Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters E.R Shaw Barrel ?

Have been a regular customer of several barrel companies including Pac-Nor, Shilen, Shaw, etc. When rifle barrel companies' phone numbers are on your cell phone speed dial...

Anyway, have another five Shaw barrels currently on order for delivery in January.

And have some on order from Shilen, Pac-Nor, etc too.

All for personal use.

So, one might conclude that I like Shaw and continue to use them.

They make great tomato stakes!

So do Italian Carcanos, but we all know why. Why do you say they're good tomato stakes?

A buddy of mine just had Shaw put a 260 rem barrel on a rem 700. First outing was a total flop! He was getting 2-4" groups. After many outings to the range and swapping primers, bullets, powders and doing many rituals, rain dances, voodoo etc. the gun actually broke moa....with only one load! This guy is the most meticulous handloader i have ever seen.

Now I have had shilen barrels, pac nor, mcGowen etc. not all of them shot everything great, but ALL of them shot most of the loads great. No decent barrel should take that long to find a decent load!

Like I said tamato stakes. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Shaw won't rank up there with Krieger thats for sure, but for general use they are usually better than a factory tube. Not saying much there really. And all makes can have lemons. Just the reason I get shivers talking about Douglas. Have had 3 and non were bad, but none were great either and lots of folks love em.

For what you get price wise I suspect Shaw is just fine, and usually with cheaper barrels one thing is how its put on, if done correctly things are much better, then worst case you can firelap and they are usually plenty good then.

Final note, I know of no barrel maker that won't warranty a t ube like POP mentions. Some just don't work. They usually want the gun, to make sure its their tube that has issues but most will replace no questions asked after that.

If you are out to win a match on the other hand or shoot a lot past 300 yards.... then you start thinking other brands IMHO.

Jeff

Take it for what it's worth, I have a 223rem barreled by ER Shaw on a 600 rem action that will shoot anything from 40 to 55grains into nice little 1/2 MOA groups

Bottom line fellas:

You get what you pay for! That is why Shaws cost what they cost and Lilja cost what they cost!

POP--

That is a classic "example of one," which means nothing. The vast majority of E.R. Shaw barrels, as testified here by various users who have experience with more than one barrel, will shoot very well.

One of my custom riflemaker friends uses nothing but Kriegers and Liljas, for more than one reason. First, they are very good barrels--but second, they will replace a barrel without a big hassle if it doesn't shoot up to snuff. Some of the other makers of "premium" barrels would not do so.

By extension, this also means that Lilja and Krieger barrels are not always perfect. You will not find that out by buying three or four, but will after you buy, say, 100 a year for a decade or more. You also cannot judge an E.R. Shaw barrel on a single example--or any other barrel.

JB

$250 for a pre-fit, tight chambered CM barrel with helical fluting is sounding very appealing lately......

Mule Deer---how easily do they clean up in your experience?---2MG

IMHO, most barrels these days will shoot well, wheater factory, low end 3rd party, or high end 3rd party. Accuracy is gained and lost in the chamber and crown. A good smith that knows how mount a barrel can do wonders.

That said, top end tubes tend to be more tollerant of various bullets and are easier to clean and foul less.

Pretty easily. They are not hand-lapped like some others, but they clean as easily as most hammer-forged or button-rifles barrels once broken in.

JB

ER Shaw barrels are not hand lapped, so all that tell's me is that hand lapping has nothing to do with accuracy. the two rifles I have barreled by ER Shaw shoot sub MOA.????

Hand lapping does help accuracy to a certain extent, I think, but not as much as boring the hole straight and rifling it correctly in the first place. (Then, of course, chambering, fitting and crowning, etc.)

Hand-lapping mostly minimizes fouling. Even then, however, I have seen some hand-lapped barrels that fouled not at all, and some that fouled quite a bit.

What all of this boils down to is that it is a mistake to generalize about barrels. A very experienced gun writer friend of mine once said, "Hammer-forged barrels foul like crazy."

What he should have said, of course, was that SOME hammer-forged barrels foul like crazy. The truth is that if the mandrel used is nice and new, and the bore cleanly drilled, a hammer-forged barrel can be very smooth. I have one, a .223 barrel on a Remington 700, that will go at least 500 rounds between cleanings, and still shoot the same size groups as when it started, squeaky-clean. It also shoots VERY small groups.

But if the mandrel is well-used and hence beat up, with little dings, the bore will tend to be rough--and tend to foul.
So my friend was half-right.

The same goes for any other kind of barrel. I have seen cut-rifled barrels that fouled like crazy, and others that refused to pick up a bit of copper. It just depends.

On average, a better barrel results when more care is taken making it. This is why the more expensive barrels tend, on average, to shoot better and foul less. But to say that any barrel that isn't hand-lapped (whether a factory hammer-forged barrel, or a button-rifled but unlapped barrel like a Douglas or Shaw) is a lousy barrel is simply untrue. So is the claim that any top-grade, hand-lapped barrel will shoot inside half an inch, or even an inch. What we play with in barrels is percentages, not absolutes. Which is why I try not to judge barrels on examples of one.

JB

When you're right you're right. It is an incident of one. It just did not measure up to all the other barrel's I have worked with as far as accuracy goes. That and seeing my good buddy frustrated and the "low" price....well you know.

FWIW factory barrels are not handlapped either and I've a few that are .5 moa of those also. Yet like JB says its a numbers game. Odds are higher to get a hummer from a better tube than a factory tube and everything in between, fits in between.

I'm not trying to burst anyone's bubble here, all I'm trying to say is dollar for dollar I'll use a Shaw barrel any time. I have experience with Hart and douglas barrels, I live less than an hour from Hart shop in Pennsylvania, but when I build my mountain rifle this summer it will have a Barrel on it from ER Shaw.