Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Custom barrel choice?

What's your favorite barrel company for a hunting rifle? I'm planning to have a 7mm Rem Mag built.
I'm thinking about a Hart.

All the barrel makers make good barrels.

You need to narrow your choices down by some other factor.

You want a normal or lightweight weight stainless barrel? Krieger is out, the smallest barrel Bartlein will make for you is a #2B, about like most others' #3. Rock Creek, Shilen, Lilja, Pac Nor, Douglas, Obermeyer, I think a maker in Arizona I can't think of now, a guy in Iowa...

You want a chrome moly barrel so it can be blued? Hart and Rock Creek are out. Kreiger, Bartlein, Pac Nor, Shilen, Douglas are in.

You want the barrel maker to install the barrel? That narrows it down more.

You may want to consider price, whether you want specified air gauges, whether you want lapped...all those factors will weigh towards one maker or another.

Do you prefer cut rifled or button rifled?

I'll assume you want a stainless barrel, not too heavy a contour. Let's assume you want the barrel company to do the install. Your choices are Hart, Pac Nor, Bartlein if a #2B isn't too heavy, Douglas...

I've had 2 Rock Creeks, 2 Bartleins, 2 Liljas, 1 Obermeyer, 1 Pac Nor on the way.

If you think of some characteristics of the barrel you might get better suggestions.

What do you want to pay? Be honest with yourself, what is your accuracy requirement? These questions are easy, make an honest list of what you wnat. The answer becomes more clear. Match this with the above post, and you should be good to go.

Krieger, Brux, or Bartlein

Pretty hard to beat a Douglas SS air gaged.
dave

Back in the day Hart was one of the few barrel makers and were the "go to" barrel for custom builds................IHO I believe there are better match barrels to be had like Kreiger and Bartlein..........lately more Bartlein barrels are used "for good reason" by match shooters than any other barrels. Bartlein 5R rifling and never look back.

jim borden of borden rifles and mcwhorter rifles use hart barrels and have for years if they put their reputation on building rifles that have hart barrels i would have no issues using one in fact i have used four or fie of them and they are all shooters

Yes.

For a hunting rifle, its hard to beat Douglas or Shilen.

My last four have been built with Bartlein's, I see no reason to change that.

As another poster mentioned, in 7mm the smallest contour bartlein will make is a #2B. That's what I have on my M70 7mm rem mag at 24" and it's a very nice contour for a hunting rifle.

I'm waiting on two custom spec Hart barrels pre-fit for AR's, already have two others, no three, as Hart barrels were used by Remington's Custom Shop for the 40X when I bought it. Absolutely top drawer barrels and work, just prepare to wait - same with others. http://www.hartbarrels.com/

Pac-Nor Barreling is another, especially their Super Match stainless, with polygonal rifling, extremely accurate, easy to clean, and they make them with barrel nuts for Savage or Remington 700 drop-in installation. They also do the installation. Any contour, twist rate, number of lands and grooves, have it your way. I have many barrels from them all shoot .5" or better, some rifles have swap barrels in different calibers for varmint hunting. Never got a bad one yet. http://pac-nor.com/

Shilen, I rate these right up there, and they make them to your specs. Also make Savage pre-fits, actions, triggers and stuff. http://www.shilen.com/

Brux Barrels, cut rifling, good barrels, great accuracy, no problems. http://bruxbarrels.com/

Krieger Barrels, cut rifling, great accuracy, no problems. They also have an inventory of popular calibers in stock. https://www.kriegerbarrels.com/

Gary Schneider Rifle Barrels, these are among the best, used by David Tubb, and mine proved very accurate. Makes polygonal rifling in certain calibers. http://www.schneiderriflebarrels.com/

Also, if you want to avoid the wait for a Shilen or Krieger check here, should the caliber, twist rate and contour you want be in stock, it will arrive in a few days, the last Krieger I ordered took just under a week. http://www.brunoshooters.com/category/barrels.html

Finally don't forget about Criterion Barrels. Formerly owned by Krieger, these buttoned rifled barrels are good quality. I ordered one in .25-06 Remington, a pre-fit for the Remington 783, in stainless, it arrived in slightly less than 8 weeks, cost was good, impressive quality and accuracy. Sold by: http://northlandshooterssupply.com/

I have Shilens, Harts, Kriegers, and Broughtons. They all are superbly accurate with the right loads.
More importantly than the barrel manufacturer to me is the craftmanship of the smith. Squaring the action and bolt face as well as the bedding job and lapping of the lugs is very important. Those things being done property, any custom barrel screwed on should create an excellant rifle

Don't forget new guys like Hawk Hill. Couldn't be happier with mine.

tag

Whatever you can get the quickest. There is no best barrel maker when you are buying from the top tier barrel makers. They all make good barrels, and they all make some duds, sometimes you'll get an outstanding barrel. Buy any barrel listed above and you'll be happy.

