Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Bartlein Carbon Fiber wrapped barrels

Aalf, on the Instagram I think they said they had 16”, 20”, 22”, 24”, and 26” options for finished lengths.

Reason I asked is currently they're only showing 26" in stock.

Bartlein said 16”-22” lengths would be custom order, 12 week lead time. Would have to prepay but same price as normal.

Are there that many knot heads buying 26” carbon barrels??? Argh......

Most don’t recommend cutting much off. You may be able to trim 1/2-3/4” off each end....

I’m going with the #4 on my 22 Creedmoor build. It’ll fit just fine in the Manners EH-2 I received today. Going to try the Bighorn Origin. Pretty excited about this build

From Mark Buettgen:

Bartlein Barrels is proud to introduce their new line of Carbon Fiber wrapped barrels.
We will start off with 3 contours, the #4 Bull Sporter, #13 Rem Varmint, and the #14 M24/M40.
Lengths will be 20", 22", 24" and 26" finished lengths in any twist you like including Gain and Left Hand twists.
And just to make it a little more interesting--4 Colors, Black, Red, Green, and White(black marble).
For more information give us a call at the shop or check out our Facebook page
Later, Mark Buettgen
Bartlein Barrels Inc

From Frank Green of Bartlein:

This is the 3rd go around in working with cfw barrels. The ones we made before and in testing competitors barrels we never got the warm and fuzzy about them.

That being said we we’re asked by one of our top customers to please take a look at doing them again. This was being driven for the hunting rifle crowd and our customer didn’t want to use other cfw barrels. So we worked on it again and doing it differently and got the best results we’ve ever seen. So with that being said we decided to offer the cfw barrels to the market.

Advantage? The question I will ask or should I say you should ask...what are you building the gun for?

I don’t see an advantage off hand per say. The wrap we are using does wick the heat faster from the barrel. Other types we’ve worked with didn’t seem to do that. That being said will it help barrel life? I’ll say little if any. Keep in mind rate of fire, what the barrel is chambered in, the load being shot thru it etc...I feel has a bigger impact. Think of this.....every-time you pull the trigger the temperature in the throat area of the chamber if I recall correctly on the low end is around 2200F. That’s the temperature of lava. So every time you pull the trigger you have a nice little flame thrower effect going on.

The customers/shops that where involved in the testing like GA Precision, Stuteville and SPR....all gave us excellent feedback. I’ll quote one of them, “They see no difference in performance between our cfw barrels and our steel barrels.”

Kind of like fluting a barrel? Is there a difference between a fluted and unfluted barrel in terms of performance? I say no. I would not ever flute a button rifled or hammer forged barrel but other than that fluting doesn’t really do anything for you except takes weight out of the gun and it looks cool. I kind of look at the cfw the same way. So for a different / cool type lighter weight hunting rifle? Sure. I can also change the contour of a regular steel barrel and achieve the same thing as well.

Am I putting one together for myself? Yes. Why? Because I want one. My barrel will be the green colored cfw. Will I use it for like F Class? At this time I’ll say no. I want weight in the gun. Can’t get that with cfw barrel.

Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels

More from Frank:

There are different types of carbon fiber being used on barrels. Some insulate and some wick the heat. So yes I agree with you. From the cfw barrels we tested in the past I would say it is a insulater more than anything else. Now I will say I do believe it can be different.

The wrap that is being done to ours I’ll tell you will wick the heat better. Jeff and I where doing some testing/shooting back in Feb at the range. Temp was 17F outside. After about the first 10 shots thru the guns (6.5cm and 308win) and I went to shoot another couple 5 shot groups that after 7 rounds I had so much mirage coming off the barrel that the scopes crosshair was using the whole 1” paster at a 100 yards. I had to let the gun sit for a few minutes and then went to 3 shot groups. Next time to the range I put my F class rifles mirage shield on the barrel so I didn’t have to deal with that.

More from Frank Green:

I’ll give you a weird one....in PRS it started out heavy barrels....then the trend was going lighter like Palma contours, cfw wrapped etc...and then you virtually didn’t see any cfw barrels period and the trend again was back to heavier. Guys want less recoil and to be able to see the trace of the bullet to the target.

GA Precision got they’re first order of cfw barrels from us and when we all went public with it....he sold out of all of his 6mm and 6.5mm PRS type barrels in like a day and half. None of us could’ve predicted that. So are shooters been looking for a quality cfw barrel to go back to in PRS? Are we seeing the tip of the iceberg? Almost impossible to predict.

It is possible they could see an advantage on a weight savings in the barrel and put the weight else where they need it like you said. Optics, stocks etc....but I would caution that you want the gun balanced still weight wise.




More from Frank:

Correct in your statements.

Also to the cryo part and I've been saying this for 20 years. Cryo can help if there is residual stress in the blank. Again can help but it is not a guarantee. I also say it does nothing for accuracy and or help barrel life in anyway for the most part.

We've made barrels where we've taken half of the lot of material and had it cryo'd and we ran them thru the shop and would even split them up on customers orders per requests etc...

I remember one order for Al Warner (Warner Tool) for a half a dozen F class barrels in 7mm. Half the order was cryo'd blanks and the other half where not. All the same lot of steel. One of the barrels bowed so bad and the guy turning them asked me to look at it and asked my opinion on if it was o.k. or not. I looked down the bore and said, "Nope! It's junk! Make a new one!". I wouldn't send that blank to Al and Dan let alone anyone else. Guess what? It was one of the cryo'd blanks. Now that being said losing one or two blanks like this doesn't mean the whole lot is bad. One or two out of 2000 blanks is nothing per say.

I know Al reads this forum....Al don't be mad at me! LOL!

My post:
Frank, I believe they are made to fill a niche, but not a need. JMHO

From Frank:

That's what I said a couple of times in this thread....

"I will say again....is carbon fiber wrapped barrels for everyone? No absolutely not. Does it fit every application for shooting? No. Will it have a place for firearms in the future? Possibly."

I've known Frank for a long time and he is a truthful person, Mark is a friend that I have competed with and against. He is also a great guy.

Isn't it beautiful Its 25" total length and I think I can probably get it to at least 23" finished or my preferred 22.5" length but so far its nice!!

Is that the #4 Bull? Curious on the exact weight too, if possible.

It is the #4 contour - and I asked Frank Green from Bartlein over on Snipers Hide if its the same as their regular #4 contour and he did confirm it is. So the CF or all SS is the same contour.
As it sits its 3 lbs 5 ozs.

Just talked to George.

Went with the #4 (Bull Sporter) finished at 24 inches. 1:7.75 twist.

This oughta be real good!

Agreed - you will really like that barrel for what you are building!