Hello everyone. This is my first post on this site, and I have a question perhaps someone can answer.

I understand that gunsmiths like stainless barrels because the metal is softer and easier to machine than chrome moly barrels. Therefore they can be machined faster (cheaper) and to tighter tolerances for greater accuracy.

If this is true (?), what about the life of the barrel with high pressure loads compared to the chrome moly barrels?

I have had ss bbls installed on .30 cal. guns and they shot out more rapidly than the stock bbls, or they seemed to.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

James

SS will hold up better to both stress corrosion and stress erosion. Both of these are factors that "shoot out" barrels when firing cartridges.

How can a softer material stand up better to stress erosion?
The two custom barrels I had would "ding" pretty easily on the outside if hit against something like angle iron. Maybe they were softer than normal.

Most custom barrel makers use 24-28 Rockwell hardness on both CM and SS. I have used both on BR barrels and can't tell a difference in life. I can't tell much difference in machining. I don't use too many CM, because I don't like to fool with blueing or whatever.
Butch

quote:

Originally posted by jamese2841:
Hello everyone. This is my first post on this site, and I have a question perhaps someone can answer.

I understand that gunsmiths like stainless barrels because the metal is softer and easier to machine than chrome moly barrels. Therefore they can be machined faster (cheaper) and to tighter tolerances for greater accuracy.

If this is true (?), what about the life of the barrel with high pressure loads compared to the chrome moly barrels?

I have had ss bbls installed on .30 cal. guns and they shot out more rapidly than the stock bbls, or they seemed to.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

James

Stainless barrels are a little easier to maintain than Chrome moly, and because of the higher nickel content, they handle the higher temperatures alittle better than Chrome moly.

Stainless barrels are soft compared to Chrome moly and can be damaged very easy. The surface is soft making them more prone to galling. If your not careful when chambering a Stainless barrel, you can snag a chip and damage the chamber beyond repair. Because the stuff scratches so much easier than Chrome moly, you can damage a Stainless barrel if you're not careful in how you clean it.

As far as accuracy goes, I have experienced superb performance from both Stainless and Chrome moly. In the field, I would have no problem using either, though my personal preference runs more towards a good hand lapped Chrome moly barrel. But then I'm a Marine and keep my weapons spotless.

quote:

Originally posted by jamese2841:
Hello everyone. This is my first post on this site, and I have a question perhaps someone can answer.

I understand that gunsmiths like stainless barrels because the metal is softer and easier to machine than chrome moly barrels. Therefore they can be machined faster (cheaper) and to tighter tolerances for greater accuracy.

I doubt seriously that this is true at all....further, can you name a single smith that installs stainless barrels for less than CM barrels?

If this is true (?), what about the life of the barrel with high pressure loads compared to the chrome moly barrels?

The conventional wisdom is that stainless barrels achieve 30% greater life. I can't say this is true however.

I have had ss bbls installed on .30 cal. guns and they shot out more rapidly than the stock bbls, or they seemed to.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

James

In my lifetime, I've worked on (possibly) 50 CM barrels and six stainless ones.....a small number compared to many here....but so far can see no difference or advantage in stainless other than bluing.

quote:

Originally posted by jamese2841:
Hello everyone. This is my first post on this site, and I have a question perhaps someone can answer.

I understand that gunsmiths like stainless barrels because the metal is softer and easier to machine than chrome moly barrels. Therefore they can be machined faster (cheaper) and to tighter tolerances for greater accuracy.

If this is true (?), what about the life of the barrel with high pressure loads compared to the chrome moly barrels?

I have had ss bbls installed on .30 cal. guns and they shot out more rapidly than the stock bbls, or they seemed to.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

James

Not all stainless steel barrels are the same. I read once that some of the rebore companies want rebore some of the European stainless steel barrels because the steel is so hard.

Jamese-

I am not trying to be a smart ass, but to toally answer your question would require several undergradute and graduate level mechanical engineering classes. SS is more resistant. And stress corrosion is what really eats away the throat of most barrels. I know, I know, the hunting and gun mags have said for years it is "erosion," not "corrosion," but I have universally found gun and hunting magazines to have the most back asswards statements on engineering, the laws of physics, the laws of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and just about anything else they try to sound like an expert on. Stress Corrosion is what kills your throat, and SS holds up better. Depending on circumstances, it may not be a whole lot better, but it will be better.

