Ok got my G2 and now I want more.
Have decided on the 222REM and am looking for a barrel.
Fox Ridge does one at a reasonable cost then we go up from there.
I have found Bullberry and Match Grade, are there any others?
What kind of recommendations can you give?
Also what is there for websites and forums for Contenders? (found Bellm and Ed's)

Thanks,
Smedley

PS Happy New Year!!!!

There's also Dave Van Horn in Gilbert, AZ and SSK Industries (http://www.sskindustries.com) in Ohio along with Mike Sirois (he can be found on the specialty pistols forum and does business as OTT). Fox Ridge is NOT a custom shop, although they call themselves such. These are standard TC factory barrels that have the options of different finishes, lengths and calibers. You may get a great one, but then again, they recently turned out a .38 Spl. Match barrel that was grossly oversized in the chamber area -- so much so that a large bulge was present on the fired brass. You can see the details on http://www.bellmtcs.com.
Both Match Grade Machine and Bullberry feature barrels in existing inventory that can be had at a savings over the "ordered" price, and there's no waiting. Any of the customs can be counted on to produce superb accuracy on a consistent basis.

What he said. There are some links on the home page below and a links page with more.

Like Bobby said a 'true' custom job will not come from Fox Ridge. They just cut a chamber....non standard from the TC line up. Most often these are very accurate and depending on what you plan to do with it and how much you want to spend it is your choice to make. I have/or have had several BBs, Virgin Valleys, Match Grades and factory barrels.
If I were just getting started in the obsession that is TCs I would start with a factory barrel.....no significant waiting, cost half as much and you can always sell them for nearly what you have into them. Shoot it awhile and if you like it but want a bit more (sometimes only a very slight amount more)accuracy....buy a full up custom job.

Smedley, I had a TC 14 inch .223 which was OK. Based strictly on what I have heard, I will opt for OTT for my next .223. I've been to Fox Ridge Outfitters, and it looks like thye just finish chambered barrels that come out of the TC factory 100 yards away. That may only be true of the calibers that TC offers, but I'm not sure. When I inquired about lead time, one of the variables mentioned was getting the blank out of the TC plant. THe true custom guys aren't really that much more expensive, I've found.

I have several very good barrels from Bullberry . . . in Contender: 2 17HMR, 1 22WMR . . . in Encore: 1 260 Rem, 1 6.5x284, 1 7x57

All shoot exceptionally well (assuming I do what I'm supposed to, which I obviously don't always do!). In other words, these barrels are more accurate than I am. However, Fred does chamber these very tightly, and you need to be very precise when reloading these (more so than in reloading for a factory bolt action, for example).

FWIW, Bullberry is who I'd go with if all you're looking for is a straight up round barrel. If you want something more esoteric (i.e. fluting, octagon, 1/2 octagon) you'd need to go with Match Grade Machine (with whom I have no experience). Although Christiansen Arms no longer advertises Carbon Fiber Barrels for the Encore or Contender, a guy here in Uvalde said that he talked to them and that they would make one (pricey, though).

Troy

http://www.OTLLC.com Good products, reasonable turn around time.
I think the Fox Ridge barrels do have a little more tuning and hand fitting, but they are just different chamberings of the same basic blanks that come from next door at T/C. I do not know how it is done at T/C, but I have made barrels for a living and know it's easier to run one or just a few calibers at a time. The process involves drilling, then reaming (one to three passes depending on the quality involved), and then button rifling. Also there are measuring and quality check at each stage and a whole set of gauges and other paraphenalia for each caliber. It's a major undertaking for a large factory to change over all of the tooling involved, so there might understandibly be some waiting involved for certain calibers. The less often you have to break everything down and change over the more efficient and cost effective the operation.
A custom shop, on the other hand, may only be operating four or six drill spindles and reaming tables. No big deal to switch over a small number. With the buttoning machine it's as easy as switching the rod that holds the button and resetting the twist rate.

Versifier, a friend of mine who now works doing machine work on airplanes (very precise stuff) used to work making barrels for an outfit in the SW USA. It sounded like they used to do the the drilling and subsequent buttoning on a lathe. Is that possible? How would a small shop or custom outfit likely do the process? I'm only interested from a manufacturing and process engineering standpoint. I'm no expert on the subject but like to understand how things work. Also, when you speak of drilling, how would this be done, if not on a lathe? - If it can even be done there.

Ferdinandd, While it might be possible to do it on a lathe, it would not be practical in my opinion. The spindle speeds in deep hole drills are at around 5000rpm & up. There are usually two spindles on the machine, though I have been told of ones with single and triple spindles, I have never seen them. The super high speed helps to keep the bit centered over its long length. The drills are hollow fluted rods made of thin metal to which a carbide tip with a central hole is silver soldered. Cutting oil is forced through it at high pressure to keep the tip cool and to force out the chips as the hole deepens. They are not particularly stiff and will start to bend if they clog or dull and cannot keep up with the feed speed. The pitch of the sound it makes changes abruptly when that happens and you have to quickly start hittin buttons and moving levers to disengage the feed. If you're not quick enuogh and one lets go, everyone in the near vicinity gets an oil bath, and I do mean a bath! It is a highly specialized tool that does only one job.
The lathe, on the other hand, cannot be operated at a high enough speed to prevent runout. Maybe you would have some luck with a short pistol barrel and a rigid cannon drill, but it would be a slow process and you would have a lot of rejects from offcenter runout as the rigid suspended bit will still vibrate and walk under load. It's not like zipping a little hole with a twist drill in a tailstock chuck. The smallest shop I have observed was at Hart Custom Barrels in upstate NY in the late 80's, and they used the same deep hole machines we did. We just ran a lot more of them. (Most of them are all WWII surplus that were sold off very cheaply in the late 40's. They will last forever if properly maintained - I believe most of them were made by Pratt & Whitney, but it was cast into the base of the machine and you don't look down when you're responsible for six or eight spindles running at the same time!)
As to button rifling, I cannot see how it could possibly be done on a lathe. There are two ways I know of to do it. In the first, the carbide button is silver soldered onto a solid rod the other end of which is inserted through the tightly clamped barrel blank, clamped in a special chuck, and pulled with great force through the blank while being rotated the precise number of turns to create the desired twist rate. I have also seen a loose button pushed through - that button had the helix angle formed into its body so that it rotated independently of the push rod as it was forced through.
Lathes are designed to spin things, not push or pull them. I suppose that one might be set up to CUT rifling in a very short barrel, but it would have to be some sort of piloted unit with the cutter or cutters protruding precisely a set amount from the body of the tool, and readjusted for multiple passes. A long specialty tool was set up to cut the rifling in long M/L barrels, and we ran six of them on three machines, but I was not trained on them except to shut them down in an emergency if they started making a certain godawful noise.
Pictures of deep hole drills and a better overview of the process can be found at http://www.gmriflebarrel.com Go to "About Us" and there are shots of some of the machines and operations involved. It's a lot more computerized than it was when I worked there in the 80's, but they are putting out at least 100x the volume we did then and have, I believe, over a hundred workers where we ran it all with five.

Versifier, thanks for the education on barrel making. I see that you are in NH, and you indicated that you worked for a barrel shop or a gun manufacturer. Ruger or TC? Just a guess, given you location. How long would it typically take to drill a barrel on the machines that you described?