I received this earlier this week and just thought I would share with the crowd. It's from one of our members here and seems to be a VERY NICE piece of work. As some of you know, gasgunner is the owner of White Oak Armament and White Oak Precision. He makes some of the most accurate AR-15 uppers around. White Oak Precision has a well known reputation in competition circles. What isn't well known is John has a great passion for classic custom rifles. He is in the final stages of offering a new product for custom rifle builders and their customers, one off integral barrels built on CNC machines.

I am very fortunate to be the recipient of one of his prototypes and I'm about to put it to good use. It's a .284 cal barrel that will be chambered in the classic 7X57 when finished. It's 22" long. The shank is set up for a smallring M98 and it's a petite .50 at the muzzle. John worked with James Anderson to spec this barrel out. It should make a very nice little custom. It's going to James on Monday.

That looks like a work of art!

Very nice indeed. More power to him.
Timan

Terry, James, and John, a great start for a beautiful custon as all of yours are.

Very crisp lines. Very nice.

Is that a threaded muzzle I'm looking at?

Terry

What action do you have over at James' place that this barrel is going on?

That barrel sure would look nice on one of my g.33/40 actions!

quote:

Originally posted by clowdis:
Is that a threaded muzzle I'm looking at?

No. That's just extra metal that will be removed when finished. The quarter rib, front ramp and swivel all need final shaping too.

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
Terry

What action do you have over at James' place that this barrel is going on?

Either a BRNO 21H or Granite Mountain .

It's going to be good!

Cost?
Thing of beauty...
Will he do any bore?

quote:

Originally posted by boom stick:
Cost?
Thing of beauty...
Will he do any bore?

I don't know the final cost. I don't think he does either but his goal is to come in at a much better price than some of makers that offered this service in the past. I'm sure bore doesn't matter. If I'm not mistaken I think he mentioned he wanted 3 standard profiles and bore wold determine which one.

Very nice! Hope to talk to White Oak when they are ready to sell to the public.

I love it, and am interested as well.

Fabulous.

I'm pleased that gasgunner has persisted with these barrels.

Please keep us updated with the progress on the build.

Followed his post...was very interesting. Turned out very nice, would like to know what one would cost.

Sunnyhill is making similar barrels for around $2k. Their's are CNC as well. Hopefully, these will go for considerably less.

Terry,

Very nice - look forward to seeing this one come together.

Mike

Me too. Unfortunately the word has gotten out about James Anderson and he's booked solid. I am getting in line though.

Anymore word on what these will cost?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Atkinson:
To me an integrall rib means a full barrel rib including front sight ramp..Not nitpicking just making a statement on my behalf..so what I see is a integral front ramp and a quarter rib, but the swivel is soldered, correct? Can you quote a price its nice work, just wasn't sure what it actually is..

The rib, swivel and front sight base are integral, meaning all made out of one piece of steel. In this case, it is a quarter rib. No solder anywhere. The swivel is integral, not soldered. I made it look like a band as it is actually a little easier, and if desired the gunsmith could easily reshape it into an island style if desired when building the rifle. With the equipment that we have, and the process we are using, I do not think a full length rib is in the cards right now.

Lots of people asking about price. If we do this it is going to be a competitive price. If I can not do that, then there is not reason to go to the trouble. In order to do that, we are likely going to put some limitations on what will be available. If you want a one off, custom half octagon, half round, full rib, custom job, call Duane and pay your money. However, I think if we put some limitations on some of the options, have a few standard configurations, we can utilize the efficiency of the CNC equipment and offer these at a very competitive price.

If anyone has any questions, or input, I am pretty easy to find, just drop me an e-mail or give me a call.

Thanks,
John Holliger

John, are these going to be offered in large bore, .510 or so? Also looking forward to pricing information. Thanks

John
My wife and I have four of your WOA barrels on gas guns; two 16", and two 18." We couldn't be more pleased. I'm helping a friend build two more SPRs with your barrels. One for him, one for his son. I just wanted you to know that your barrels are what I reach for.

Everybody. I have been using Mr. Holiger's products since I sent my youngest stepson off to Iraq with a Recce build in early 2005. He had the most accurate rifle in his SF Battalion (2BN 19th SFG (ABN) (ARNG)).

His pricing has always been fair, it is what it is. I am confident that these barrels will continue that tradition.

By the way, his small parts for ARs are excellent. That reminds me, I need to order two UPKs, and two LPKs.

Thanks for the support Lawndart.

Just to update on where we are on this. We have a few done and are waiting on those to get built up to make sure there are no unforeseen issues. While we are waiting, we are trying to source blanks so we can work out some pricing. One issue is that not every barrel maker can work with the large diameter bar that we are going to need. Also, they do not generally keep 1.625 or larger stock on hand, so we are going to have to purchase a significant quantity of barrels. Finally, when making a button rifled barrel, the diameter of the material needs to be taken into consideration when making the button. Different diameters of material respond differently to the button so the button needs to be sized for the material diameter. For this reason a button will need to be ground for each caliber and twist we decide to offer. We are still pushing forward with this, but the investment is going to be sizable in order to keep the price at a point where it makes sense to do this.

