Saw these advertised in Gun List (I think). Anyone have any experiance with them / - Dan

Dan,

I have used a few of his blanks and the bbls shot fine. I am and will use him in the future.

Take care,

Thanks Mike. Anyone else? - Dan

Hi Dan,

I got Les's name and number from a gunsmith back east and he said Les's barrels shot very well. I know they're not benchrest barrels but for a couple of project wildcats I'm working on, I'm willing to give them a try. I haven't heard anything bad about any of Les's barrels. That's good enough for me. When I get slowed down enough to get started on some of these projects, I'll let you know.

Catch you later, The Big Dog

Hi Dan, Les Bauska has been making barrels since 1947. I know he worked with John Buhmiller for awhile. His barrels are button rifled and he uses good material. What you get is the rifled blank right out of the rifling machine complete with the offcenter hole on one end. After precision centering and a truing cut you have a blank to go to work on. Oh yes they make fine hunting rifles and will outshoot any factory rifle barrel so that in itself is a big step up for $50

Thank you gentlemen. I believe I will give a couple of his barrels a try. - Dan

Does anyone have his phone number or web address that they could post ?

45,

This is from my contact list and I believe accurate. Notes from my inquiry of 2/10/03 say, "... button rifled, double stress relieved, 4140, no stainless, about 2 weeks production time."

Bauska Barrels
105 9th Ave. W
Kalispell, Mt. 59901
(406) 752-7706

I used his barrels for my 458HE and 510HE.
Worked great.Both were long and we profiled them heavy.458 has 900 rounds through it and still
looks great.510 about 50 rounds and am going to
redo that to 550HE.Ed.

Obviously things have changed considerably from when I used a few of his barrels back in the mid 80s. Those barrels were cut rifled, unlapped, and not stress relieved to any noticable extent. A barrel I saw that was made two years ago was also cut rifled.
Although the barrels were not what I would call smooth, and warpage when turning was a problem, they usually shot very well. Baking them for a couple hours at 700 degrees seemed to relieve them enough so make turning a lot better. Those barrels were also not chomoly by the way but a carbon manganese alloy. Regards, Bill.

We have used Les's barrels since the 80's. We use these for any special projects i.e. octagon,fluted,xtra long,etc.....They have always been button rifled, always been 4140 and yes they are not overly smooth. They "MAY" foul some. I have not had any warping problems with contouring them. We have never heat relieved any barrels let alone a bauska. We have cyro'd quite a few and saw little to no difference in performance as well.
ED