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Kreiger started that stupid crap because they got it in their head that stainless would fail at low temperatures, despite there never having been a case of it happening. Bartlein was started by guys that used to work at Kreiger so they brought that idea over with them. I'm not sure why Brux followed suit, they haven't been around that long.

I've got a Bartlein #2 in 6.5mm, I had to call Frank and plead to get them to make it for me, the first guy I talked to said no. I live in Mississippi and once the temp drops below 30F I'm inside the house. Worrying about how much cold a rifle barrel can take is right up there with what kind of snowmobile to buy on my list of worries.

Rock Creek has been the place to go for a light contour stainless barrel because I think they'll make you any contour. Mullerworks is a cut maker and they probably would too since he works with Rock Creek. Hawk Hill is another cut rifling maker and their website shows they'll make a #2 for calibers up to 6.5mm and a #3 up to 30 cal. Most of the button rifling makers will make any contour in stainless.

I personally think the cold weather thing is an excuse because they don't want to sell light barrels. Heavier barrels are easier to get to shoot well and they want to keep their reputation for accuracy intact. If someone puts a #1 contour on their 300 ultramag and it shoots poorly then it's blasted all over the internet that Kreiger makes crappy barrels and they don't want that.


A while back, I called Boots Obermeyer for one thing and ended up talking with him about a bunch of things. One of them was cold embrittlement of 416R stainless steel barrels. Apparently there were a few cases of barrels failing in extremely cold weather. The post mortem analysis led to some barrel makers decided that they would not produce thin barrels in 416R (most notably Jack Krieger). I would guess it's just risk mitigation. It wasn't even a cut rifled barrel that failed! I sympathize with them...as a barrel maker, you cannot predict in what conditions your barrels will ultimately be used in. I might tell them I live in Hawaii and have no intention of hunting in cold weather, but at some point I might sell the rifle to someone in North Dakota, and the barrel maker gets tagged with the potential failure. Krieger will sell you thin contours in 4140 or whatever CM they're using these days, so I don't think it's a profit margin thing. Obermeyer was the old grandpa of barrel makers, with pretty much everyone doing single point cut rifling tracing a direct lineage back to him; Jack Krieger, Mike Rock, Muller, Geoff Kolbe, so I trust what he says.

Regarding barrel life; cut vs buttoned. Frank White of Compass Lake Engineering provides barrels to shooters in my game, Service Rifle competition. Frank's observation is that the Cut Rifled Kriegers provide about twice the accurate life of the Buttoned barrels in this particular use. To be more specific, the Kriegers he was selling provided double the round life shooting 10 shot (maybe 20 shot) MOA out to 600 yards with 224 heavies than the Douglas buttoned barrels in his and his customer's experiences. When I first became aware of this observation he was selling Kriegers and Douglas. This statement has persisted through different brands of cut and buttoned barrels.

Last edited by ChrisF; 11/22/18.