I believe we are pretty close in agreement as to the quality of the premium barrels. A friend of mine has a very heavy E.R. Shaw barrel in .300 Win Mag. I would rate it as average to excellent factory quality barrel.
The following is getting into a lot of opinion, because as we all know, there is a lot of Voodoo and various incantations that must be recited during the construction to have a REALLY good barrel. Also, keep in mind that everyone makes a stinker every once in a while. Hopefully QA catches it but no one really knows until it is installed and fired. Also just about anyone can make a gem as well.
The premium barrels listed are the brands that you would install on a benchrest rifle: Something that would have a hope of putting all the bullets on top of a thumbtack at 100 yards. (Tack Driver!)
The Douglas probably isn't quite as good but quite good enough for a match or target rifle. There are many manufacturers in this category. Good Military barrels are probably a little worse than this followed by good commercial barrels.
I believe the best quality barrels are cut rifled followed by broach rifled followed by button rifled followed by EDM, followed by hammer forged. The button rifled barrel has the best surface finish but must use a softer steel and retains some stress because of the manufacturing method. Precise geometry is more important than best surface finish.
Stainless steel seems to have better erosion resistance than Chrome-moly. There are also some really cool alloys that folks sometimes use for machine gun barrels that are MUCH better, but way to pricey except for the government to use.
FWIW, I have two very similar guns: One wears a chrome-moly Douglas barrel while the other has a stainless Krieger barrel. The Douglas seems to slightly out-shoot the Krieger though both guns do very well.
YMMV.
- Ivan.