Whose Barrel Should I Get

Can someone define loss of accuracy?
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If it won't shoot under 5/8 its no longer any good.

Obvious that dependent on what you want. 1.5 inches is good for hunting, under 3/4 ok for varmints (but probably most would prefer 5/8 and for the nuts who like really tight patterns over 1/4 is getting out of hand.
 
Can someone define loss of accuracy?
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When you say, 'I should have made that shot' more often than you like.
Keep in mind it's often not the firearm, but optics gone bad, loose optics, bedding screws loosened or over tightened, or the lug nut behind the rifle...

My eye glasses needed updated, blamed the rifle for a month before I would admit I was getting old.

The rifle gives consistency/repeatability. 'Accuracy' is entirely up to the shooter...
 
Interesting posts here. I had a Savage 112 FVS .22-250, 26" heavy barrel. Bolt, single shot. When I sold it, it had 4500+ rounds thru it. And still as accurate as when i started with it. I attribute this to slow paced shooting, no "prairie dogging", and a below max charge of IMR4064 with a 55gr bthp Sierra bullet. 1-12 twist. I never let that barrel get hot, ever.
 
My Savage 12 was used when I bought it. I don't do bullet counts. After a few years, the accuracy began to go bad. I noticed that occasionally there was no evidence of impact, like dirt or prairie dogs flying. A thorough copper removal and a trip to the rifle range convinced me to replace the tube. When I removed the original barrel and examined the throat in direct sunlight it looked like maybe an inch or more of the lands were eroded.

I purchased a Criterion barrel from Northland Shooters. Has a 9 twist, and is way more accurate than me.

I bought a Remington 700 SPS in 204 Ruger new in box. By 1800 rounds or so, it was pitching flyers and keyholing. Being stubborn, I was trying to find a load the rifle would like, shooting over my Shooting Chrony. Damned if a bullet didn't keyhole the screen on the chronograph. The gun would still be mine but at that time the "Remmage" barrel was not available.

My vote is to buy the tools and a Criterion barrel from Northland. Jim is very helpful and easy to work with.
 
The 22-250 is a sub.3 moa at 100yds. cartridge. If you start to scatter a group after 2300 rounds try using tubbs finishing bullets to smooth out the throat. If you reset a barrel you normally just lose about a .25 inch of length(in depends how the smith indexes the barrel or not). I pulled my stock barrel and installed a remage criterion myself. I went with a 1/9 twist for 65 to 70 grain bullets at 3000 to 3070 fps. But this is what I shoot in the upper plains states to buck the wind out to 300 yds. - 1/12 twist for 55 to 60 grain bullets if you want to increase speed.
 
Would another barrel manufacturers barrel last longer
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Cut rifled barrels are said to have a longer useful accuracy life.
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I have always heard hammer forged barrels have a longer life. LW has a melonite/QPQ/nitride like treatment that is supposed to be the best thing going. Lithium Ferrite.
Their LW-50 steel is also supposed to be the best.

So basically, if you could find a match 22-250 with the same characteristics as this 556 AR barrel.
Generally, it seems to be believed that nitriding a barrel precludes any reasonable chance of it being competition target grade. I am not sure this is true. Once it is nitrided the chamber and crown can not be cut easily or well. The key to a good target barrel, as I understand it is those two operations. The smaller custom shops don't have the capability to nitride. So they would need to do the sensitive work, then send it out to be re-finished and a third party could ruin their precision work pretty easily.

What I am saying here is that you should start a company making the perfect match barrel.
 
Simplification is that throat erosion is a function of volume of powder burned (btu's produced), bore diameter, and chamber pressures. Powders also burn at differing temperatures.
Take a .308, neck it down to 7mm and forcing that plasma jet through a smaller tube creates greater erosion/fire-cracking than would be in the .30 cal bore.

What's sometimes overlooked besides the often discussed "hot" loads is the heat buildup in the barrel.
Rapid rates of fire, as in competion, increases temperature much faster than can be dissipated increasing throat erosion. 22-250 in F-Class maybe 1500-2000, hunting perhaps double that. Application has a LOT to do with it. In comps applications, barrel/throat life is not a consideration. I would say 2300 rounds is certainly in the realm of realism, without knowing your shooting habits.

This is often quantifiable, as in "x" thousandths per 500 rounds fired. Assuming you're chasing the lands as the round count increases, the throat wear should be obvious to you as adjust your seating depth as the round count goes up.

If you want longer barrel life, you need to select a more "throat friendly" chambering. You mentioned benchrest, but did not specify competition. If you don't shoot competitively, keeping your shot strings short and well spaced- and not allowing the barrel to get too hot- will minimize the erosion.
 
