I received the following via email from William Tompkins in response to a post I made on the Reloading Forum. I checked out the link included at the bottom. I have never seen any of their barrels, or talked to anyone that has -- but what he says makes sense to me as a shooter and as an engineer. Their stuff looks impressive.

QUOTE: Great barrels can remain great even if fluted. It takes cut rifling not button rifling. We take a blank and drill it. Then we taper it if called for or just clean up the exterior. It then gets fluted, and put back in the machine for reaming. All the reamers get pulled through to get the bore to size. It is then transferred to the cut rifling machine where the grooves are cut in. Using this method, which takes no more than usual except for adding the fluting, you get an accurate barrel without the distortion imparted by fluting after a button is pushed or pulled through a bore.
Try air gauging a button barrel after fluting without the required lapping, watch the bubble bounce or even better just try to push a patch through. Lapping is absolutely required.
Currently I have 11 of these barrels shooting on a variety of firearms from field to full bench guns. All shoot better than I can shoot them which might indicate that I need help shooting! Anyway go to www. cutrifle.com and look at Dan Pedersen's work on barrels.
Shoot what you aim at and make it a small group.
Bill

cutrifle

See for yourselves.

Anybody got one of these? Their Magnum action makes me drool.

Don

I checked out the website and started drooling also. Hell I might even drive up there if only to be in the same room as one of those beauties.

Border Barrels here in the UK make cut rifle barrels and have a fantastic article on their site about the making of cut rifle barrels. The site is:-

http://www.border-barrels.com/

They export and can copy barrel profiles.

Carnivore,

Please! If you get up there take a good camera (35 mm. or electronic) and send me some pictures of their actions!

Don

I have seen Dan Pederson's barrels at SCI. They had an integral recoil lug and front sight ramp and cost about $1000. I liked it.

Don,
If they don't care I will be happy to take a few digital shots. I'm moving so it'll be a few weeks before I can make a day trip.

Carnivore,

Tell them you'll send them a copy (or I will), and they'll probably be glad to let you take the pics.
Thanks a lot,
Don

500 grains,

I like idea of the integral lug as well. All the barrels with added lugs that I've had tend to walk with the heat.

Don

Friends,
Yes you can visit the shop but try to call ahead as the work hours are unusual. We are usually open from about 10:30AM closed for lunch and open until about 6:00PM.
Yes you can take pictures and yes we would really appreciate copies as we don't have the time to do them for ourselves. The shop is small and crowdedbut we have a good time!
Bill

Welcome, Bill.

And thanks in advance for the pictures.

Don

Badger barrels of Bristol Wisconson makes everything that you have described. all the barrels are eighther broach cut or single point cut. Ernie Stallman does all the Winchester custom shop fancy octagon intergal barrel lugs,quarterrib and front sight band work. as for accuracy his blackpowder record speaks for its self but he also beat all commers out for the Canadian Mounted Police sniper barrel contract. A Quarter rib barrel lug front sight custom barrel will set you back arround $500 not a grand. (262) 857-6950

This shouldn't devolve into a spitting contest. My original e-mail was offered only as information for the forum moderator. He was kind enough to post the information for the rest of the forum to share.
I have had the pleasure of knowing all of the cut rifle barrel makers vicariously through Dan. They are all knowledgeable and fastidious craftsmen. Better than that, they are all gentlemen and actually are willing to help each other with problems or questions.
The major difference here is technology. Lots of barrel makers use CNC technology to produce high quality products at less cost. This is the case with Badger Barrels. There is nothing objectionable about this, it is the way they can do business.
Dan, on the other side does not have CNC technology to draw on. The shop to your amazement consists of 2 Bridgeport mills, relatively new, 2 belt driven lathes about 100 years old, and the rifler at about 100 years old. Now we all know that these cut rifling machines are old. And we all know that it takes time, about 1-1/2 hours to rifle a barrel as opposed to 3-4 minutes for a button. The major diffrenece here is the contouring. Dan's is done by hand on a manual machine. It takes several days to do a full integral barrel. This time is unfortunately part of the price. By using CNC to to do the contouring, time and therefore money are saved. Yes, CNC mills and lathes are expensive but the number of things that can be accomplished in much less time help in the pay back schedule. This is a very simplistic view but a better explanation would take much longer.
I can't say anything negative about any of the barrelmakers that I have had the good fortune to know or work with. All produce a product to be proud of.
I have been able to glean fabulous amounts of information from these forums and my intent was to pass on some for others.
Bill

Well, now I know more about the whole subject. I had not known that anybody but Krieger and Obermyer were still doing cut rifled barrels. Now we've got several to choose from!

If you check out cutrifle's links page you will see that most of the barrel makers are there, including Badger. I don't think anybody is spitting here!

Anyone know of more of these fine barrel makers.

Don