When ordering a new barrel do you prefer to have your gunsmith chamber and thread it or have the barrel maker do it?

How much of an accuracy nut are you ?

How far do you want to shoot ?

If you are trying to improve accuracy, get a good barrel and a good smith…

I think everyone wants the most accurate rifle for their chambering.

In the following order:
1. get a good 'smith
2. get a good barrel
3.Ask yourself who's the most motivated insuring your rifle build is successful, barrel maker or 'smith?
4.Act accordingly.

A good barrel tends to make all the bullet weights group better.

A good chambering job, helps get the most of the barrel…

In general if a guy wants to shrink well below an inch, I don’t recommend having the barrel maker do it, some of them outsource, and many of them that have good pricing are dealing with volume work… and that will NOT match what a good smith will do.

The other big component is that a good smith will look at your rifle for other things that can impact your performance, a barrel maker probably won’t do that unless it’s a safety issue.

I thought maybe the fellow at the barrel makers must be really good at it-with all the experience or number of barrels that go through them.

Think of it as mass produced vs one off custom.

I’ve had 3 rifles rebarreled, and in each case the gunsmith ordered the barrel. Here is what they put on the rifle and how it shoots with the new barrel. All 3 rifles are built with Winchester model 70 actions, 2 of them being pre-64’s. All three wear Brown Precision stocks.

.264 Win Mag. 26” Krieger Stainless barrel with 1 in 8” twist. Shooting 127 grain Barnes LRX at 3,220 FPS, I get 0.33” groups
.338 Win Mag. 24” Lilja Stainless fluted barrel, 1 in 10” twist IIRC. Shooting Barnes 225 grain TTSX at 2,800 FPS, I get 0.75” groups.
.416 Hoffman. 22” Shilen Stainless barrel, I don’t recall twist. Shooting 370 grain Cutting Edge Raptors at 2,380 fps, I get 0.80” groups.

In each case, my gunsmith handled everything.

i want a good machinist to chamber and fit barrel to my receiver . i have had these cartridges chambered in new barrels > 17 Rem. , 22-250 , 22 B.R. , 6ppc , 2 - 6mm-284`s , 2 -243`s , 4 - 257 Weatherby`s , 2 - 6.5 - 284 , 6.5 Creedmoor , 2 - 257 Roberts , 350 Rem. mag , 257 Creedmoor , just ordered a another 25 caliber, # 4 contour , 7 1/2 twist to make a long range 257 Weatherby mag. barrel from Brux barrels too. i have used all barrels mentioned and a few more , my 2 favorite barrels are Krieger and Brux .

I think there are more lands in the bore of my Douglas 458 barrel compared to other barrels and that might stabilize the bullets better.

Pac-Nor does a pretty good job IME.

I've got two 458's with Pac-nors and two double rifles they are not bad however my two Krieger 458's shoot better and so does the Douglas.The Pac-nors all had pits or defects in the metal when new and viewed under a borescope.The Douglas was perfect under a borescope.

i have been very lucky with my Ruger #1 `s my 458 Lott shoots excellent ,458 Winchester , 416 Rigby ,405 Winchester all shoot good enough so i never have had to rebarrel these rifles ,but to be honest i don`t really enjoy shooting these rifles that much anymore .either. good luck, Pete53

Find a good smith......... Let him choose the barrel.....

My dream is to shoot my Lott offhand, with open sights, many times and get all my shots in a two inch circle at 100yds.

hope you can do the 2 inch circle at 100 yards , when i was younger maybe then but not anymore free-hand at 100 yards, good luck Pete53

Here is a pic of the CZ 550, 458WM that I want to rebarrel and touch up with some small modifications.In addition to the Douglas barrel I will be adding a red Silver's pad, cross bolt,Recknagel rear tension sight,and a Recknagel banded front sight.I might also refinish the stock with a special hand rubbed oil finish and increase the LOP of about half an inch.I've already changed the trigger to a Timney and got a new bolt handle.It had some feeding work done to reduce the size of the magazine to 458WM.I still have not decided if I want to keep it as a 458WM or rechamber it to a Lott-I already have a Lott reamer and I think it might feed better with the larger cartridges.

Have always used Pac-Nor....prob 2 dozen barrels over the years

Most recent...Savage prefit barrel only...heavy varmint SS SM 20 Practical

This was in October 2020.......today is July 15th....paid in full..along with another rechamber job

Still no barrel(s) to this day...seems always some excuse...suppliers...tooling.......

Rather disappointed..........

Just ordered one from Douglas.... three to four weeks tops.

Here is a pic of one of my three modified Rugers.This is one of the two that has a Pac-nor.I shoot cast with it and use it to practice offhand shooting with.
The second one is the one I use to shoot at the Libby shoot.I shot it yesterday and it shoots a little low at 100yds and therefore I ordered a new shorter front sight for it.

Shot this target at 60yds offhand open sights with the Ruger pictured first above.It has been months that I have not shot and I am beginning to practice once again.I shot 458 cast and 308 cast.The 458 throws some flyers from time to time-I don't know why but I still have the most fun.

Flyers? I would say that is where the sights were when it went bang sir.

I have fired it off the bench a few times and observed flyers.It could be my cast bullets-I am new to casting...but getting better at it!.

Here is a target I shot the same day.I forgot my targets so I hit the trash and found this one to use.

Some are flyers and some are bad shots.

The rifle doesn't group that well-again it could be my bullets.At the end of my shooting it seemed like it was settling and grouping tighter.Maybe next time I'll have a nicer target to show.

soldered on tension sight

I shot this offhand with my 22LR this morning.It was at an indoor range at 60yds and the lighting was poor-I could not see the orange circle.
A 22 is good for offhand practice.I also shot three rds of international trap.Life is good-lol.

