Installed a Douglas 7mm, 1-9 twist, medium target barrel, 7mm Rem Mag; took it to the range yesterday for the new owner to test it. No load work up,, no special prep, and wind was blowing at 35 MPH all day. Temp 87.
162 Hornady ELD-x. IMR4831, customers, max, loads.
From the very start, and for the next 20 shots, playing with the scope (until we got bored of it's accuracy) consistently put bullets into .75 inch, AT 200 YARDS!!!. No cleaning.
That is .375 MOA. Damn thing shoots crazily accurate and consistent.
Douglas Barrels are the best, no question about it. I am convinced it is their attention to detail, and their gear driven rifling machines.
Did you know that they make .333, .404 Jeffery, and .290 barrels and about 50 others? Look at their new website and see.
And they have patterns for about 25 commercial rifles too?

I never had to replace Douglas barrel due to mfg. issues. Can't say that about many of the others. Now..if they could only pay attention to getting rid of all those ripples on the outside, they'd have a winner

I've pretty well settled on Lothar Walther as my "go to" barrel.

That's outstanding!

But like Mr. Wiebe says the outside is atrocious!

Most all barrel makers are doing a great job these days. There isn't much excuse for the outside finish of the 2 Douglas barrels I have used.

I'm pretty happy with the Douglas barrel on my 458 Win Mag, it put three bullets touching at 50 yards with my first three shots.

The modern tooling and better steel quality makes for better barrels.

Here's how the Douglas barrel on my LH Zastava 458 Win Mag shoots.

Hmm; I'll look into that ripple thing; I have about 20 of them here.
Maybe you are getting the rough turned ones instead of finish turned and polished option. But the performance of Douglas, I find, is as good as any, including the high priced cut rifled ones, and better than most, including the high end ones.

Good information. Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
Hmm; I'll look into that ripple thing; I have about 20 of them here.
Maybe you are getting the rough turned ones instead of finish turned and polished option. But the performance of Douglas, I find, is as good as any, including the high priced cut rifled ones, and better than most, including the high end ones.

Nope! finish turned and polished (sort of) About an hour of draw filing/polish to bring them up to snuff

They must have a new guy/girl on polishing. I am going to ask them; The barrels I have don't have any issues.

I always bought the rough turned ones on the assumption I would have to file them anyway. At least the contours are good. Shilens have always been pretty bad for ripples too.
In the end, I don't really care since I can do the outside as long as the inside is good. Regards, Bill.

Only used one and got it as a blank from a guy that changed his mind on a build. I thought it was one hell of a buy: $80 delivered.

What I used for the .358U/M build. Haven't shot it for groups yet. 28" with 14:1, finished at 26" I wanted it longer but---! 'smiths sometimes don't produce exactly what's asked.

90gr 7828 250's = 2884fps avg of 15, this is my starting load. Plenty fast enough as is. I have test loads up to 100gr, just too many health issues to get out and finish testing. am hoping I can handle 3000fps, should be easy to get to. the recoil is going to be my limiter.

George

I have had 5 rifles barreled with Douglas barrels all of them shoot very well.

I've experienced the barrel ripple as well. On a #2 7mm barrel. It was bad enough I started fixing it in the lathe before draw filing. Even so, I've never had one that didn't shoot and the fact you can get them so darn quick makes them a great option when the customer's in a rush.

I use Douglas more than 10 to 1 and have never been disappointed with accuracy—they just plain shoot, period. As to ripples, I’ve had several like that and it is definitely a PITA to clean up; a couple hours with Dykem and mill bastards is not my idea of a good time and sure knocks down the profit on a job. Douglas has sent me a free replacement once, but it was every bit as bad. After cleaning it up that rifle shot .250” groups at 100 yards, which I figured was the most important thing anyway.

Douglas is the oldest custom maker in the country, and they have the capacity to produce enough barrels to meet demand; they keep hundreds of rifled blanks in stock (picture of this is on their web site), and contour them only when a particular contour is ordered. It is still a time consuming process to make a precise custom barrel, compared to the factory hammer forged ones on most rifles nowadays. Even with automatic CNC machinery.

Haven't used many Douglas barrels, but Stan put out very good ones for me. I guess I lucked out, no ripples.

A pretty quick way to get rid of ripple disease is using a barrel spinner on the slack side of a 6" belt sander held about 45 degrees..In some severe cases, I've spun against the platen for the first round

I talked to Stan today to tell him how well that 7mm barrel, shot. He was not surprised.
And we had a discussion on the ripple thing too.

I had a Shilen barrel # 2 contour blank I got this past May, it too had very small ripples in the finish. Could not really feel them but could see them.

Turns out they had pushed the sanding belt too far, so one side of the belt was worn more than the other, and that caused the ripple. a high polish vs a low polish.

Dang near sent it back, but I thought OK, took it to my 4 x 54 belt sander with a broken in # 320 belt, and two passes the ripples were gone.

Quess I lucked out.

James Wisner
Life Member American Custom Gunmakers Guild

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
I talked to Stan today to tell him how well that 7mm barrel, shot. He was not surprised.
And we had a discussion on the ripple thing too.

Stan is a good no bullshit guy.

Curious to know...what did he say about the ripples?

I'e never had a LW barrel that wasn't absolutely perfect..don't know how they do it!

He said he would look at the process from turning to polishing and have whatever causes it, changed. Seems to not be a normal occurrence.
I don't, and won't, use lw barrels.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
He said he would look at the process from turning to polishing and have whatever causes it, changed. Seems to not be a normal occurrence.
I don't, and won't, use lw barrels.

