Has anyone had experience with prefit barrels (eg. Pac-nor)? Are there any difficulties in obtaining a good fit? Seems like it might speed up the process of rebarreling if you had a gunsmith who was available to do the fitting.

I have installed several pre fit barrels for customers, including Pac Nor. Still need all the usual tools, such as barrel vise, action wrench, metal lathe, chamber reamers, headspace gauge, depth micrometer, etc. Most of the time the shoulder or face of the barrel has to be machined a few thousandths, and you gotta have a chamber reamer just in case things are not perfect (they usually are not). I would not use a pre fit on a accuracy gun, but it is OK for a general purpose hunting rifle. Main reason is you are getting a SAAMI chamber, which is too big for the bench guns and long range rifles.

I have done several for my self so, my experience is limited. So are my tools. My procedure is to remove material from the shoulder until it headspaces correctly. Haven't needed a reamer yet. The M-700 .223 shoots under 1/2 MOA. Maybe I have just been lucky?

Some barrel makers use a die to thread the barrels on their pre-threaded, chambered barrels intead of single point threading on the lathe.

They are just short chambered so it does make things easier...I think it would be even easier if they would long chamber them then all you would have to do is cut the threads off to specs....

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Most of the pre-fits are now long chambered so that all you have to do is machine off the thread and shoulder to get the proper headspace. I should say this applies to the 3 suppliers that I have spoken with:
www.lothar-walther.com
www.montanarifleman.com
www.pac-nor.com
Bill