Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Hammer Forged vs Button-rifled vs cut rifled

Benefits and drawbacks of each?

This has been beat to death, do a search

And 99 out of 100 shooters would never see a difference....maybe 100 out of 100

Although you will get lots of opinions.....

This is going to be good.

Hammer Forged (sometimes called rotoforged) third best for accuracy and thermal stability. Offers good quality for mass production at a reasonable price point.

Button rifled, depending on manufacturing processes used, second best for accuracy and thermal stability. Some are among the most accurate aftermarket barrels made.

Cut rifling is generally stress free, produces potentially best accuracy and thermal stability. Slower to produce as each groove is cut separately, can be the most accurate barrels available, or not.

All of the above is true, all of the above is false. Some barrels just shoot phenomenally no matter which process is used, some are abysmal shooters even when everything is done correctly with great care (if the chamber isn't reamed correctly even the best barrel may not shoot as expected). Choosing a manufacturer based on performance record and technique offers some degree of assurance. I use button rifled barrels and cut rifled barrels and sometimes can't tell the difference.

Have fun learning about a really interesting subject.

What he said..
I have seen a nice ruger no 1 in 223 with hammer forges barrel that shot amazing out of the box then start to really fade after 300 rds. Bore scope showed the rifling to be just fine... I always wonder if the stresses were relieving some and bore was getting overall bigger. We just re barreled it and moved on. Never been to fond of the hammer forge process since...

The quality of the virgin material is far more important to the finished product, in perspective, as is the quality of the "process" used , than the process that is used in its self.

Hog wash.........

I'd say each person is answering considering their own shooting skills.. and I do believe many can't outshoot their own gear.

That being said - there is a difference, and cut is best.

Cut rifled barrels are the current fad.
20 years ago buttoned rifle barrels were the fad.
When done and chambered with care ,both are equal and would exceed the normal shooters ability to tell the difference.
Results from the Original Pa 1000 yard BR club show it.
Anyone saying different is pretty full of themselves
Hammer forged barrels are typically used on production rifles.To save money.Im not saying they cant be dammed fine barrels.But just looking at the process of hammer forging.Your asking for alot.
Never heard of anyone usuing a hammer forged barrel as short or long range BR rifle.Or a high end custom for that matter.
dave

The biggest knock on hammer forged barrels compared to the others is they necessarily have to be soft. A thin barrel is very easy to bend or damage. They have a lot of stress built into them. I don't mind button barrels as long as they are #4 or heaviers. I get cut rifled barrels otherwise. There are lots of bargain button barrels but there are no bargain cut rifled barrels.

http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/rifling-manufacturing-hammer-forged.html

dave

Good post Dave. This is exactly right. Fads come and go. There are great barrels and bummer barrels made by everyone. But hammer forged? They are not match grade in any way, they are cheap to make, production.

As the others have said, hammer forged is for cheap high volume mass manufacturing. Hammer forged barrels are always bottom of the barrel although an occasional one might shoot really well.

Between cut rifling and buttoned it's a tossup. As Dave says, the current fad is cut rifling but I don't believe anyone can statistically show that cut barrels are any better than buttoned. You'll hear guys make statements like they won't use a buttoned barrel if it's light, etc. but there's really no rational basis behind that thinking.

I can't say that I've ever had a hammer forged barrel that was as accurate as any of the top line button rifled custom tubes I've owned. I've had some very accurate Remington factory tubes on a re-chambered 280 Ackley and a 300 WM Sendero. Never had a cut rifled barrel, but like Dave said, just look at the winners list of equipment and you'll see both button and cut rifled so if there was a definitive difference, they all would be using the "most accurate" barrel rifling method. Honestly, I think the smith has at least as much to do with the accuracy of a rifle than agonizing over who makes the "best" barrel. I've heard the arguments over stress induced during the rifling process, but considering how many times a custom tube is stress relived during the entire barrel making process, it seems to be a non starter argument to me.

Hammer-forged barrels are actually highly regarded in Europe, partly because they've been making them far longer than any American company, so know how to do it. And in general Europeans expect more accuracy from factory rifles than we do. Among some of the companies with reputations for fine accuracy that use hammer-forged barrels are Sako, Steyr and Heym.

One big reason custom barrelmakers don't use hammer-forging is the initial cost of the machinery.

One of the most consistent day in day out accuracy barrels I've ever had on a deer rifle was a Douglas SS air gaged on a no4 280 AI built by Nelson Berger.
As you can imagine a tend to be a bit pickie about how my rifles shoot.
The button rifled Douglas ...which by the way, was not lapped was just excellent.
And recommended by Nelson. He liked them.Not hard to see why.
These days im playing with a 7mm Mashburn with a 1989 vintage cut rifled barrel from Mark Chanlynn.
For accuracy it has exceeded my expectations.
dave

Considering the number of world records and precision match wins by Lilja button rifled barrels I think Dan L. might have a slightly different opinion than the above.

I don't care if benchrest folklore creeps into my deer hunting gear on the non recurring level, like barrels.

But I do care if someone on the internet tells me how to cure my 10 moa groups by deburring the flash holes, a recurring effort.

So I pay for Krieger barrels and Shilen Select match. Even though I can't tell the difference in how they shoot from a Shilen match. I can tell the difference by looking in the bore, but not by shooting.

How does it look different to you ?


dave

Mirror finish vs not.

Look in Hart, Lija, Shilen Select match, Krieger, etc barrels and they are mirror like accurate reflections when illuminated with fiber optic cable and observed under magnification.