There is an ad on Ebay that makes the following claim.

"Here is your change to pick up a air gauged, lapped, factory contoured barrel. The quality of these barrels are as good as a Douglas or Shilen match grade barrel for about 100 bucks less."

Are they as good?

Only if you are very lucky; they are more variable in quality than good ones. One might be ok and the next one, not so much.

Plus, the cost of the barrel is only part of the total cost, if it doesn't shoot and you have to do it over, it ain't cheap any more.

I am talking hunting quality, not benchrest quality.

I'm pretty sure Wilson doesn't lap the barrels a third party does . So the barrels are sold then someone else laps them . Generally this makes the barrels slightly oversize unless the buyer purchases in bulk and orders them undersize . I've seen some of these , they look great inside , no machine marks at all , that tells me the lapping process was used to remove all traces of the button process . Not necessarily a bad thing , but again air gauge has a value ( number ) attached to it . Just saying air gauged means nothing , you want to know what are the specs .
Hope this makes sense .

"The Wilson Arms barrels are Select Match Grade, button rifled barrels; lapped and air gauged to .0002". The blanks in are 27" to finish at 26" or less... These barrels are the same quality as a Shilen Select match; Douglas XX; and even the X-caliber barrels just at a $50-$100 discount in price. We buy in blocks of 100 to 200 barrels every month so our price brake with Wilson is simply passed on to the shooter."

So who is lapping the barrels ? Not the barrel manufact . If you have a problem , can you return it to ? Problem being not accurate ?
I'm sure only the third party will warranty it not Wilson .
It's worth a try , but I'll spend the money on shilen , my time is worth more than the advert pitch .
Just my $.02

Here is what I know; I have been to Douglas many times, and I have personally used their air gauge machine. they have a bank of them. ALL their barrels come in at under .0002 variation, and most are .0001 and under. Without lapping. They do not lap their barrels to get the precision; it is machined in from the drilling, reaming, and rifling process. I do not work for them.

I am familiar with the fleabay seller. They have a website where you can order direct and save some cost as fleabay won't take a cut. I have one of these blanks to replace a .22 barrel that's nearly burnt out. I can say that company's responsive and a fast shipper if what they have is in stock.

Anymore it seems that most factories are mass-producing barrels capable of < 1 MOA with irregular bore diameters, rough tooling marks and crooked chambers notwithstanding.

I hear a lot of conjecture about the 'quality' of barrel manufacturers, but I've ever seen actual evidence. The Brux and Bartlein barrels I do have never came with a QA/QC certification of the material, its properties, the bore/groove dimensions or the rate of twist to 4 decimal places. I have factory CZs that shoot .5MOA and last month I shot a friend's $269-out-the-door Savage and it too was better than MOA. Seems you'd have to have an utterly piss-poor product to not be able to compete with former Soviets and the bottom-of-the-barrel consumer-grade Savage guns, especially if the single thing you do is make barrels.

I am set up to chamber/install my own barrels so the cost of the barrel itself is my biggest hurdle with my time after that. At $165 delivered I can utterly ruin a blank an still come out ahead when compared to Bartlein, Brux, Krieger etc. I do not require .1 MOA benchrest accuracy for the shooting I do. If the discount 'Wilson' barrels do shoot though then bully for me. I'll write up my experience here for everyone to discriminate against when the time comes.


OP, If you have a gunsmith doing your work then you should go with their recommendation as you will have their guarantee of their product. Gamble or don't as you see fit.

Sort of a range report. I don't usually shoot paper, but here's a data point:

SAAMI .223 Rem, SS Wilson 8-twist #4 contour cut to 24", installed on a CZ 527 bolt action. All loads used random range brass with R-P stamped cases heads and CCI 450s. Groups are at 200 yards in shifty breeze shot prone off a bipod. I threaded both ends/chambered/crowned the barrel. I am just a hobbyist with a lathe in his garage.

26.0gr Varget is 3005fps with the 77SMK 2.290" OAL
27.1 BLC-2 is 3090fps with the 69SMK 2.300" OAL (Depending on ambient temperature)
29.0gr BLC-2 with lead-tipped 50gr Sierra Blitz groups less than .5MOA at 200 yards too. (not pictured).



Synopsis: 3 loads that fit the CZ magazine and group less than .5MOA is acceptable to me for a $165 barrel blank.

I've got 1 wilson 300 blkout bbl. so far it's a 1 holer with subsonic at 50yds. Haven't tried further yet.

Wilson barrels have worked well for me. I earned my Distinguished Rifleman's Badge with a Wilson barrel on my service rifle.