I use no more because of the Asshole Woody when he was there. They could be the best, but I don't forget.

Just wonder...did you ever complain to LW in Germany..I did! Don't know if I helped Woody down the road, but couldn't have have hurt.

But I understand...I personally wouldn't buy a pair of pliers made by Chevrolet.

No reason for me to use them for that and other reasons; and the German name that appeals to some guys, is meaningless.
I will support known and well proven accuracy, verified internal specs, and super nice staff to work with.
I just made up a new slogan for Douglas; "As accurate as any, more accurate than most, and nice folks to deal with, always."
I think I will show it to them.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
He said he would look at the process from turning to polishing and have whatever causes it, changed. Seems to not be a normal occurrence.
I don't, and won't, use lw barrels.

I don't disagree that Douglas Barrels shoot well. But, the exterior finish is hell. Way too much time spent sorting it out.

LW has proven every bit as accurate and no need to waste a ton of time polishing out ridges.

Ordered 1 barrel from L Walther, total fiasco. Product was flawless, just WAY too much of a pain to deal with and the wait was horrendous. Screwed the first order up (Mucho detailed info on order and shipped a 98 Mauser barrel instead of a 96 Swede) and NO fire lit under it to get the right barrel to my customer the second go around. Had to wait again. I call BS. Stan/Douglas is top notch and very customer oriented. I order all Douglas tubes turned and polished ($10 extra??!!) and have not experienced any ripples. And they show up in days, not months.
Douglas A-OK

I don't have a gunsmith perspective but I have had the pleasure of wearing out a couple of Douglas, Kriegers and an Obermyer shooting Hi-power over the years. The hand lapped Kriger's and Obermyer cleaned up easier than the Douglas barrels after a match but the Douglas barrels shot right there with the high dollar tubes. And the cleaning difference was really just dealing with a little more copper fowling--10 extra minutes with some Sweet's 7.62 solvent took care of it... Douglas makes an awesome barrel and the price is nice too!

I have had barrels with ripples from every maker I have used. I have a Bartlien under the bench right now; it has ripples. A shilen, ditto. I have a Lilga which has ripples and is triangular. Some ripples are significant, others,not so much. The very worst barrel I ever saw was a Ferlach which looked like a snake swallowing eggs. The inside matched the outside, by the way. I drawfile every barrel I re-contour and do the same on any barrel with ripples if they are significant. Minor ripples can be handled by polishing at 45 degrees, alternating, and by not spending too much time in one place. As I said before, I care mostly about the inside. Over the years, I used more barrels from Shilen and Douglas than all others combined and either one would still be my first or second choice; if I weren't retired, that is! Regards, Bill.

Now that you mention the S maker, I would not use one for a tent stake, and I have used exactly three of them; all went back to the factory. Long story. Just, no.

Every barrelmaker has had issues with SOMEONE at SOME TIME and vice versa...It ain't a perfect world.

ln a custom build, days or months either way is no big deal. Rather wait and get a perfect product

While on the subject of wait time, Krieger has sped up their delivery significantly. I used to plan for five to six months. As of late it's been cut way down. I ordered a .375 #5 SS that was actually in stock the other day and I just received a .416 #5 CM that was ordered three months ago.

quote:

Originally posted by MNR:
While on the subject of wait time, Krieger has sped up their delivery significantly. I used to plan for five to six months. As of late it's been cut way down. I ordered a .375 #5 SS that was actually in stock the other day and I just received a .416 #5 CM that was ordered three months ago.

You will find all the barrel makers are much slower than normal. Shipping times are much faster now.

That makes a lot of sense. I know When I spoke to John a couple years ago about the long wait time for his barrels, he said that he was currently working on changing the manufacturing process to speed things up and that he thought he could cut wait time down a bit. Whatever the reason, I'm very glad to be getting them so quick.

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:

quote:

Originally posted by MNR:
While on the subject of wait time, Krieger has sped up their delivery significantly. I used to plan for five to six months. As of late it's been cut way down. I ordered a .375 #5 SS that was actually in stock the other day and I just received a .416 #5 CM that was ordered three months ago.

You will find all the barrel makers are much slower than normal. Shipping times are much faster now.

quote:

Originally posted by MNR:
While on the subject of wait time, Krieger has sped up their delivery significantly. I used to plan for five to six months. As of late it's been cut way down. I ordered a .375 #5 SS that was actually in stock the other day and I just received a .416 #5 CM that was ordered three months ago.

That's good news, my last Krieger order took about 6-8 months.

Interesting discussion here. I purchased a Brno ZKK that had been rebarreled with a heavy contoured Douglas Supreme barrel from 30-06 to 6.5-06. The barrel was free floated and had the original Brno front sight and sling band on the barrel. Still had the original popup peep sight. The ZKK action had been polished and re-blued so the rifle looked very nice.

I did see some rippling on the exterior of the barrel and thought that was just a normal part of the manufacture so didn't take much notice of it.

Was the only barrel I have ever had that would copper up. Don't have a borescope but could see it at the muzzle. Bought some KG-12 and set to work. Hard to get rid off and would show copper again after a few shots.
When putting a rod down with a bronze brush wrapped in a patch it was tighter at the muzzle end even after several strokes to 'set' the brush and patch.

Accurate enough but just never seemed to be consistent with grouping. Previous owner gave me his accuracy load with 140gr SST and commented it did not shoot as well with lighter bullets, had a 1 in 8 twist.

I did shoot a deer or two and a tahr with it but overall a disappointment so moved it on.