Regards,
John

Thanks for the "heads up" John.

Wish you well in this endeavour.

Post some pictures when someone has one in a finished rifle...........or even "in progress" photos.

Have the barrels cut rifled, Brux would probably do them for you, give Norman a call. They do 50 BMG blanks, so they do at least 1.5" diameter already.

For most of my integral barrels I use Krieger. They can do 2" OD blanks. I believe it's an extra $100 for the larger diameter but you may be able to work something out if you're ordering significant quantities. Douglas also offers an 1.750 blank.

Sunnyhill is using Douglas for their standard barrel offering. Their is a $285 retail and $255 dealer up charge for a Krieger, and they don't do small ring, and they don't do muzzle diameters less than ."570. They will do custom contours for an extra $850 retail $500 dealer. Then it costs $400 retail and $300 dealer to file and polish out the surface tool marks. Of course you can do the file and polish job yourself to save that cost. This is all based on their 2015 brochure. To me, their quarter rib design is reminiscent of typical Ralph Martini barrels. I's nice to see White Oak offer the lighter contour design. I just hope their barrels end up priced more affordable, than Sunnyhill.

Gasgunner,

If you took a 2" blank of 4140 or 416 and machined it with all the integral goodies do you suppose any of the cut rifling makers would then bore, ream and rifle it for you ???

Just kicking around the idea.

quote:

Originally posted by twobobbwana:
Gasgunner,

If you took a 2" blank of 4140 or 416 and machined it with all the integral goodies do you suppose any of the cut rifling makers would then bore, ream and rifle it for you ???

Just kicking around the idea.

I think if you wanted to do that, you would need to bore first, then machine the outside, then final ream and rifle. That may be the ideal way to go about it if cost were no object.

John

You could provide the service and require the customer to provide the blank. Two things would be accomplished. The customer could then use the barrel of his/her choice, and you would not have the expense of financing a large inventory.

quote:

Originally posted by lindy2:
You could provide the service and require the customer to provide the blank. Two things would be accomplished. The customer could then use the barrel of his/her choice, and you would not have the expense of financing a large inventory.

I think that is a great idea! Some advertising in the gun rags wouldn't hurt and or a YouTube video.

I'm not sure it would be a good idea.

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:
I'm not sure it would be a good idea.

Sunnyhill offers both options. Basically "build on yours or mine".

I like the small ring barrel pictured, and one can do a lot with the rib shape. However, a couple more quarter rib design option would be nice. I personally like the look of Ralph Martini's barrels. Your not going to please everyone.

quote:

Originally posted by ColoradoMatt:

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:
I'm not sure it would be a good idea.

Sunnyhill offers both options. Basically "build on yours or mine".

I like the small ring barrel pictured, and one can do a lot with the rib shape. However, a couple more quarter rib design option would be nice. I personally like the look of Ralph Martini's barrels. Your not going to please everyone.

Isn't Sunnyhill out of the integral barrel business.

As John said, you would have to have at a minimum of the drilled and reamed bore. I don't think it could be bored and reamed after Jon's work without a lot of setup. Trying to match the bore with the front sight base afterwords would be a chore.

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:

quote:

Originally posted by ColoradoMatt:

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:
I'm not sure it would be a good idea.

Sunnyhill offers both options. Basically "build on yours or mine".

I like the small ring barrel pictured, and one can do a lot with the rib shape. However, a couple more quarter rib design option would be nice. I personally like the look of Ralph Martini's barrels. Your not going to please everyone.

Isn't Sunnyhill out of the integral barrel business.

As John said, you would have to have at a minimum of the drilled and reamed bore. I don't think it could be bored and reamed after Jon's work without a lot of setup. Trying to match the bore with the front sight base afterwords would be a chore.

Butch,

I think I misunderstood what you were responding to when you said, "I'm not sure it would be a good idea." I assumed you were replying to the idea of having customers supply their barrels. Looks like you were actually commenting on machining an unbored barrel blank?

Timan posted that he thinks Sunnyhill is out of the barrel business, but then he deleted the post. As I was typing this I called Sunnyhill, and they are still making these barrels.

The idea of doing the final reaming and rifling after machining the outside is a good one given what steel can do when you remove so much of it. Danny Pederson of classic barrel and gunworks has done this for me on an integral barrel I made. However I've machined a half dozen Kriegers with the bores finished ahead of time. None of them had any accuracy issues after removing all of the outside material. It may make a minute difference but it's something I don't worry about anymore.

As for Sunny Hill, I just ordered a .416 barrel from them. It was in stock and he said he had several more in that caliber available. It didn't sound like he's out of the integral barrel business at all.

Unabashed "bump".

Was there any more progress on this ??

If done properly there should not be an issue with the bore expanding due to material removal. Will the bore grow, absolutely. Can you measure it? Probably not.

I machined a Shilen (button rifled) 7mm barrel blank, 1.250" diameter the full length, down to a teeny tiny profile, just to test this idea. Is it a conclusive, laboratory test, with all variables removed, no, absolutely not. But I gauged the bore prior, and I gauged the bore after, and while I can only measure .0001" with my gauges, there was no change in bore diameter.