The hardness of the metal is not easliy determined by how easy it was for you to ding one vs. the other. In order to test the hardness requires doing things under controlled conditions. Dings that get put in firearms during normal useage come from a variety of things and happen under different conditions. You would have to know exactly how hard each barrel was struck, the geometry of section of barrel where it was struck, the geometry the object striking the barrel, and some other stuff. Sufice to say, measuring the number of dings at the end of the season and comparing the two barrels does not really tell you much.

Please believe me when I say I promise I am not trying to come off as a smart ass, but to just directly answer your post.

While he probably doesn’t have as much experience with barrels as the guys here on AR do ( ) here’s what John Krieger has to say:

Q: Which is better Chrome Moly or Stainless Steel?

A: For the most part neither one is better than the other. The only difference we find is that sometimes the chrome moly might take a little longer to break-in and might have a little more affinity for copper or seems to show it easier. In terms of barrel life and accuracy, we can find no difference.

Army aviator is right, it all depends on the quality and type of stainless being used. A very widely used stainless for barrels is 416R, a umm...sorta medium carbon stainless with a fairly high tensile strength and fairly easy to machine, while other like 17-ph which is used occasionally is quite difficult to work with. Trust me, I'm a USMC Machinist, I've ran into it all.
Now what gets me is stainless being easier to machine than chrome moly? Not exactly true. I can already tell you machining most of the stainless alloys are a pain in the ass compared to most carbon steels and alloys. Almost all of the stainless alloys, with the exception of say 416 and 430F, are fairly gummy when machining and are fickle when taking roughing cuts on a lathe. Than they have the tendecy to work harden fairly fast, another crappy part about working with stainless. It is that very phenomenon which allows most stainless barrels to last longer than a CM, as well as their natural resistance to heat. Also, most stainless steels used commonly in the firearms industry have a tendency to be a mite stiffer than a chrome moly barrel, which tends to aid in the accuracy department.
Hopefully this answers a few questions and helps out a bit. Now I have to get back to working on a project that I haven't had enough time to work on in this past month!

Well, I asked for it and I got some really good info. It will take me a little time to sort thru it all but I thank everyone for some really good input. Apparantly some of my assumptions were a little of the mark.

No BS and no wise ass remarks, just good stuff.

Thanks a lot.

Jamese

Mr.Metalsmith, how do you figure that a SS barrel is stiffer than a CM?
Butch

james,there might be various qualities of stainless and CM steels that I am not aware of.Of the 4 ss barrels that I owned It seemed that there accuracy span was shorter than the CM.

According to SS barrels.
I personaly prefer the Term "moderatly rustinhibited automatiksteel"

I ame sure that the guy with the observation that there is a wide qualityvariation in the "ss" material is correct.

Over many years we have used the oportunity to gather Rockwell C tests on many diferent barrels that we have Shaped or installed.

The typical hardnes on many CroMo barrels is from 24-31HrC, The tendency is that hammerforged huntingbarrels is about 24-26 HrC, While many cutrifeled or buttonrifled is from 28-30HrC

What we have tested of SS barrels, the readings has varyed from 5-31HrC
Actualy the 2 extremes was from the same German producer.
Several Select Match barels from a US manufacture was betwen 14-17 HrC
Border was very constant 25-26HrC
2 Lilja was 30
A testmaterial in 430F where we took several readings just whwn delivered from the steelmill, shoved readings from 8-21, depending on dimention. We decided to stop the testing on this material, and forgot about it for 6 years, where the blanks was left in an corner. We decided to test it again, and was werry suprised, that after 6 years, the material had "leveled" out, and all the dimentions showed 14-15HrC

We have over the years performed several test to determin "lifetome" of barrels in varius materials.
Our main test purpose was target barrels for 300 meters competition, where you often shoots up to 150 rounds in 1 single event. The scraplimmit was when the barrel was unable to produce 10 rd 1MOA groups at 300meter.
We have seen SS barels that was able to deliver the same lifetime as CrMo barrels, but never longer lifetime. The soft SS barrels lived only 25% compared to the CrMo and hard SS.

One testperson used 3 SS Select Match barrels in caliber 6.5-06 they lasted from 1100-1400 rds, then he got installed one cutrifeled CrMo barrel, with a slight chock efect in the muzzle. The last we heard from him was that he has fiered more than 8000 rds and it was still going better than 1MOA, with medium-heavy bullets.

