Has anyone here used Shilen to barrel their action? What was your experience with Shilen like and how did the gun shoot. I have a Magnum length mauser action and an incredible piece of english and I'm considering having them do a 340 Weatherby or 416 Rem for me.

Hello,
Used them 20 years or so ago and had no complaints. Have used some of their barrels since, not rebarreled by them, and they work OK as well. They seem quite high in their pricing to do this work, but guess they are all high now. I switched to Krieger or Douglas some years ago, but as I say, always had good performance with the Shilen.

I've used Shilen barrels three times.....fine barrels.....but couldn't see where they was worth more than Douglas.....so I still use Douglas

Shilen has rebarreled 2 rifles for me a 223 and a 308. Both are one holers.

I use their barrels and have no doubt that their barreling job would be very good on the labor portion as well. But it is more expensive than just about anywhere else you go to have a barrel installed and you get nothing extra for the extra dollars spent.

shilen barrels hold more world records than ANYONE else...

their gunsmithing charges are high... but I expect there's a reason for that.. their core business is making the barrels....


btw, I've met Ed and family a couple times, thanks to Butch Lambert.. better folks there isn't.

if accuracy for a hunting rifle is what you want, i've had very little trouble getting AB barrels to shoot MOA or better MOST of the time...

Great barrels, and great work installing the barrels, just spendy...

but spendy seems to be part of things, as pac-nor is also very high compared to "normal" market.....

douglas makes fine barrels, krieger, lilja, hart, and all the others can make great barrels....

unless it's cut rifled, the major player all use the same basic technique... drill a hole, stress relieve, rifle by pulling a button, shape ... some stress relieve again, but that's the basic order of things.....

here's the "thing" about shilen barrels... *I* have never installed one that didn't shoot.. nor had one that was turned out of alignment with the bore.

ymmv

Had them barrel a pre-64 model 70m action for 458 Win and it shoots great.

I have three Shilen barrels on my rifles. My 300 Win, my 30/06, and my 7mm Mag. They are the best so far.

Shilen is great. Be sure to telephone them first to discuss your plans. They can provide information on contour and twist. Also, they can perform excellent refinish so barrel and action are matched.
It is an excellent service company.

The rifle that I carry most was barreled by Shilen. Their shop is about a 45 min drive south of my home so I took the action down and picked it up a couple of weeks later. Yes they are a little high on labor cost, and charged me retail for the barrel. I could have ordered the barrel from Brownells and saved $40 and got someone to do the work for a little less and may have saved $100 total. I took them a new Sako action and they installed a 1 in 9 twist 24 in 7mm barrel chambered for the 280 Ackly Imp. The action was trued with the threads, bolt lugs squared with the action and laped, and the bolt face squared with the chamber. I stocked it in some nice fiddleback walnut and it shoots very good, best so far is .283 for 3 shots and average is about .750. That is with 150 gr bullets at 3125 fps. I think that I got what I paid for, If it had not shot well they would have repaired or replaced the barrel.