Preferred Barrel Blanks Pre-Fit

[Kmccord]

I am looking at building a Rifle next year using Preferred Barrel Blanks Pre-Fit barrels. I want to reach out and see if anyone has used this barrel manufacturer for a build, anything that you could provide good and bad would be appreciated, they seem to have quick turnaround and good prices. I have a Ruger M77 Mark II action I want to re-barrel and I plan on purchasing a Kelby Atlas Tactical action to use with a Pre-fit.

 

[archangel485]

I ordered one about a week ago, don't expect to see it until Christmas. Funny you mention quick turn around, some criticize them for their slow turn around, haha, although I don't know anyone who is faster really, Keystone I've heard is faster. There is a much longer thread over on snipers hide you could look up and find a few more people's firsthand experience, but suffice it to say the feedback is primarily positive, a couple critics, but I'd say mainly based on timeline to produce a barrel, not on quality. They are low cost, the other two I've found who have good pricing are Patriot Valley and Keystone, no idea if either of those others have pre-fit options for your Kelbly.

 

[sierracharlie338]

^^^ pretty much the same thing I was going to say.

 

[Kmccord]

I noticed they are button rifled barrels and 5R, never had a 5R, cannot imagine it being much different than traditional, I own a Bergara that I believe is button rifled and it is very accurate, lots of people bad-mouth Button versus Cut rifles, but can someone really see a difference? I cannot imagine Hart would be in business if they were that bad.

 

[Jud96]

I noticed they are button rifled barrels and 5R, never had a 5R, cannot imagine it being much different than traditional, I own a Bergara that I believe is button rifled and it is very accurate, lots of people bad-mouth Button versus Cut rifles, but can someone really see a difference? I cannot imagine Hart would be in business if they were that bad.

Both cut and button barrels can shoot extremely well. The only real advantages to a cut barrel is cut rifling doesn't induce stress when rifling, and with modern CNC rifling machines you can cut rifle a barrel with a twist rate to the fourth decimal place, rifle it right or left hand, add a gain twist, and control groove depth very very precisely. With button rifling you have to have a new button made for any change to the rifling geometry and dimensions. With that being said 99% of shooters couldn't tell the difference if you gave them a rifle with a button barrel from Hart, Broughton, Benchmark, etc. and an identical rifle with a cut rifled barrel from Bartlein, Krieger, Brux, etc. Today's barrel making technology is amazing and I wouldn't be afraid of owning either a cut or button barrel, as long as both were manufactured correctly.

 

[archangel485]

@Jud96 said it well. And even with the one concern about stress, proper button rifled barrels are stress relieved so even the induced stress becomes a non-issue. Josh from PVA discusses this on his website if you want to read about it. https://patriotvalleyarms.com/barrels-cut-rifling-vs-button-rifling/ You could also call and talk to the guy at Keystone, he offers both and would tell you depending on the caliber the cut rifling may last longer, I get the impression he knows his stuff when I talked to him.

You'd be surprised how many of the "top" barrel makers do button rifled barrels only. The strange thing is, based on my reading it seems there is a pretty much universal agreement that button rifling is cheaper and easier to do, yet some of the barrel makers who use button rifling charge just as much as say Bartlein and Krieger. Anyways, I have had both, and I currently am shooting a button rifled barrel for one very simple reason, cost. If you look at patriot valley you'll see you get a Rock Creek barrel that PVA contours. If you want cut rifling it's $125 extra. Same idea at Keystone although with Keystone it's 2 different brands (Green mtn button rifling and Krieger cut rifling), so might not be a fair comparison, at PVA it's Rock Creek vs Rock Creek.

 

[JMW67]

I have found the Benchmark barrels to shoot as good or better than any other out there. My current build is using a Benchmark cut rifled barrel just to see if I can find a difference we shot krieger for years and then Brux both great barrels just cant justify the wait time over the Benchmark maybe it takes a better shooter than I am to tell the difference in accuracy