Pure speculation here but I bet Dan Lilja had to look hard to find a barrel that bad for his video. It's probably not typical. I'd also bet that is really is an older barrel from when they were button-rifled. But I'm only guessing.

As to the hammer-forged and button rifled, I'll also speculate that that was just poor communication like I alluded above.

In thinking about it for a moment; that would mean Remington produces barrels with two separate processes instead of one and their production cost would rise, not fall. I can't see any up-side to hammer-forging a smooth bore and then pulling a button. Especially when hammer-forging work-hardens the material and makes the button even harder to push or pull through a reamed hole? And it is very poor form to button an already contoured barrel; you will tend to bell the bore closer to the muzzle because of the thin barrel wall. That's why all the barrel reborers are cut-rifling guys and not button-riflers.

I'm still betting some gun-stupid marketing group put the data together and some equally ignorant or lazy Remington hand approved it without sufficient scrutiny.

sure the inside of that barrel looks like crap. just stick them on the same action and use the same cartridge. see how bad the rem shoots to the lilja. and id certainly hope that a lilja barrel was better quality than a factory rifle, afterall they are spitting thousands of those barrels out a day compared to a few liljas!

So, if the hammer forged barrels are so much better than buttoned or, cut rifled barrels, how come all of the long and short range BR shooters, long range highpower and palma shooters aren't using them?

Well, I'd guess a quickly made hammer forged barrel may be better than a quickly made cut barrel.
Also the "Custom" boys probably can't afford a hammer machine, but they can afford to charge us for their time and trouble to turn out a neat cut, checked, and lapped barrel.

A few custom barrel makers I know of came to grief by taking a few short cuts, using blunt tools etc. so for economy models I'd take the hammer forged.

quote:

Originally posted by eddieharren:
So, if the hammer forged barrels are so much better than buttoned or, cut rifled barrels, how come all of the long and short range BR shooters, long range highpower and palma shooters aren't using them?

hammer forging produces very good, very consistant, very smooth and accurate production bbls. better than any other production bbl out there.
the reason the custom guys bash the hammer bbls is because they are so close to the custom rifles without the extra money.
steyr, cz, tikka, sako, ruger, HK, Merkel, Sig, Blaser all use cold hammer forged bbls.

quote:

Originally posted by eddieharren:
So, if the hammer forged barrels are so much better than buttoned or, cut rifled barrels, how come all of the long and short range BR shooters, long range highpower and palma shooters aren't using them?

I don't think anyone said forged barrels are better than the best hand-made barrels, it is just the cheapest means to mass-produce a resonable quality barrel.

quote:

So, if the hammer forged barrels are so much better than buttoned or, cut rifled barrels, how come all of the long and short range BR shooters, long range highpower and palma shooters aren't using them?

First off a Hammer forging machine costs a cool million or more. That doesn't count training nor tooling time to build mandrels which are extremely expensive. I can't imagine a custom barrel manufacturer making mandrels for say a .30 caliber with 6 or more different twist rates. So its going to be impossible to recoup the cost for a custom barrel builder. Out of all the builders Steyr and Sako make best use of the practice and compared to CZ have low production rates but superior barrels. The CZ Ultimate rifle for instance uses a Steyr Barrel. I watched a video of a Steyr barrel being made and you would think it was done in a OR ..you know the scenario Austrian dude with a white lab coat inspecting it and subjecting it to all kinds of tests . I doubt you could get a straighter, smoother barrel for 3x the money. Hammer forged barrels also have some cons.

One is stress that is built into the barrel when you get a piece of round steel 16" long and pound it out to 24-26" in length. Temperature extremes may affect POI because of these stresses. FLuting one of these in my opinion may not be a good idea since it may release stress in one area and only that area. That may be the reason that Steyr does not machine off the radial machine marks on its barrels and everyone else does. They are leaving well enough alone. They do offer fluted barrels but I am betting they spend 2x the time making those compared to their regular barrels.

Button Rifled barrels also have stress built into them during the process since material is being displace but most are stress relieved once , twice and some 3x if you believe the advertising.

Cut Rifling has no stress and a barrel would be a perfect candidate for fluting.


Bottom line is a blank whether it is hammer forged,cut or pulled has to have a perfect hole drilled in it first. It also has to be made of the proper steel that is uniform in quality throughout. After the hole is made it should be polished to remove all tool marks if any. Then the rifling process can start. If all are done properly there should be little or no difference between the 3 except for price and price drives everything .

well i just got back from shooting a new steyr 308 that now has 35 rounds down the tube total and shot a .38" group w/ factory ammo.
and that from a 20" factory rifle.
so is spending $500 on a custom tube gonna drop the group to .25? perhaps, but, i cant see that as cost effective.

well i just got back from shooting a new steyr 308 that now has 35 rounds down the tube total and shot a .38" group w/ factory ammo.
and that from a 20" factory rifle.
so is spending $500 on a custom tube gonna drop the group to .25? perhaps, but, i cant see that as cost effective.

