hole that I couldn't really get a good measurement on the exact size. Now I have had 20 times as many factory rifles as customs, so if I had 20 times more customs, I may have 15x more sub-1/2" guns. I ain't the best shot in the world. As with most folks, some days are better than others.
I'm pretty sure I put all the reloading magic I had into those past failed attempts with customs trying to achieve 1/2 MOA or better. I knew I had not done so on this one today, and I'm not quite through, yet. This was my first Criterion barrel, and I have one more that has had 11 rounds put through it by another young man, who decided he wanted a super short 6.5 Creedmore instead of the 6.5x47 Lapua that this barrel is chambered in. It is my favorite 6.5mm cartridge, and I am close to beginning load development. I will try to remember to report back here with the results. My most accurate rifle in battery right now is a factory Savage X-Bolt Medallion Safari in .300 H&H that shoots 1 ragged hole with my best 180gr Woodleigh Weldcore handloads using Norma brass.
My point is that if I had given up on this gun at the end of the first day, I'd be in total agreement with most everybody else here, but by applying several learned reloading techniques and not staying hung up on that one bullet, I uncovered one of the most accurate (so far) rifles I've ever owned. I included a photo of the muzzle crown because I wanted to show it wasn't a 5R, nor a polygonal rifling, nor a 3 groove special. It's a plain old, ordinary 6-groove rifling on a 26" blank measuring .685" at the muzzle, so it's not a M24 or Heavy Palma, or anything like that. It's a bare-bones custom hunting rifle that I built myself, and I have $975 invested in it, including the Cerakote work done by my local smith who chambers my blanks. Yes, he chambered the Mullerworks and Bartlein 3B, but I can't throw him away, because he also chambered the 1/4" Douglas. And as an aside, I haven't given up on that Bartlein. I am going to get 1/2 MOA out of that thing yet if it kills me. Haven't tried everything there is to try by a long shot. It's built on a Winchester 70 action, as was the 1/4" Dakota. Going back to work on it this weekend. Maybe I'll have an update, soon.
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johnnyk
Well-Known Member
The only advantage that I can speak of is it's cheaper to do it yourself. I have done three of my Savages. The first one I went from factory/6.5-284 Norma to Lothar Walther/6.5-284, then I did a factory/.308 Win to Shilen/6mmBR Norma and last, factory/.300WinMag to Pac-Nor/.300WinMag. All turned out great and accuracy is excellent! I did then at my dining room table.
Here's some load development I did today on the 6BR and 105gn Bergers...
