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Sniper Rifle Barrels
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Member Posts: 6 ✭✭
in your opinion, who makes the best barrel for a sniper rifle
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One of our moderators for the Experts forum, who goes by the user name of Nononsense, is an absolute wealth of information on this subject, as well as most others. I have had questions of which he has had superb solutions for...all of the time. I am sure he will be along soon. If he does not get a chance to answer this thread, e-mail him. These threads in the Experts are automatically locked at 10 postings or so.
Best
WG
in your opinion, who makes the best barrel for a sniper rifle
My vote goes to Shilen.
http://www.shilen.com/
First, welcome to the Gunbroker Forums!
Second, there isn't really a 'best' barrel for sniper rifles. Any quality barrel used for long range competition or varminting can be used for a sniper rifle. A properly made barrel with a straight hole down the middle is a great way to start. Just don't forget that it is the ability of the gunsmith to cut the chamber, thread the barrel and provide a crown that are all concentric with the bore line. A bad barrel cannot be made into a super star no matter what some folks want us to believe and a great barrel can be ruined by a poor gunsmith.
There are generalities that can be applied to the concept of which barrel to use for sniper rifles. I have sent you an e-mail with some references to information.
The original rage was for the 2-groove Springfield rifle barrels, which were used on 03A3 Springfield rifles and manufactured by Remington, if I recall correctly.
Jumping ahead to more current times, the emphasis is on barrels made with the 5R-style rifling, pioneered in this country by Boots Obermeyer. Boots did not put any restrictions on the use of the design and frequently allows other companies to use the concept free of charge. This is how Remington surged ahead in the commercial/LE environment with their version of the 5R rifling in barrels made more readily available.
Nowadays, there are several versions of the 5R rifling style made by companies wanting to be special in a rapidly growing business environment. These are shown on the list below.
You will find, either by direct experience or second hand information such as this, that cut-rifled barrels are the leading selection for professional and competitive fields. Button rifled barrels are an 'also ran' anymore after a couple of decades of dominance. The current champion of barrels is Bartlein with other cut-rifle makers following behind.
Third, here is a list (incomplete) of the upper echelon barrel makers:
Custom Barrel Makers
Bartlein Barrels
Precision single-point, cut-rifled barrels, from .20 to .338 caliber, plus .50 Cal, starting at $245. Wide variety of contours, very exact twist rates.
rifle barrels cut rifling
Benchmark Barrels
Benchmark built its reputation with record-setting rimfire barrels, and now they are producing excellent centerfire barrels as well. Contact Ron Sinema or Barry Graber at (360) 652-2594 or email benchmarkbarrels[at]yahoo.com. No website yet. Location: Benchmark Barrels, 1105 Pioneer Highway East, Arlington, WA 98223.
Border Barrels
Traditional Obermeyer-style "5R" cut-rifled barrels made in Scotland. Long barrel life, high quality. Distributed by O.K. Weber in the USA.
Broughton Barrels
Conventional and canted land (5C) pull-buttoned barrels. Stress-relieved and meticulously hand-lapped, Broughton barrels clean easily and the 5C offers enhanced velocities. Broughton Canted Land Barrels.
Hart Barrels
High grade push-button, hand-lapped barrels. Long, effective barrel life. Along with Shilen, Hart barrels have dominated 100/200yd BR for decades. Great choice for 6mm BR varmint guns too.
Kostyshyn Precision Barrels
Excellent hand-lapped buttoned barrels that have been winning matches, particularly in 30BR IBS competition.
Krieger Barrels
Cut-rifled barrels with very long barrel life. Top smiths say Krieger barrels are almost always straight and true. Fewer duds than some other brands. Hard to go wrong with a Krieger.
Lawton Rifle Barrels
Barney Lawton's barrels have been quite successful in long-range BR matches. Lawton Machine, LLC offers both cut-rifled and pull-buttoned barrels in 6mm through .408 bore sizes.
Lilja Precision Rifle Barrels
Hand-lapped button rifled barrels. Lilja's 3-groove 6BR barrels are very accurate and clean fast. Lilja's rim fire barrels are among the very best.
Pac-Nor Barreling
Barrel-maker and chamberer. Conventional barrels plus pre-fit, three-groove, and polygonal rifling.
Schneider Rifle Barrels
1403 Red Baron
Payson, AZ 85541
Phone: (928) 474-2852
Hand-lapped, pull-buttoned barrels with superb accuracy. Conventional and 5-land Polygon (P5) rifling options. Good prices ($254/blank). David Tubb uses Gary Schneider's barrels exclusively. Enough said.
Shilen Barrels
Big-name Texas barrel-maker still produces the lion's share of winning short-range BR barrels. They now offer ratchet (canted land) as well as conventional push-button rifling in 3, 4, 5 and 6 grooves.
Spencer Rifle Barrels
Accurate, button-rifled barrels available completely chambered in a wide variety of calibers. Tight control of tolerances. Considerable success in big-bore 1000yd guns and accuracy-guaranteed Varmint guns. Good value and excellent customer service.
Lothar Walther Precision Tools, (770) 889-9998
Buttoned barrels from proprietary super high-grade German steel. Polygonal rifling available in .223 and .30 calibers. Good value on prechambered and threaded barrels. Finished barrels for the M 98, Savage and CZ rifles. 54 standard contours and 1500 other contours are available.
This is a short list and I'll try to locate my longer version when I have a few more minutes to look through my documents.
If you have more questions write another post or feel free to e-mail me directly through my profile here at Gunbroker.
Best.
I have a Ruger model 77 in 7mm RMag. Mostly stock but worked over for long range sniper rifle when I was an active operator in the Army SF.
The term one shot one kill and "reach out and touch someone" are a deffinite reality with this rifle. I have 2 confirmed in excess of one mile. This is with the Ruger barrel. During the build-up of this system I could find no reason to swap it out. Maybe I was just luck but I know several other operators who have used Ruger as their primary long range and they all kept the stock barrel.
Of course we now have the Barrett but for us old guys a 7mm beat the pants off of the M1D or Remington standard long distance shooters.
Steve