I'm thinking of rebarreling my Sako 243. This is a bit of a waste as it is very accurate and not at all worn it's just a 21.5" barrel is LOUD, too near my ears and does not give the best balance. It will allmost certainly remain a 243.

My local gunshop (Fulton's at Bisley - very accuracy orientated) will fit a Border Barrel for £500 or a Lothar Walther for £300. Both will be exact copies so the barrel channel and bedding will not be affected. This is the reason for limiting it to these 2 companies.

Any comments on the relative quality of these (chrome moly) barrels. The factory barrel shoots 0.5" and is very consistant - I would not want any worse.

1894mk2

I would go for the UK made Border. All six border barrels I had been great I prefer cut-rifled barrels to button rifled.

Dr Kolbe used to offer rebarreling at a modest fee. My only Lothar Walther barrel was a disaster, so was their customer service

Support UK's shooting industry, buy British

Cheers
/ JOHAN

You'll have a hard time going wrong with either of the two. But all in all, I'm probably with Johan. I have not been very impressed with LW's ability to communicate with potential customers, and Border makes cut-rifled barrels.

But as I said, either will probably deliver a very accurate barrel. Whether the replacement barrel will actually live up to the factory tube, to a large degree also depends on the smith that chambers and installs it.

- mike

P.S. Just an aside. You know you should have your head examined, if you want to change a factory barrel that shoots 0.5" groups because it is 1" too short!! Tsk, tsk. Use the 500 quid to go hunting in the Alps instead. But I guess it is your money, your gun and your dreams. I'm not always that super rational in my gun projects either

Mike,

It's about 3" too short and a lot cheaper than the custom 6x62 I'm fighting against!
Also it's not so accurate on 100s so a 9" twist would be good. (currently a 10)


As a platform for a 243 it is near perfection so a good barrel (seeing as it's expenses time) seems fitting. I'll keep the Sako one in case I ever need to moderate it.

That is very different from my experience with LW here in the USA. The plant manager, Woody, will spend as much time as you need to anser any and all questions and the barrels I have from them are exceptional!

Mike

This is a kind of wild suggestion, but if I had a .5 MOA barrel and the only problem was length, I would consider having a gunsmith thread the end of it and screw an extension on, obviously with a slightly larger than .243 hole. You could even make it with interchangeable wts. if you're really concerned about balance.