barrel contours

J

jaybic

Guest
I was just wondering....

If a fella finds a barrel blank in the correct caliber and twist but not contour(too heavy), is it feasible to turn it down a smaller, lighter contour without ruining its potential? Not quite sure I am patient enough for the contour I want to be made so I am thinking about purchasing the same brand, twist and caliber and having my smith take it from a 1.250/.830 to something like 1.250/.750...or should I leave it well enough alone and learn to live with it?

Thanks folks,

Jamie
 
I hope this sparks a controversy :)

A search of the archives will show you answers from "everybody knows button-rifled barrels expand if they're contoured after rifling" to "everybody knows that barrels must be at least 1.200 and parallel tapered for support while being button lapped" and "everybody knows that only cut-rifled barrels are safe to contour" to "NO THEY'RE NOT!!"


I've personally turned down or had turned down 6 different button rifled barrels and had maybe 10 fluted and a couple turned down AND fluted after the fact. I've personally bought maybe 5-6 buttoned barrels where the barrel maker changed the contour of an existing blank ON MY ORDER. (Obviously contoured after the fact) And I've asked 2 different barrel company owners regarding when they contour........

I've personally "believed" (read believed what others have said) that "cut-rifled bores are stable but button rifled bores will expand"






And now, right now today I personally will happily re-contour or have re-contoured ANY BARREL and not worry about it! And if I AM worried about it I can simply slug it and check it. I've simply not found some of the things that others have found. But I can and do check.....






And my belief may change tomorrow :)






al
 
I've recontoured many. I've had many recontoured. I've fluted hundreds. Both button and cut rifled. A good quality, meaning stress free, blank will show no ill affects for either process. Now with being said send it back to the manufacture to have it turned down and not your smith. It will probably be less expensive and if for some reason there's a problem, they were the last one to touch it.
 
Barrel Recontouring

Dave Tooley said:
I've recontoured many. I've had many recontoured. I've fluted hundreds. Both button and cut rifled. A good quality, meaning stress free, blank will show no ill affects for either process. Now with being said send it back to the manufacture to have it turned down and not your smith. It will probably be less expensive and if for some reason there's a problem, they were the last one to touch it.
Click to expand...

Excellent advice!

Ted
 
It is a Krieger tube, 1:10(cut rifled correct?) RV contour 31" 1.250x.830 and it will be cut to either 26" or 24"(not sure yet). Maybe the weight savings going from .830 to .750 is enough to justify the extra time and expense.

I would like to get it down to a slightly heavy sporter contour(is that the .750 size or what barrel size would be considered a "slightly heavy sporter"?

It seems all barrel manufacturers have a different method of sizing their barrels so its a bit confusing and I don't want to order the wrong tube which is why, if I did, I wanted to know if I could turn it down to what I am looking for.

Anyway, the tax man was pretty good to me and am gonna put the wheels in motion in the next day or so and once again, thanks for the advice. Newbies like me need all the help we can get and I appreciate it.

Take care,

Jamie
 
Jamie,

Dave Tooley gave you the best advise on your build in your first post.

Now you are talking about a 1:10 twist and a re-contour.

Do yourself a favor and re-read all of Dave Tooley's comments and take it to the bank. IT WILL BE WORTH THE WAITING TIME!

I would suggest that you let your gunsmith order the barrel. We are talking 6mm here, so he might just have one with the correct twist sitting on the shelf.

All,

Can anyone suggest a great gunsmith for Jamie in MN?
 
John,

You are right....I had to go reread it as somehow I had it in my head that I was looking for a 1:10 rather that the suggested 1:12 and Brunos has the 1:12 twist RV contour in stock also. I haven't found any Bartlein tubes available but I guess I have looked at so many sites for barrels I lost what I was looking for originally.

I have ordered a Timney 511U(left handed version of Daves suggested trigger) and I have a H.S Precision stock that came off that same Rem 700 but that should be ok( I hope) until I can get a McMillan on it and I am still planning on going with the .243ai round.

As far as bullets go, I thought of the 87gr Vmax, the 88 Berger but the Fowlers, I have never heard of...

As far as smiths go, the only name I have heard around here is a fella named Stan Ware but I have not contacted him yet but he seems quite highly recommend. Otherwise there is my local guy at Coyote Creek although he may not swim in the same pool as some other more "specialist" type smiths so I am at a bit of a loss there and thanks for asking around on my behalf.

I have always wanted a NF scope and I am thinking of deviating from previously given advice and treating myself. Or maybe that's just me drinking the kool-aid....I don't know......never been very good a decisions...

.243 Lapua brass and get my hands of some .243AI dies of some type....sorry fellas, still lots of questions....

Anyway, as always, thanks for your time and wisdom,

Jamie
 
If you haven't committed to the 243AI round, please reconsider. I've spent thousands of dollars on that round only to drop it in favor of the 6X47L......... which does everything the 243AI DID NOT.....Better.

I lissened to the pundits, I spent the money. The 243AI round has some problems the 6X47L doesn't.


Of course you'll have fun either way :)


al
 
I have had both rounds mentioned to me a number of times by some folks that are held in pretty high esteem on these pages but honestly, I know nothing about the 6x47L. How do they stack up against one another and long ranges ballistically and terminally? I am totally in the dark here...I originally started thinking 6ai, 243/243ai, then up popped the 6x47L, 6 Creedmoor, 6mm-06 and a few others. I know everyone has their favorites but this is quite overwhelming....

Can you elaborate at all?