Lots of good options. My 7mmRemMag wears a #3 Lilja SS and shoots really well. I only went that route because Midway had them on a big-time markdown at one time and I snagged one. Bet I'd have been happy with Hart, Pac-Nor, Schneider, Rock Creek, Bartlien, Brux, Broughton, etc......

Weight was of paramount importance when I chose my last three barrels. I wanted to match the contour of the lightest 24" .25-06 Weatherby. Only Pac-Nor would do it. Not only that when I asked if they would add a couple inches to it and flute it they did.

After those three I asked if they would cut a new one 24" long and dd .050" diameter to the thin section so they did. It's still 5.8 pounds without the scope.

Lotta good makers. Roll with the Hart if that is what ya want. No reason not to. Pick a bullet you want to use. Twist accordingly......

All the guys I know around me that shoot benchrest, shoot Hart. They are probably overkill for a hunting rifle, but my new Hart barrel is waiting to be installed on my Montana. Just figure if I'm going to do it once, I'll do it right and if I miss game with it, it will be my fault.

That said, I also have attended Friends of the NRA and other events and Hart has made significant donations to all (the Friends dinner receives a Hart Rifle every year for a separate raffle). They are good people, still family run and have their name on the barrel and their name behind the barrel as well. For those reasons, I didn't look at another barrel maker.

Out of 5 Harts not a single bad one...........

Thought I broke your Hart when I left you.


Broughton 6mm barrel has been good to me, Kreiger also. Grab any of the popular ones and hope you get a good one. Don't put to much thought into it. It's sorta like a Chevy vs Ford thing IMO.

Got a Borden and a Beanland with a Hart.

Das guud vun!!!!!

You broke my hart when you didn't give me that 6mm br for my bday!

I have 1 really accurate Broughton in 270 win it's an absolute lazer, I also really like Bartlien and had a really good Rockcreek, a lot of good barrels being made these days like Stoney says just pick the contour you like and find a maker that makes that contour and go with it

I like Lilja when I can get them.

I have owned a bunch of custom rifles and the all seemed to work quite well. Most of those listed I have purchased. Oddly enough however, I once had a 7mm Remington, that I had chambered to a 7mm imperial. Hated it, so I decided to make it into a backup rifle or loaner and put a Shaw barrel on it for half the price of the others. Dang thing shot just as well, go figure

Shilen, Brux, PacNor and Lilja, the only rifle that didn't shoot was the Shilen barreled 70 Featherweight about 16 years ago and likely due to the hacksmith or me since I was just getting serious about reloading and accuracy.

Many companies make very good to great barrel blanks. The deciding factor is the type of rifling (cut vs button rifled) and barrel contour.

Favorite is Chanlynn, but I'll take just about any cut rifled, hand lapped barrel.

The last one Pac-Nor sold me sure is a beaut. That said, I have a Bartlein on order I'm real curious about.

Rock Creek

As above, I would expect most of the major barrel makers produce very accurate barrels. I am partial to Douglas and Lilja. Douglas will install the barrel, chamber it, and send it back in less time than some of the others take to just make the barrel and ship it. I use Lilja when I have a project that I want my local gunsmith to build for me.

I had a new bare Remington 700 Short Action modified to my specifications for a swap barrel configuration using a barrel nut. Things like a pinned precision recoil lug for chassis stocks, firing pin bushed, double bolt sleeves, lugs fitted (not lapped) and other things that consumed money. Wanted a .22-250 Remington Ackley barrel. Yeah, I know why would anyone want such an abortion? So I ordered a Pac-Nor Super Match chambered for the Ackley, with a 1:9" twist for the 50 grain Barnes Varmint Grenade. Lead time was seven months, two months longer somebody could have given birth. Then I remembered Bergara Barrels, they made Remington barrels with a nut for a reasonable price. Checked the website and found a .22-250 Remington stainless steel varmint barrel, for a shade under $300.00, in stock at the time. When it arrived, I screwed it on using a headspace gauge, tightened it with a plumbers strap wrench as instructed, and torqued it down in a Bell & Carlson M4 Medalist stock. Then guessed at test loads with two powders and went to the range.



Amazing! Those red diamonds are 1/2" square. Used a Berger 50 grain bullet as the Bergara twist is 1:12", way too slow to stabilize the 50 grain Varmint Grenade. Not bad for ten shot groups at 100 yards, and with a little load fiddling, maybe could have improved the accuracy. Bergara prefit barrels aren't as available as they were then, but Criterion prefits for Remington and Savage are from Northland Shooters Supply, and they can be made to your specs. If in a hurry, why wait? Sometimes the less expensive modern production on CNC machines, with robots handling some chores, amazes.

What is better, cut or button rifling?

Cut or button is like arguing politics or religion. Great barrels are made with both types of rifling. Hammer forged not so much in my opinion. They are very smooth inside but seam to have way to much residual stress and have POI change as they heat up.

One barrel reborer has stated that he cannot guaranty the rebore of hammer forged barrels because he sometimes runs into voids in the steel of these barrels.