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

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.