Thx
 
I built my first prototype 6X47L around 5yrs ago as detailed in this thread

http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?58805-Al-s-6x47L

I built it because 5 actions, 12 barrels, 4 chambering reamers, 6 dies and all the hair in my head couldn't get the 243AI to work. Making and maintaining good shooting 243AI ammo was near on impossible. I also tried the 22-250 case, no better. It's a LOOOONG story having to do with trying to get the round to work in the pressure envelope I consider useful. I could never get it to work, could not today and I know a lot more now. Today I could solve some of the problems by making the shoulder 35degrees instead of 40degrees but no matter what the case WILL NOT TAKE PRESSURE. Since my odyssey w/243AI Lapua has come out with a new case that WILL take the pressure, making 243AI brass from 308 Palma brass solves the pressure problem but the next big thing is case maintenance. I do not believe that it's possible to properly resize/maintain the 243AI case configuration. I spent thousands finding this out.


The problem existed....... GD Tubb designed the 6XC JUST prior to Lapua producing the new 6.5X47 case design. As for me, the second I heard about the case I put in orders with Powder Valley, Graf, Bruno etc and after more than a yr started getting cases. I already had two rifles built, three barrels setting and waiting for the new brass.


I now have several reamers and guns set up and the chambering has been an instant success. This isn't a "Ford/Chevy argument" nor is it a matter of taste, preference or price. I don't CARE about the price, the brand, the sex appeal or anything else but raw performance.

The 6X47L outperforms every other case on the market.

period.

It HAS to because it's built to. It ain't luck. The only chambering people compare it to is the "6mm Dasher" which comparison is silly in the extreme because the 6X47L IS EQUAL TO THE DASHER CASE, but with a longer, more usable neck......most of the chambers will basically interchange if you saw the necks off....

Downside is that a proper resizing die will cost you 250.00 from Neil Jones.

Upside is that IF YOU SHOOT, the die will pay for itself in a yr in saved brass.

Flipside is, if resizing isn't an issue with you.... if caselife isn't important, or long range accuracy, then just make whatever you want. Pick a case from 6MM Rem to .243 to 22-250 or 6-08 and they'll all be "equal." Basically, if you're going to use someone's generic reamer and buy a die from a store then it just doesn't matter.

I speak purely from the standpoint of performance.

al


BTW, I would also go with the 8" twist.......
 
I too have been down this road. 2 off the shelf dies, 1 custom order from Redding and then $500 to Neil Jones for sizing and seater die and still beat brass up. Many frustrations later, lots of junk brass, swearing, loss of hair, I realize now a different caliber would have been a better choice. Neil Jones products are the cats meow, just a good wait to get them.
 
taxman said:
I too have been down this road. 2 off the shelf dies, 1 custom order from Redding and then $500 to Neil Jones for sizing and seater die and still beat brass up. Many frustrations later, lots of junk brass, swearing, loss of hair, I realize now a different caliber would have been a better choice. Neil Jones products are the cats meow, just a good wait to get them.
Click to expand...


The Voice Of Experience :)

al
 
That was my first venture into a "custom" rifle. Tried to re-create the lil round wheel and did not do enough research. Choose to spec a reamer to make it better! Ha! That cost $1,000 of dies and brass, never do that again. The rifle shoots, but lost a lot o shooting time in chasing dies and waiting on dies. Unless you have a lot of extra $'s go with something a lil easier to get t right the first time.

I am off on another venture building a 20PPC on a BAT and will work with Dave at PT&G to get a reamer set up to hopefully not chase the dies.

Good luck! But listen to the guys above, they have way more experience and knowledge than most of us do!

Tony
 
jaybic said:
As far as smiths go, the only name I have heard around here is a fella named Stan Ware but I have not contacted him yet but he seems quite highly recommend. Otherwise there is my local guy at Coyote Creek although he may not swim in the same pool as some other more "specialist" type smiths so I am at a bit of a loss there and thanks for asking around on my behalf.

Jamie
Click to expand...

No disrespect to the local guy, but I think you would be howling at the moon crazy not to choose Stan Ware over Coyote Creek. Stick with a winner. You want a combination of a supreme craftsman and an artist. Ware has an excellent reputation, and not by accident. And listen to what he recommends, because he probably has some really good ideas and suggestions, and if he's gonna do the work, then you want him on board -- rather than "see, I told you that this was dumb, but you wanted it that way". :cool:
 
Hey fellas,

I would love to take your advice and send my box of useless gun parts to Stan Ware to assemble but after talking to him on the phone a few days ago, I found out he is not taking and work and is a year out. I don't want to make my local guy sound inept because the .308 that he did for me shoots quite well but I was just hoping to have a bench-grade gunsmith assembly my box of parts. I scares me a little bit that when I mention things like bolt timing, my local guy says he is unfamiliar with the term. Now, I don't know what it means either but I see the term tossed around here enough that I feel like he should know what it means and its not exactly confidence inspiring.....

Seems like most all barrel manufacturers and gunsmiths are at about a 6 month to 1 year wait....I would have never guessed the backlog is that bad...Hell, my guess is a liver transplant list is shorter that most of the places I have talked to.

Thanks anyhow fellas,

Jamie
 
Well, I think I just got real lucky...

I fella by the name of Jim Kobe up in Bloomington showed up on the radar and seems very reasonable and also very highly recommended by some F-class fellas. it sounds like my wait time is 2-3 weeks from when I drop off my box of gun parts.

jamie
 
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