I think that the most objectiv conclution is that SS can be just as good, but seldom better than CrMo. But many SS barels are to soft and therefor has a way to short lifetime.

There might be something about that there tende to be less vibrations in some SS barels. Maby because of the softnes, and therefor less Resonance.

Personaly i dont like SS, because of the normaly lower tensile strength, and the problem of beeing brittle in extrem cold weather.

What some manufacturer describe as that it is possible to keep tighter tolerence in SS, is from my point of vue, just a matter og tecknique. It might be correct in Buttonrifeled barrels. But in cutrifeled, ther is no diference.
It seemes to be a problem cutrifeling some types of SS, when using "scrapecutters". People who uses "Hook cutters" dont find the same problems.

quote:

According to SS barrels.
I personaly prefer the Term "moderatly rustinhibited automatiksteel"

Jorgen,
excellent post!

I think a bit of the myth of stainless barrels has been shed here.

When I hear folks talk about hardness I think of the oldtimers that called 303 stainless hard because it dulled their HS Steel cutting tools so quickly but it wasn't hard at asll...just abrasive and SS got the (wrong) reputation for being hard.

Today I am likely to doubt anyones assessment of "hard" or "soft" unless the comment is accompanied with a Rc reading.....and BTW I'm not at all sure what tests are done for "stiffness".....just never measured it!!

I for one apreciate your posts as you back your posts with data and not just assumptions created to explain a few circumstances.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
I for one apreciate your posts as you back your posts with data and not just assumptions created to explain a few circumstances.

There is Jørgen. He knows his shit, and has tested his knowledge. A bit zhitzofrenic when it comes to BLAZZZER, but all by all a hell of a guy!

I guess my assumption that SS barrels are more accurate than CM is that I have seen some shops advertise tighter tolerances on them. Why so?

Also, it bothers me that there is such a great range in the specs for SS barrels. How does one know what you are getting?

James

Firstoff I have to say Jorgen that was a excellent post, great observations and knowledge behind that.
Vapodog is correct, most stainless alloys are rather abrasive and hard to machine as I had mentioned above, and cause HS cutting tools to dull quickly. Carbide is usually recommended for stainless alloys due to their unusual machining characteristics.
One thing I would like to mention is the fact that 430F is a ferritic stainless steel, meaning you can't really do much in terms of heat treating it, and respond to cold working mildly. That is the reason for the wild changes in the HRC when it was tested. Now as for it settling down, I believe most ferritic stainless steels have a tendency to air harden over the years of being left alone.
Now Mr. Butchlambert, as for my quote of stainless steels showing a tendency to be a bit stiffer than Chrome Moly barrels, it is due to the chromium content of the stainless which, when using the correct alloy and proper heat treatment if applicable, allows the alloy to be a bit stiffer. This is particularly true to using a barrel made of 416R, being it's what's considered a free machining martinistic alloy, allows it to transform what's called the austenitic particles into a carbide called pearlite, or bainite depending on the temperature. Chromium promotes the formation of these little carbides in stainless alloys when heat treated. This creates a stiffer barrel. Now if it were a perfect world and there was more knowledge as to heat treating stainless steels, or the proper alloys for firearms industries, than we wouldn't have these little problems with stainless barrels. This is my assumption but I imagine most of these wonderful firearms manufacturers are probably throwing on raw, untreated barrels of unproper alloy and going off the sales pitch that Hey, it's stainless! It won't rust!
Now what I'd like to see is a stainless barrel, properly heat treated mind you, maybe using 440A alloy, or maybe even 420J2. Expensive, yes, but properly made it would probably outshoot 2 or 3 chrome moly barrels in the same chambering.

BTW Jorgen, by no means am I trying to offend you with this post but are you aware of how many stainless or even semi-stainless alloys there are out there? As for quality, heat treating stainless is a careful process which most barrel makers probably don't want to really take care about. But there are several alloys in the U.S. alone, not to metion hundreds of thousands outside the U.S. and there are several which are applicable to the firearms industry.

think I'll jump in with a bit of history - as i remember it stainless was brought into barrels with the 54 winchester to try and combat the corrosive priming. Then it was used by high volume target shooters because the errosion of the throats took a bit longer to occur. I guess i've had several hundred to both types and find very little difference, so long as they were decent to start with. that said I do believe that the chrome molly holds a bit of an edge in the accuracy dept. more so in actions yet.

quote:

Originally posted by The Metalsmith:
BTW Jorgen, by no means am I trying to offend you with this post but are you aware of how many stainless or even semi-stainless alloys there are out there? As for quality, heat treating stainless is a careful process which most barrel makers probably don't want to really take care about. But there are several alloys in the U.S. alone, not to metion hundreds of thousands outside the U.S. and there are several which are applicable to the firearms industry.