I have actually had better grouping from factory jobs then from Custom jobs I have owned. I will wring out my new Steyr in the next few weeks and find out how well it shoots.

quote:

Originally posted by tiggertate:
Pure speculation here but I bet Dan Lilja had to look hard to find a barrel that bad for his video. It's probably not typical.

I dunno I got a borescope and a bunch of remingtons and surprisingly a couple look nice, one looks near as good as any of my custom barrels but it is an exception,the vast majority of my rem barrels are pretty much the same as the one represented in the video. They look downright scary but they still shoot well enough for hunting rifles. How bad or good a barrels machining looks in a borescope seems to have no bearing on how well it will shoot, though none shoot in the class of my custom barrels. Thats not to say they don't shoot the odd tiny group, they just don't do it consistently every group like the customs.

The most accurate barrels are Winchester hammer-forged barrels.Some may take a few more rounds to break in compared to custom barrels,but once they start shooting and my magic is applied they are the best of the best by far.They are the only barrels that left me with a big happy smile on my face on the trip back from the range.I've tried Shilen,Douglas, Krieger,Steyr,Sako,Remington.I cannot give a very accurate assesement of the Steyr becuase it was my first rifle and it was the barrel that took the abuse of my learning process.

I've been checking the match results, on both the IBS and NBRSA web sites, and have yet to see a Winchester hammer forged barrel listed in the top 25.

quote:

The most accurate barrels are Winchester hammer-forged barrels.

eddieharren,Winchester does not sell replaceable barrels,or rifles chambered for the 6mmPPC.Also,most if not all of those guys don't have the knowledge it takes to get a barrel to shoot to its potential.They blame the barrel when things are going wrong.

quote:

eddieharren,Winchester does not sell replaceable barrels,or rifles chambered for the 6mmPPC.

Winchester did use custom barrels on their custom shop rifles. Some from the names you mentioned. Would you like to guess why they even did that?

The hammer-forged barrels and quality actions they were producing was all because they still had the old expensive machinery around that produced things the old way(right way).Once the machinery wore out and there was no money around to renew it and a less brilliant customer pool(SempreELK), they were doing things the new way(wrong way).

quote:

The hammer-forged barrels and quality actions they were producing was all because they still had the old expensive machinery around that produced things the old way(right way).Once the machinery wore out and there was no money around to renew it and a less brilliant customer pool(SempreELK), they were doing things the new way(wrong way).

You need to stop posting on this thread. You are in way over your head little minnow.

Shootaway, as a working gunsmith, rifle builder and benchrest shooter, I must take issue with some of your misconceptions. I'll venture to say that I have chucked up and measured more Rem 700 and M70 Win actions than you. I know for a fact that the new Rem actions are held to tighter tolerences than the older ones. This is possible due to CNC machinery. Older, in this case, does not mean better.
While I respect your right to your opinion concerning CHF barrels being superior to other barrels, I will disagree with your statement that "these guys do not know how to get a barrel to shoot up to it's potential". Unless you have competed in registered matches, along with these shooters, you are not qualified to judge their shooting abilities.
I'll end this reply by agreeing with SempreElk. You are in way over your head.

The only difference in how a competitor might go about is that he will purchase many barrels in a given caliber and use the best one.Doing this,there is no doubt in my mind that he will win.If I had access to a bunch of target rifles with best quality hammer-forged barrels,then I am not so sure he would win.

Winchester made hammerforged and button rifled barrels for their regular production rifles. Blued are hammer forged and SS are button rifled I believe . The supergrade and limited series rifles were built with barrels supplied by outside vendors. I had a 1988 Remington 700 FS in 7 rem mag which was sent to Shilen for their "accuracy improvement package" Part of this was having the barrel air gauged. I was told at the time that the barrel was one of the straightest barrels they had ever seen rivaling their production. This barrel was one of the hardest barrels to clean that I have ever owned. It fouled terribly but the gun after being rebed shot lights out. This is what we are talking about on this thread ..not Winchester hammer forged barrels but the interior of a Remington barrel vs a Lilja.

My supergrade does not shoot as well as my other mod 70's.SempreElk,are you saying that cut rifled is the same as button rifled?

QUOTE] My supergrade does not shoot as well as my other mod 70's.SempreElk,are you saying that cut rifled is the same as button rifled? [/QUOTE]

That was a typo on my part which was corrected. How do you know your Supergrade is cut(highly doubtful) button or hammer forged ? They used so many vendors I doubt Winchester even knew. If your supergrade doesn't shoot as well it's all a matter of expectations. To some shooters it may be more then acceptable accuracy to others not so acceptable.