I have a 22-250 that I'll be putting a new barrel on before long. I'm doing so not because the barrel is shot out, I want a barrel with a twist rate that will stabilize the heavier bullets. I've used Criterion barrels in the past been very pleased with them, so I'll most likely go with Criterion but I'm also considering Shilen. There's a lot of good barrel manufacturers out there, if you're not doing the work yourself talk with your smith and see what he recommends.
 
I keep hearing, "I heard" when we all knew I heard is we really don't know.

If all that coating worked for a target rifle, David Tubbs would have 50.

It does reduce wear, it does not created an accurate tube for bench rest, so they don't do it.

Shilen is no small mfg, they don't offer coated tubes for bolt action.

Not sure on AR, but they throw a lot of bullets not a target gun (for the most part, yes I know there are AR targets guns)

Hammer forged to be target accurate has to be finished right. Off the wall Hammer Forged is not (CZ finished theirs) - they are fine hunting.
 
My 220 has a Douglas barrel. The 260 has a Brux. The 223 has a Benchmark. They all shot great when new, but the 220 might not be where it was years ago. But, all good barrels.
 
I keep hearing, "I heard" when we all knew I heard is we really don't know.
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No, it means I have discussed the issue with someone or multiple someones who have given me answers, but I have not done any studies or comparisons myself.

If all that coating worked for a target rifle, David Tubbs would have 50.
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I don't think it is that it doesn't work, but rather the cost of getting it to work. I have machined aerospace parts that then received some of these coatings at tolerances in line with what match barrels require. It isn't cheap to get it right.
Shilen is no small mfg, they don't offer coated tubes for bolt action
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How does their volume compare to a company like LW? I am sure they are out producint the gunsmith in Colonial Williamsburg, but that doesn't mean they are a big operation with all the coolest toys.

Hammer forged to be target accurate has to be finished right.
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A couple smiths have told me they can chamber and crown almost any mid+ production barrel and make a target barrel out of it. That the rifling isn't really all that important. LW makes CHF barrels for a lot of companies from blanks to finished.

Pac-Nor's polygonal barrel
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True polygonal is CHF. I don't know of any other production process that produces polygonal rifling. Some companies will put 5R under polygonal, but it isn't really.
 
Ok, i'll bite..

What is CHF?

And with todays lawsuits over the most trivial of things, if it's advertised as polygonal, would open up to legal pursuit if it wasn't.
 
A couple smiths have told me they can chamber and crown almost any mid+ production barrel and make a target barrel out of it. That the rifling isn't really all that important. LW makes CHF barrels for a lot of companies from blanks to finished.
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Are we talking factory barrels or what?

If they think crowning is what makes a shooter then they don't know what they are talking about.

Someone took a crown and whacked the living daylights out of it with a hammer and it still shot ok.

Rifling is the heart of accuracy. It can be screwed up by a bad chamber and or bad threading .

If it has bad rifling no matter how much you massage the chamber and crown it won't shoot.
 
IMO, the rifling ( cut, or button) isn't as critical as the barrel itself. Some aspects can be known and quantified to be top tier, as in Shilen Select Match- which are the ones that air gauge to three tenths on diameter and one tenth on uniformity. Alloy composition, stress relieving processes are more nebulous and no doubt there will be subtle differences.

Far as "making a target barrel" from any mid-tier barrel, well sure....
Accurate enough for most target shooters that couldn't shoot the difference (with both marksmanship skills and reloading precision) between them and a Bartlein. We're talking tenth's, which matter not but for the top tier of competition shooters.
 
What is CHF?
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negative rifled bore mandrel is inserted into a smooth bore oversized rifle blank. The blank is then pounded into the mandrel until the bore and rifling is formed around the mandrel. The steel is supposedly work hardened in this process.
The mandrel wears. My understanding is it tkes a few barrels to wear in the mandrel, then for a period of time it makes excellent barrels, then declining quality barrels until the mandrel must be replaced.

Someone took a crown and whacked the living daylights out of it with a hammer and it still shot ok.
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I've seen the opposite on a few occasions and it has been reported here many times. Often with the follow-up of having the barrel re-crowned greatly improving accuracy. I've seen just middle of the road production rifles ruined by crown damage.
 
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Crown: The problem is unless its tested its subjective -

What I liked about the test was they started lite with a ding, then progressed to more serious whacks.

Yes it got worse, but not awful. You could still hunt with it.

Am I saying that you should be your crown up? No.

What I am saying is any decently executed crown is as good as a Gold Crown.

Its not the key to accuracy.
 
If barrel life is your primary concern, we can offer a salt bath nitride option for our pre-fit barrels (typically this adds $100 to the cost for a single barrel purchase). We also polish the rifling and chamber post-nitriding to ensure a mirror-like internal finish, so they'll shoot just as well as our standard 416R stainless steel pre-fit barrels.

I've been running them in my personal PRS builds over the last few years and have had no complaints.
 
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