I was actually looking at that Epsilon muzzle device. Seems to have great reviews. What do guys think about the Black hole rifles barrels?
I have three. They are great barrels, providing the quality has stayed the same since they were bought out by Columbia River Arms. All 3 of mine are pre-merger barrels. They look absolutely beautiful through a bore scope.
They are accurate barrels capable of the high accuracy standards set in this forum, i.e. 10 shot sub MOA groups, or very close to it.
They are stainless barrels, (416R). They have poly rifling, and best I can tell, they use a cut type rifling type process, perhaps it's a broach cut process. But they are not cold hammer forged (CHF), and not button cut, and can vary their process to any twist, so, that only leaves one option....
Their AR barrels are not hand lapped (they will hand lap their bolt barrels for you), and they are not chrome lines. Typically, 416R stainless AR barrels have a shorter life then 4150 CHF barrels. Some would argue this is offset by the use of P3 poly rifling, but I haven't seen any head-to-head data good enough to convince me one way or the other, but if I had to bet, under hard use, I'd put my money on the barrel life of the tier one, CHF chrome line barrels such as the FN's and BCM.
Criterion started as an offshoot from Krieger, when Krieger couldn't make cut rifle barrels fast enough (Ok, technically they were independent with a single customer). Criterion was their brand for button rifle barrels.
Today most of their AR barrels are button rifled, made from 4150 chrome moly steel, Chrome lines, and hand lapped. To my knowledge, they are the only maker of match grade, hand lapped chrome lined AR barrels. They have expanded their product line, so they have non-chrome lined nitride barrels, and stainless barrels as well.
When comparing top quality producers the pecking orders typically looks something like this:
Accuracy:
Rifling:
Cut rifle processes, either single point or broach cut.
Button rifling
Hammered rifling
Materials
Stainless over chrome moly.
Bare steel over lined barrels, with perhaps the exception of Criterian, and FN seems to really know what they are doing as well.
Durability:
CHF over drilled barrels.
4150 chrome moly over 416r.
Cut rifling over button rifling.
Chrome lined over bare steel.
In context, this explains why the winners of benchrest matches use heavy profile, hand lapped, 416r stainless, rifle cut barrels.
And machine guns use chrome lined, CHF 4150 Chrome Moly steel barrels, typically made by FN USA.