I ame never offended from a qualifyed reply or question

To be honnest, i dont know of the many diferent types of SS out there.(And i realy dont care, as long as the SS rifleproducers dont come up with any better than currently )
I do know atleast som of the results, of when "stainless steel" is used in the rifleindustry, and only in a few occations, it impresses me
I ame sure that it is posible to make high quality barrels and actions in SS. But the generel tendence is obviusly to make mediocre products, and make the avarage customer belive that it is the best obtainable

We are living in a world where many customers wants 400$ WallMart rifles. So dont expect more than just the absolute minimal from the "throw away" prodicts, produced by many today.

If one should produce real high quality Stainless Steel barrels, with better strength and wear quality, it would be both werry expencive, and a pain in the a** to produce, specialy because of the tendency to harden on deformation, witch is typical for high grade SS.

Over the years we have done quite some deephole drilling in many diferent types of SS(mainly as subcontracters for Deary plants producers, beer distributing plants, and also a lot of sensor pockets, for processplants) And belive me i do understand why most SS barrels are made from lo quality "rust inhibited automaticsteel"

hi jörgen
Do you mean all ss barrels are made of low quality steel ? Lw 17%Cr -4%Ni is not a low quality steel and heyms krup stainless steel is a very fine steel with compsition like this C=0,35 Cr 17% molibdenium=1,3% Ni 0,9% and very low amount of fosfor and sulfur . can you compar these steels to 416R which is a high sulfur automatic screw makin steel unfortunately there are many barrel makers in the world which want to make money without working for it. all the problem is because the cheap 416R is very cheap and easy for barrel making.would you please talk about those european made ss barrels which had a very low hardness in HRC unit. i'll be grateful to know more about their trade mark to avoid buying crappy barrels in future.
regards
yes

quote:

Originally posted by jørgen:

quote:

Originally posted by The Metalsmith:
BTW Jorgen, by no means am I trying to offend you with this post but are you aware of how many stainless or even semi-stainless alloys there are out there? As for quality, heat treating stainless is a careful process which most barrel makers probably don't want to really take care about. But there are several alloys in the U.S. alone, not to metion hundreds of thousands outside the U.S. and there are several which are applicable to the firearms industry.

I ame never offended from a qualifyed reply or question

To be honnest, i dont know of the many diferent types of SS out there.(And i realy dont care, as long as the SS rifleproducers dont come up with any better than currently )
I do know atleast som of the results, of when "stainless steel" is used in the rifleindustry, and only in a few occations, it impresses me
I ame sure that it is posible to make high quality barrels and actions in SS. But the generel tendence is obviusly to make mediocre products, and make the avarage customer belive that it is the best obtainable

We are living in a world where many customers wants 400$ WallMart rifles. So dont expect more than just the absolute minimal from the "throw away" prodicts, produced by many today.

If one should produce real high quality Stainless Steel barrels, with better strength and wear quality, it would be both werry expencive, and a pain in the a** to produce, specialy because of the tendency to harden on deformation, witch is typical for high grade SS.

Over the years we have done quite some deephole drilling in many diferent types of SS(mainly as subcontracters for Deary plants producers, beer distributing plants, and also a lot of sensor pockets, for processplants) And belive me i do understand why most SS barrels are made from lo quality "rust inhibited automaticsteel"

I’m sure that John Krieger,Ed Shilen and Gary Schneider would be interested to know that the stainless barrels they produce for the BR community and Military sniper rifles are inferior.

If stainless barrels are so inferior, then why are the most accurate rifles in the world built using stainless barrels(416R no less)? Why are some of the very best custom BR actions also made of stainless? I guess cause stainless is junk.

I have a Sendero in ss and once tried to get it rebarreled. I think the gunsmith refused to rebarrel on my action or said that it was not done on that type of stainless action.The type of stainless on actions like the HS precision is harder and more suitable for actions,he said.

