As far as barrel manufacturer, if memory serves me correctly
Bergara and criterion have made the majority of (possibly all production?) kimbers barrels post 2014. To check which barrel you have. Look at the breech face, with the bolt open/removed, at the extractor cut and you’ll see a stamped B (Bergara), C (Criterion) or nothing (Kimber).
Yes, that is what MCMXI has posted in some previous threads.
Yep, those are the facts.
There are many things that can go wrong with a barrel during manufacturing and some you'll never know unless you section the barrel and take measurements. Heat treat can be off, the bore might not be concentric to the O.D., the chamber might not be concentric to the bore, the material might not be uniform, unbalanced residual stresses may exist, the bore might vary significantly in I.D. the length of the barrel and on and on. All of these issues exist in every barrel to some extent, we just have to hope that the errors are small enough that we don't see any evidence of them at the target.
The original question was whether or not Kimber barrels are (were) stress relieved. The answer is yes, as are Bergara and Criterion and just about every barrel in the industry, but if you saw how they were stress relieved at the facility in NJ you'd soon realize that the position of the barrel in the container that goes into the furnace isn't going to result in uniform stress relief when comparing barrel to barrel.
