Originally Posted by jpb
Originally Posted by ROE_DEER
Forget all the myth about barrel making.

Just take a hammer forged barrel out of the box, shoot and enjoy.


Well, just to play Devil's Advocate a bit... smile

Unless you are interested in benchrest accuracy... (I don't happen to be interested in .01 inch differences that make the benchrest game, but there is a reason hammer-forged barrels don't dominate benchrest competition.

Unless you want a custom twist not readily available in a hammer-forged barrel (which I did: standard twists in .35 cal are slower than what I wanted)

Unless you want a bore-size a little larger or tighter than standard (I specified a slightly tighter bore to let me better shoot .357 handgun bullets better in my .358 Norma Mag -- I like shooting big bores for practice, but cheaply! smile

Unless you find available hammer-forged barrels too heavy in contour. Hammer-forged barrels often don't take kindly to being turned down to a lighter contour for a custom rifle -- the residual stresses from the forging sometimes causing problems. In contrast, cut rifled barrels can be turned down quite drastically...

All joshing aside, I totally agree that there is a lot of "mythconceptions" among hunters regarding barrels, and I do agree that hammer-forged barrels are certainly accurate enough for virtually all hunting applications, but they are "one size fits all".

Part of the satisfaction of having a custom rifle is having it exactly the way you want it -- including the inside of the bore! smile Neither forged, nor button-rifled bores offer the flexibility that a cut-rifled barrel maker can offer. Sako hammer-forged barrels are readily available (at least here in Sweden!) and great value because they often shoot extremely well, but they don't offer much flexibility.

Having said all that, I must admit that most of my past and present rifles had forged barrels and shoot better than I can in any hunting condition...

Of course, if I had any common sense I'd just shoot a factory rifle with its factory barrel and never spend any money on a custom rifle anyway! smile


Hey Du Svenska Devils Advocate - almost all the stuff you wrote is true - but mostly true is your last sentence.

Serious - cold hammer forged barrels were never as excellent as today. In the shooting seminars I do, and during the tests for my magazine, we use many test rifles. In the last 5 or 6 years I simply can't remember one hunting rifle with an inert accuracy potential of not better than 1/2 MOA, given the right factory fodder and using proper mounts and decent sopes. Handloads improve even more. I'm talking mostly Blaser, Mauser, Sauer rifles with the occasional Sako, Tikka, Steyr, and Brno.