Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Shilen Barrels

Douglas says its airgauged barrels are less than .0001, at least it says so on their website.

Why is it that barrels seem to get folks as red-azzed as politics and gas prices?

Sounds like Shod has a good gunsmith. That do make a difference in accuracy regardless of the tube chosen.

Shod is just the best shooter in the World...

I don't understand it either. It's very simple... If you don't shoot Brux, you're just an idiot.

John

NOPE!!! I wasn't addressing you sir and I'm not in the slightest mad or feeling hot headed.

Shod

If you don't shoot punched-out 700 take-offs, then GFY... grin

I don't know why they even make buttons anymore.

Thanks buddy! I new you'd be here to back me up.

Hey.....I resemble that remark.. ............

You can bet that when I get a lathe, I'm gonna teach myself how to use it by punching out 700 takeoffs.

Some years back, (like nearly 30 years back) I had a 700 BDL 7mm08 that, once free floated, shot pretty well, consistently in the 3/4" range or a little better. Made the mistake of shooting the donor some years later. This time a .308 700 ADL. Put 10 shots of GMM into a ragged hole. Was much harder to unscrew that tube from that action after that. Most recently, bought a Dick's 700 stainless .243 a couple of years back for dirt cheap during one of their Christmas sales. At the time intended to use the action for my .260 build, but decided to go with a Stiller instead. Of course, I had to shoot it a little before I sent it down the road. shot < 1" with absolute minimal load development. 7828 pushing 95gr VLDs if I recall...

John

I love me a good 700 takeoff... there's a stainless 243 Ackley sitting under my truck seat waiting to be dropped off at my smith's this week and I have absolutely no doubts that it'll bughole what's sitting on my bench.

Getting a lathe, you say?! I'll send you some stuff to practice on... grin

I'm trying to tell ya.


<g>

Won't be tomorrow, but definitely on the to-do list. Gonna have to do something to support my hunting/shooting habit when I retire...

John

lets see service rifle vs benchrest rifle who might know more about REAL accuracy

One explanation I have heard is that the cut rifled barrel does not need to be normalized to the extent that the buttoned barrel does so it is a bit harder (this came from a maker of cut-rifled barrels, mind you). Another explanation was the cutting removed any reamer marks IN THE GROOVES while the button-rifling process simply ironed them out so that the substrate lacked integrity in comparison to the cut barrel. A third explanation was that the slight work hardening of the buttoning process was actually detrimental as gas cutting was worse. All of these explanations are theorectical at best but the belief that cut-rifled barrels have a longer accuracy life is widely held and not without some justification.
As I said before, the required accuracy levels are certainly different in different disciplines but this doesn't necessarily refute this contention. One shooter, the opinions of whom I respected very much, claimed that cut rifled barrels lost there accuracy gradually while buttoned barrels seemed to fail all of a sudden. I can't agree or disagree because I don't have the data to do so.
I personally don't believe there is any difference in barrel life at BR levels or, if there is, it is not significant enough to make any advantage obvious. I do know that one barrel I had which lost it's accuracy life very early was cut rifled (from Bob Sherer) but I have every reason to believe this was an exception. As I said before, if a BR barrel no longer shoots well under .2, it's not of much use for the purpose but it is still perfectly usable as a field rifle barrel. The criteria is different; a lot different. GD

Yep you can get real accuracy out of a gun if you get off your hind feet, sit on yer azz, and use fancy rests so that its a challenge of the gun, not the gun and the shooter.

Grins.

Regardless the bottom line, whatever my accuracy requirements are, the buttoned tubes simply did not hold as long a life span to that requirement.

It may well be different in BR.

As to Greydogs comments on barrel deaths... I heard some similar stuff RE chrome moly vs SS too. I've seen a few issues on abrupt death, but only a few. And all in SS barrels. But thats all I shoot.

But I always heard the CM died slowly and the SS died right now. At least thats IIRC.

Anyway I do recall a death of one SS tube at 300 rapid fire on a 300 yard range... shot a 200-17x rapid fire. Could not shoot a 200 on the prone slow reduced to save my tail. And it was rare at that time to not shoot a 200 wiht at least 50% or more X count...

But I digress.

Tanner says it... this can get pretty hot as a topic and I"m as guilty as any. But only up to the point of what i've actually seen.

Jeff

Really shows your ignorance of the game......

After shooting both, for my money I will buy a cut-rifled barrel for many of the reasons listed above.

Rost495,
Actually, I have seen just the opposite re. the stainless vs Chromoly issue. It has always seemed to me the chromoly had more of a tendency to crater suddenly. It seems like the throat area of a chromoly barrel developes cracking from hot gases to a greater extent than does stainless. Stainless barrels seem to erode quite smoothly and evenly. This relates to one possibility for the longer accurate life (within certain parameters) of a cut barrel. Once a barrels throat area erodes past the condensed surface created by swaging the rifling in, deterioration of the throat is sudden and uneven. Keep in mind, this is a theory I have heard put forth and not one to which I necessarily subscribe.
By the way, real accuracy determination and real data regarding accurate barrel life can only result from a large sampling of barrels fired under controlled conditions. This would mean from a machine rest and in a tunnel. All other evidence is really anecdotal and is a theoretical exercise only. GD