Issac, My only real beefs with the 6-groove thread are two -- its length without anything except what I take as testimonials (you might consider that unfair), and that it gives the opinion there is something special about these barrels. No one knows what makes a good barrel. Certainly not a manufacturing technique such as cut rifling versus button rifling. Certainly not the number of grooves. Just because Bill Calfee has been known to utter absurdities is no excuse. It seems he's not the only one to give a lot of words with no information.
I think your bringing up the other rimfire forums also shows there is an us-versus-them mentality at play. I agree Benchrest Central should be a bulwark; should be above "us versus them," and most importantly, should be helpful to new shooters.
Just look at some of the other forums on Benchrest Central, an how helpful they often are. "Which is best" questions abound, and need to be dispelled. There is a current question about "what bullet is best with X many grooves" (see
http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?80248-Barrel-twist-rate-and-of-groove-question). OK, I'm cherry picking, but part of the role of BR Central is to help, or try and help people realize that they have some serious misconceptions.
I made a post on the rimfire forum asking about how to tune a sporter barrel by removing metal from the "bulb" at the end. "It's a fine art. Get a good gunsmith" was the reply. Fair enough to state that as a caution, but when I continued, not much information was added. I still don't know if Bill B. was being serious (I took it as such) or snide. And see Tim's now deleted remark to Pete Wass. Well, you can't but Wilbur can.
Etcetera.
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It is not a friendly place, save for the group that's kind of made it into their own social network. A bit of that of that is OK, can be ignored by those of us not in and no desire to join that group. Sadly, all too often, those who aren't get remarks like the one tim gave, then to his credit, removed.
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I didn't realize Mel Eck is feuding with Don Stith. Why should I? Makes it hard to get simple answers, and not my problem. What was my problem was when he hinted that Stith didn't do good work, and when asked to reconsider the post, said his remark was to stand. Someone had to go into that thread & clean up all the nastiness -- I assume Elmer or Wilbur, but of course I don't know.
(That is another rule of BR Central, you don't bash someone's work, you find another way to resolve a problem.)
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To try and be clear: there is too much insulting going on. There are products/tradesmen being dissed. There is a clique mentality -- and while we can live with some of that mentality, it sometimes takes a serious misstep.
I have expressed some of those feelings on the forum, have given a couple infractions, and have deleted a couple of posts. Aside from Hambone's posts, I believe I've deleted two or three since starting to pay attention to the Rimfire Forum this summer. I now have a reputation. I can live with it.
I'm not going to go into Hambone.