This whole debate seems to be comparing apples and bananas.
If jou read my posts here, what i statet was:
1: Cuality of socalled Stainless barrelsteel, varyes so mutch that it is dificult to look at it as 1 type of steel.

2: Only a small portion of SS has a tensile and Yield strength that matches CrMo steel

3: Only a small portion of SS has the same lifetime as CrMo barrels
.
4: some producers say they can keep tighter tolerence in SS. Other producers dont have the same problem, keeping the same tolerences in CrMo(might be a matter of teknique)

5: there is no doubt that ss barrels can be just as accurate as CrMo barrels, for a short number of rounds.

The thing i mainly oppose is the completly uncritical evaluation, by some, of SS beeing mutch more accurate, and capable of eternal lifetime

Beeing accurate, is not the same as being strong, or wearresistent.

I dont belive any competent barrelmakers can be offended by any of the above mentioned

I’ll give you an A+ for editing, and a D- for reading comprehension.

jorgen,I agree with you 100%

quote:

Originally posted by fyj:
I’ll give you an A+ for editing, and a D- for reading comprehension.

Hi Fyj
When you are finished laughing Couldn't yoy enlighten us with some facts regarding fysical data on the diferent barrelmakers Stainless Steel.
Of special interest could be Tensile strength, Yieldstrength, Elongation% A5, and also Shear strength.
I have seen some qoutes from qualifyed barrelmakers according advantages of SS contra CrMo. All i have seen, is that the makers that uses the higher quality of SS all states that ther is no measurable benefits (Kriger, Border and as i remember a few others)

It is wery dificult to find any dokumentations about lifetime on varyus steelquality. But i can assure you that the 1000 rounds mentioned in BR cirkles, would make my contacts in long range UIT competitions, come banging on my dor(not to buy more barrels) rather to throw the old barrels into my face in anger

We actualy have customers complaining about there barrels beeing worn out within 6000 rounds, to a degre, where they dont trust them for the next Nordic championship

While it is true that some BR shooters chuck a barrel when its only got 1K rounds through it, others do not. But this is really a function of extreme accuracy anyway. A winning BR gun needs to be capable of agging in the .1's and when it starts agging in the .2's, the top shooters chuck it. This is also a function of cartridge. The 6 ppc seems to wear barrels out quickly for some reason, but other cartridges are more friendly. Take the more recent cartride on the scene in short range BR, the 30br. This little chambering is known to let competitors shoot their stainless barrels into much later life(5K-8K rounds).

jorgen,

Here’s one of your comments:

“The thing I mainly oppose is the completly uncritical evaluation, by some, of SS beeing mutch more accurate, and capable of eternal lifetime.â€

Who said SS barrels are much more accurate and have eternal lifetimes? I know I certainly didn’t, nor have I ever seen a barrel manufacturer make such a claim. Read the quote from John Kreiger I posted above. Since I don’t know you I’m only guessing at this, But I would bet that John Kreiger knows far more about barrel making, barrel steels and accuracy than you do. I also don’t believe that any of the makers of barrels are going to use inferior steel that is not suitable for rifle barrels. The life and accuracy of their barrels is their calling card and they would have absolutely no reason to build other than top quality barrels using top quality materials and techniques.

Personally, I use mostly CM barrels but that’s only because most of my rifles are blued. I have CM and Stainless barrels made by Shilen and Krieger and I cannot see the slightest difference in accuracy between the different steels. I also have several rifles with Gary Schneiders stainless barrels and one of them probably has 15,000 or so rounds through it and still shoots great. What’s “great†for me though would probably not be what a competitive BR shooter would consider great.