I used to do some plinking with a 458 and some jack rabbit hunting with lead loads. For me the Lott is too much of a good thing, if I was a PH then yes I would get one. With age my recoil threshold has gotten lower (or maybe I got smarter, not likely). Now the 375 H4H is about the tops I am willing to put up with. Even when younger I would dread bench resting full house 500-510 grain loads unless I had a standing bench rest set up.

Back to the original question as local a gunsmith as possible is my first choice. With that CZ though I would completely trust African Hunting Rifles to do their wonderful conversion especially the stock work.

Cast bullets can be tricky, with light loads a filler or an over shot wad has made a big difference in eliminating flyers. For the 458 I always used lead loads for the 45/70 as so much development has gone on with the 45/70 with lead loads. These were great fun rounds to shoot.

I was out shooting my Lott with cast bullets today.I cleaned the bore with a brush and solvent beforehand to start off with a clean bore.This I have done before and noticed a good group offhand at 60yds but like other times the POI was too far to the right.As I continue shooting (I shoot 50rds and only stop to pic up the cases between loadings),the POI moves to the left-about 4 or 5 inches and it settles around bullseye but groups are a larger than right after cleaning and I could get flyers.I wonder why the POI is always so far to the right after cleaning? The barrel gets very hot when I shoot-so much so that I keep my hand on the forearm stock at all times.Could it be that the cast bullets are affected by the heat?

I suggest you read the 458 Win thread before to go to the Lott.

I would also suggest having the gunsmith choose the brand of barrel. This isn't necessarily because they'll know the best brand--but because some barrelmakers hesitate to replace barrels they sell directly to shooters, because they don't know how good the smith who installs it might be.

If gunsmith uses one particular brand a lot, it will not only probably shoot well, but the barrelmaker will be more likely to happily replace a sub-standard barrel. And just about all barrelmakers occasionally make one of those....

with much respect i would be very careful with who rebarrels your rifle , maybe have a machinist who replaces barrels for bench rest shooters do your barrel work. good luck ,Pete53

Here is another rifle I will use for offhand practice.It is a CZ 22LR-the ones with the replaceable barrels.I have a Lilja barrel on it and installed a Bushnell RXS-250 4 MOA reflex sight.I installed the barrel myself using the shims provided by Lilja.I took it to the range yesterday and shot it for the first time not knowing what to expect from the rifle and the sight.All went well.The rifle shoots very good.Here is an offhand target I used to adjust the sights.The shots in the black are from the final adjustment at 60yds.

DBoston,what did you use as a filler and what is an overshot wad?

I shot this target this morning offhand at 60yds with the Lott and cast loads.Once the barrel warms up it's POI moves to the left and stays there.
I am going to check and see if I have a higher front sight to bring the group down a bit.

Here is a target I shot this morning offhand at 60yards with my Lilja,22lr.I made three adjustments to lower the sight elevation-that accounts for a few shots that are a little high.The Lilja is looking good! Life is good when I am shooting.

I just got my importer to order me one too.Douglas ,chrome moly,458 Lott,1-14 twist,5A sporter contour(458SPT),26 inches

I fellow I spoke with their said there is a two week turn around time...but it would probably not be here for at least a couple of months.I am going to let my smith chamber it.

I am adjusting the sights on one of my Rugers.This is at 100yds-open sights.There is a three shot group just to the right of the bullseye and a first shot fouler to the top right.I used a little oil in the cleaning process-that is what I think threw the first shot off.
I need to drift the rear sight a bit to the left and reshoot.The process is much not that simple.
Speaking of oils,I don't know what they put in the stuff but it seems that once in the bore it never comes out.I now only use wipe-out to clean my bores.I might use JB for the carbon ring in front of the throat after many rds but that's it.

I have three targets from last practice session.One from my 22LR with Benchmark barrel, the other from my 308 win and the third from my ruger Black Hawk 45 Colt.I cast bullets fort he 308 and 45 Colt.I am at beginner level for handgun having just started a coupe of years ago and don't shoot with it often-but I am shooting more and more with it because it is increasingly fun to shoot.The 308 barrel has many thousands of rds through it and shoots many flyers-even from the bench.All targets were shot offhand and standing of course.The 308 and 22LR were shot at 50yds and the 45Colt at 35yds.

I shot the 22 off the bench at 50yds to test its accuracy.I am going to shoot it again and pay closer attention to sight picture.



I shot another one of my Ruger Lotts out to 100yds from the bench.Again I am going to pay closer attention to sight picture next time out.I checked my cases afterward and noticed that a couple were too long and needed trimming.I don't know if that caused the one to shoot high.I will shoot again next time and see what I get with the trimmed cases.

My gunsmith so it squared up correctly. He told me sometimes they are off slightly, all I needed to hear.

Once I had a factory Remington VLS 308 win.It would shoot a 5 shot 200yds one hole group week after week for a couple of months straight.When the barrel finally shot out I had it rebarreled.The smith rebarrelling it said the whole action was crooked and nothing was square.He said he fixed it for me.He installed the Krieger but the rifle never shot anywhere near to what it shot before.

neither.....I do it all myself.

That would be the best way,IMO.Do you think a smith really cares about your rifle? I don'r especially nowadays.

Here is a 50ydstarget I shot this morning off the bench with the Lott I shoot cast with and my CZ-Lilja 22lr-with the red dot sight.I am happy to see the Lilja barrel shoots great.I shot three or four rds then adjusted down the height.

My new chrome moly 458 Douglas barrel arrived.This will go on my CZ 550.It measures .73 at the muzzle,.82 at the middle, 1.2 at the breech and is 27 inches long but will be cut to 24 or 25.It has a 1-14 twist.

What was wrong with the old one?

The rifling eroded.