Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Shilen Barrels

Thanks all, sounds like Shilen would be a good choice for a hunting rifle that I would like to shoot 3/4 moa or better. If I want to go .5 moa or better, I "might" be better off with a kreiger et al. Fair summary?

This would be for a .260 rem build on a model 70 action for hunting, not competition. Still want it to be accurate.

Not a fair summary. There have been a lot of BR matches won with Shilen Select Match barrels. A shilen is probably capable of more than you can ring out of it, as well as 95% of the rest if us. I am going with a cut rifled barrel for my next build because I've read that they last longer and I plan to shoot the crap out of it, but I have Shilens and Liljas that shott as well as my cut rifled barrel. For a hunting rig like you are talking you will never see a difference.

Don't forget about Hart. Not cut rifled but a great barrel.

DF

Agree with Pat...a Shilen 280 was burned out in about 600 rounds.That was it for me.I'd order a Krieger or Brux.

One of my last Shilens on my PPC I ran a couple thousand rounds through it, then had it re-chambered to a 6x47Imp and only got another 8K through it.

Unfortunately, there's only a couple of guys in 24HR Land that know [bleep] about Benchrest, but I won the 200 yard Light Gun class at the Cactus Classic with that barrel. Quite a feat, considering it's probably the 2nd or 3th largest match in the country. I haven't heard anything about the quality slipping at Shilen.

Bullshitt! I won the NBRSA - IBA- GFY 200,400,500,600 and 1000 Benchrest championship from 1998-2011.

I am a Legend in BR.

There are probably fewer than that who even care.

Nope none at all.
Cut rifle barrels are the new fad.
Anyone saying you could see a difference in accuracy on a sporter weight rifle is talking chit.
Anyone saying you could see a difference in accuracy on a full on bench rifle is talking chit.
Hart and Shilen dominated short range BR for decades before
Keriger and Bartlien came along.
Making a good barrel is about one thing.
Attention to detail.
The process used to make that barrel is irrelevant.
Dober would call it.
Ballistic gack.
He would be right.


dave

I have 3 Shilen barreled, 1 Lilja Barreled, 4 Douglas barreled,& 2 Hart barreled rifles. The only failure I have had was a Krieger barreled.

Just my experiences with Shilen barrels and the background to back it up.

How you choose to use it is up to you....

Anyone who has fitted, chambered, and shot a large variety of barrels KNOWS the method of manufacture has much less to do with performance than does quality control.
I know I have fitted and chambered more Shilen barrels than any other single brand; hundreds, for sure. I have had one which was truly sub-standard and it was replaced. The bores are as straight, on average, as any and the select match are better than most in this regard.
I have also used a whole bunch of Douglas, McGowen, Pac-Nor, and other button- rifled barrels and they have been fine too.
I have also used a lot of various cut-rifled barrels and most have been excellent.
I have seen a few highly- touted barrels which were a disappointment with tool marks, crooked bores, and variations in size.
I have had barrels which were supposedly match-grade, hand-lapped barrels, sent to me to be lapped to remove tool marks and improve performance.
An awful lot of what I read on various message boards, regarding barrels, is pure fantasy or it is speculation and opinion based on a very limited sampling. GD

When it comes to barrels my first choice is Shilen. I'm sure other barrel makers are going to say their barrel are better. I still believe the barrel maker is only the first step in accurate rifles and my opinion the Gunsmith has more to do with a Benchrest winning rifle than the barrel make you choose. Anyone who thinks Shilen is a inferior barrel only needs to look at the Benchrest records over the last 20 years. Shilen is the standard everyone else tries to match.

Would you mind sharing who the smiths were, SC? This is the first I've heard of Shilen slipping recently?

I realize its just a sample of one, but my most recent build has a 1-10 .30 SS SM Shilen in a very light contour. The thing is an absolute, consistent drill and cleans up very well. Course, the smithy had a huge part to play in that, I'm sure...:) Infact, I have enough faith in the combo of Shilen and Mr. Anonymous that a 6MM Remington build, with very similar specs, is in the works.

Some of these posts are comical. I had a Hart barrel a few years ago on my BR rifle. I wasn't happy with it. I gave it to a friend that needed a barrel. It screwed in and headspaced perfectly on his Kelbly Panda action. His first 2-5shot groups were .092 and .087. It was shot in Midland at the Buffalo Shoot. I learned a big lesson, don't bad mouth a barrel maker.
For you that don't know it, Shilen has added an additional Pratt&Whitney deep hole drill and were building a new rifling machine. It may be done now. Now maybe they can supply barrels quicker now because of increased capacity. Ever thought of that?
I have shot barrels from Lilja, Kreiger, Hart, Broughton, Turbo, Douglas, Rock Creek, Bartlien, and Shilen. All of them worked well.
My next BR barrel will be a Shilen 4 groove ratchet 6mm with 13.5 twist. I have a lot of faith in it or I would have bought a different brand. On a BR barrel or even a hunting barrel you buy the best that you can, not the cheaper or fastest delivered. Nothing wrong with that if the cheap fastest is best in your estimation.

PM sent.

Nice when someone with considerable experience comes on and sets the record straight.

Hands down a cut barrel outlasts a button barrel. I've shot way too many of both. At least it holds true in .223 Rem with really warm loads and mostly 90s....

For the minor if any cost difference to a button barrel, I'll never buy any but cut if they come in the setup I want.

It simply makes dollars and cents to go cut with a longer barrel life, and get more out of the cost of setup and chambering costs.

Accuracy wise I don't know that if I compare top line of both, that I have a true opinion, both seem to give pretty good results.

BTW so I don't seem like an internet hero.... my only experience to say the above is I cna't recall the number of barrels shot out in 223, but I did do an ammo count fired once and in competition alone it was something over 300,000 rounds of ammo.

And pretty consistently button tubes failed to hold up the required accuracy around 3500-4500 rounds. And cut often failed around 6500 rounds. Though I did run a Krieger to over 12,000 rounds once, and the last match I won the Gold Leg Medal at the LA state service rifle matches.... it was still holding around MOA at 600 yards...

Jeff

rost495,
I disagree with you. My experience does not show that.

I purchased this Shilen barrel a few weeks ago. Seen the slight curve, but figured it would straighten itself out after the 1st shot.