Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Best precision barrels. Name them.

That's a little disingenuous: as you well know, Shilen, Bartlein, Rock Creek, Criterion, Douglas, Lilja & Wilson (not Wilson Combat) at least, are all prime barrel manufacturers in that they drill, ream & rifle barrels

Craddock, CLE & WOA machine blanks from some of those people..

I have some thoughts on AR barrel accuracy. As has been said, you start with a good blank, then the barrel smith has to do their job. I like Holliger because I know how picky he is and how capable he is with machinery. He's always thinking about how he can do things better.
Random learnings from conversations;
John told me the path to a bug hole shooting AR is to put a high quality slow twist barrel on it and shoot benchrest bullets...back then he was chambering Krieger, Pac-Nor and Shilen. These days he also does Bartlein. He threw out some numbers from his last sessions that made me think about it for a brief moment...but at that point in time, I was obsessesed with throwing long javelins at long distances out of the AR.

Bill Wylde shot one of his AR's in a registered benchrest match and nearly won one of the Ag's...or did he actually win? ...I'll have to ask grandpa Yoda next time I speak with him. The Organization banned semi auto's after that. Knowing his proclivities, I would guess it was a Obermeyer or Krieger pipe.

John Feamster wrote one of the first books on AR accuracy. IIRC, Jeff rated a mention in that book. He shot some tiny groups with his AR's. I'll have to give it another read to see who made the barrels. Jeff you're thinking of BlackStar who put out Lothar Walther blanks that they electropolished. You also forgot to mention your experience with Gary Schneider.



What I like about WOA is that they'll tell you who made the barrel you're buying (and he charges a fair price). BTW, I'm pretty sure Craddock is Paul Craddock who used to work for Holliger. I guess he decided he had his own ideas about AR smithing. Looks like one of them is a different pricing model. I also like CLE. Frank White is straight shooting literally and figuratively. I've had a few of his barrels. I even have a Douglas one that shoots OK.

Chris, the two best AR upper builders are John Holliger (WhiteOak) and Nez Rongero. As you know Blackstar did a lot of advertising about their polished LW barrels. They were a real POS and they soon disappeared from the gun business. I have a close friend that did Blackstar's initial chambering. They had him do a few for a now deceased and chunky gunwriter (giving him more credit than he is due, He said the bores varied as much as .0015. Real junk.

I'm glad you guys speak so highly of Holliger. I just wished he offered better die sets for his 6WOA, and chidt canned the 1 in10 twist and used a 1 in 8 or better instead. The one I had shot very well with the bullets it liked, but was the most finicky bastid ive ever seen. Not a good example of a premium/good barrel. Before you ask, it was a shilen.

How are Compass Lake's Criterion barrels? They're doing some sort of heavy profile ("Varmint" profile) Criterion, in 6mm arc right now.

My theory about the Blackstar's is that they were too smooth. There's a sweet spot for barrel surface finish. It's not a "smoother is better" situation.

My theory about the Blackstar's is that they were too smooth. There's a sweet spot for barrel surface finish. It's not a "smoother is better" situation.

Just like Tryone and others are saying...sounded good in theory...not so good in practice. ...or if some is good, than more is better right?
There were some “name” barrel makers that said they would not stand behind their barrels if the black star process was applied to them. I remember one was quoted as saying there was an ideal surface finish that was applied during the lapping process and messing with that got you the opposite of what you were after.

Just like Tryone and others are saying...sounded good in theory...not so good in practice. ...or if some is good, than more is better right?
There were some “name” barrel makers that said they would not stand behind their barrels if the black star process was applied to them. I remember one was quoted as saying there was an ideal surface finish that was applied during the lapping process and messing with that got you the opposite of what you were after.

Electromachining has it's place, for the low end home gamer but not the best option for high end production barrels.

Electropolishing, if that is, in fact, what they were using, is not electromachining, per se'.

Electropolishing is intended for burr removal & rounding of sharp edges. It is done in a concentrated sulfuric acid + concentrated phosphoric acid bath using the part to be "polished" as an anode with inert or lead cathodes.

It produces a very highly polished, very low surface finish depending on the exact SS alloy.

It is very difficult to ensure perfect current density distribution (i.e., stock removal) over the entire surface being affected, especially at the ends as the effective current density applied to an electrode is always higher at its ends that in the middle; the amp meter can only measure & adjust the average total current, not the uniformity of its distribution.

If that makes any sense to you......................

MM