Jorgen, again a good observation, this is completely true about our wonderful Wally World specials. Comparing one of those barrels to say a Krieger is like comparing a Toyota to a BMW. It's relieving to speak to someone who has experience in working with metal and knows how difficult it is to work with SS.
fyj, what Jorgen's arguement was is the general amount of stainless steel barrels produced by firearms makers are crap. Yeah there's those rare ones from certain firearms makers that sneak through that are better than other, everyone's got that story. But compared to what you have mentioned as far as custom barrels, there's no comparison and there's no doubt those barrel makers do know about making barrels, it's their job! And their stainless barrels are going to be better than a normal run of the mill production rifle barrel. It's a simple arguement. Creating a quality stainless barrel takes more knowledge and skill than it does creating a quality chrome moly barrel, and if say Remington created barrels on par with the quality of Gary Schneider, than the prices would be jacked up another $200 easily, probably more. Now I must ask however, what sort of experience do you have working with metals? Have you ever deep-drilled or worked with a non-free machining stainless steel? Or even drilled for that matter, or shaped any stainless steels? If you have, you'd understand how difficult and time-consuming, as well as cost-consuming, producing a stainless barrel of quality composition and proper heat treatment is. Than try taking a bar of chrome moly, say 4140, and compare the process of producing a similar product. I can guarantee the 4140 product will be faster and easier to produce.
This post isn't to argue and compare apple to oranges, rather to throw out the myths and facts so people not familiar with the differences and variances between stainless barrels and their reputation against chrome moly barrels to learn and understand. Thank you.

Semper Fi, and thank you for your service. I’m an old Mud-Marine myself.How long have you been in the Corps?

Yes I do have some experience working with steel, and yes I have worked with both CM and stainless, but I have no idea what that has to do with the comments made by jorgan about the suitability of stainless steel for rifle barrels. No one has claimed that stainless is easier to work with.

The fact that some manufacturers turn out crappy barrels has little or nothing to do with the particular steel they are using. Case in point, Kreiger, Shilen, and Gary Schneider (who used to make the stainless barrels for the M40’s, maybe still does) all use the same series of stainless steel as do the factories turning out the crappy barrels.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I have a Sendero in ss and once tried to get it rebarreled. I think the gunsmith refused to rebarrel on my action or said that it was not done on that type of stainless action.The type of stainless on actions like the HS precision is harder and more suitable for actions,he said.

his complaint was in the action? odd.
every sendero, each and every one of them, wears a shilen barrel from the factory, for what that's worth.

jeffe

hi
there are many different methods of making a rifle barrel. i have always heared that hammer-forged barrels last longer du to the better steel structure and higher surface hardness.true or fals? many gun factories use this method and use stainless steel for making barrels. i have a ruger all weather i don't know which kind of steel ruger use ,but i doubt if they use 416R because high sulfur steel is not suitable for hammer forging methods. i don't understand why cut or button rifling would be a better choice than hammerforging method. would you please explain it to me. a hammer forged ss barrel would be a long lasting barrel if the things are done properly. isn't it? why kreiger use 410 instead of the famous 416R in their sporter barrels?.
regards
yazid

Didn't Kreiger just stopped making 410 barrels? The SS from Crucible that Shilen, Kreiger, and some of the other custom barrel makers use is 24-30 on the Rockwell C scale. I have a Wilson 500 series dual trace tester. For fun I just checked 4 barrels, both Kreiger and Shilen. I checked CM and SS in ea. brand. All 4 were 27-29 Rockwell C. They are 416R SS. I can't tell any difference barreling CM or SS. I am not a gunsmith, but I have chambered a lot of BR barrels. I tried a few CM barrels for BR rifles and saw no difference in the longevity between the 2.
Butch

Here is some good reading material for those who are interested in Crucible 416R Stainless used for gun barrels:
http://www.crucibleservice.com/datash/ds416Rv4.pdf?CFID...562&CFTOKEN=76288587

This one looks interesting:

http://www.crucibleservice.com/eselector/prodbyapp/stainless/174sxrs.html

i wish more barrel makers making barrel made of crucuble 17.4sxr steel which is absolutly a better steel. even för a higher price . let the cosmmer decide which kind of steel they want in the barrels they buy. all i see is barrel made of 416R. is there any US barrel maker using 17.4 sxr in their barrels?.
yazid

Does anyone know if Shilen has changed SS material over the last 6 years, because all 1o testsamples i have collected in the period 1995 - 2000 all shows HRC readings betwen 14-17.
This semes way softer than the 416 R specifications linked by Malm

jeffeeoso,if sendero ss rifles have shilen barrels then I'll have to flunk them.I think that hammerforged barrels are rougher than match barrels only at the begining and then get smoother with fireings.I feel that hammerforged machinary is not affordable,that is why we have "match barrels".If I am not crazy,the Sendero ss barrel it came with was damaged by a bronze cleaning brush,so was my remington blackpowder stainless rifle.I am very happy with remington CM rifles.