Friends-

Right, wrong or indifferently the .264 Win Mag has the reputation for being hard on barrels particularly throats. Some would subscribe that the previous statement is a "old wives tale."

I am in the dreaming/planning stage of a rifle project and I am really contemplating a chrome moly barrel in order to stay away from the bluing stainless steel debate. Although, there used to be a gentleman in Pennsylvania of the name of J. Korzinek (spelling ???) whose claim to fame was bluing stainless with a vegatable based dye, IIRC.

Question is, if you were to build a .264 Winnie would you use a stainless or chrome moly barrel?

Thanks in advance.

It's no tougher on throats than a 257 Weatherby and MK V have been sold for years with CM barrels. OTOH, SST is generally more resistant to erosion and doesn't add much cost to the project. Personally, I'd go with SST and have the surface bead blasted to a dull grey finish.

I'm not a fan of the look of SS on my hunting rifles so the choice is easy for me.

In reality, you would be hard pressed to wear out the barrel under normal hunting conditions with normal pressure loads. And if you shoot so much that you do wear it out, a new barrel will cost a tiny fraction of your annual ammo bill

If you check with the barrel makers, I believe they will tell you that SS is more EROSION resistant than CM. I also believe that the original Winchester barrels were SS and iron plated, then blued. It's no trick to get a SS barrel blued and usually not any more money.