Gary has been making top notch barrels for years. He make 5P (canted land) as well as conventional button rifling. David Tubb has been shooting them for years. So has the USMC and the US Secret Service. I have used his 5P barrels on several Tactical builds, for law enforcement, and have had excellent results.My wife and I both used his barrels in IBS score shooting with excellent results.
I used to live about 8-10 blocks from Gary Schneider. Though his postal address is Scottsdale, he is actually located into Phoenix a few blocks, on a corner of his street (62 Place, is it?) and Cactus, west of Scottsdale Road...
The fellow who used to bore his barrels was a good friend of mine. Gary Schneider did the rifling part, and owns the outfit. My friend worked primarily for one of the local water & power companies, flying the canal systems in a chopper Looking for stranded animals which had, in their desperation for water in the summer, gotten trapped in the steep-banked canals. Boring the barrels for Gary was his "other part time job".
Anyway, I still have a couple of Gary's barrels on rifles of mine. They are a very good barrel, but I prefer tubes by Hart, and Rock, mainly because of the flexibility and timeliness they have offered me in meeting the specs I request sometimes.
Plus, to tell the truth, the luck of the draw being what it is, it just happens that the barrels from Hart and Rock have been better performers for me. That, though, is likely just luck, or lack of it.
Posts: 9685 | Location: Cave Creek 85331, USA | Registered: 17 August 2001
I appreciate the feedback. I need to make a decision on a build I'm considering because the company uses Schneider barrels primarily. I hear many good things about them but I'm a Hart guy for button barrels and if a cut rifle, then Krieger and Bartlien. (Obermeyer if I can get one).
Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns
Doc - You're saying basically the same thing as I have xhosen, I'm glad to hear. Hart is my favorite for button rifled barrels, and Mike Rock for cut barrels, though I don't recall if he is still cutting them or has gone to buttoning.
Anyway, Mike Rock and Jack Krieger were both students of Butch Obermeyer, and so far as I have heard were the only two folks Butch ever authorized to use his adaptation of the Russian 5R rifling.
Posts: 9685 | Location: Cave Creek 85331, USA | Registered: 17 August 2001
Krieger never worked for, or under Boots Obermeyer. They were shooting buddies, both interested in making better barrels than they could get at the time. Gary is in Payson, Az.
AC, You may be right on the 5R rifling, but several barrelmakers have similar rifling profiles. Either Kreiger or Bartlien posted on their website that they rifle that design, but have seen no advantage to it. If enough customers ask for it, they will build it.
I agree, Butch. I just mentioned it because both of Obermeyer's active , well-known, students offer it. I like Mike's Rock's barrels because I like Mike, and his service for me has always been outstanding, as has the accuracy of his barrels.
But I don't know of any highly significant advantage to 5-R rifling, though that doesn't mean there may not perhaps be one or two.
Posts: 9685 | Location: Cave Creek 85331, USA | Registered: 17 August 2001
Originally posted by DocEd: Krieger never worked for, or under Boots Obermeyer. They were shooting buddies, both interested in making better barrels than they could get at the time. Gary is in Payson, Az.
Well, that is not what I was led to understand from my personal conversations with both John Krieger and Mike Rock.
Gary Schneider may now live & work in Payson. I haven't been to his house in about 23 years. But at one time he was definitely in Phoenix, with a Scottsdale mailing address. (As you likely know, that kind of "addressing" is true for many of the city of Phoenix's border areas. The address is given according to the federal post office which services a particular residence or business, NOT the taxing authority in which it is legally located. My current address is Cave Creek, AZ, because the Cave Creek post office delivers my mail, though I actually live in far northern Phoenix.... My house deed even says Cave Creek. But I pay my property taxes to Phoenix and call the Phoenix departments if I need help such as a building permit, police or fire services, etc.)
Payson is on average maybe 20 degrees or so cooler than Phoenix in the summer so if he moved there while I was living in Oregon the last 21 years, I sure understand why.
Posts: 9685 | Location: Cave Creek 85331, USA | Registered: 17 August 2001
Well, I read it, but it does not match what both Mike Rock and Jack Krieger personally told me....Mike in a telephone conversation in 1998 or '99....Jack in a several hour long face to face conversation about barrel-making we had at the S.H.O.T. show in Vegas a year or so later.
We were at that point (both times) specifically discussing 5-R rifling. Each indicated that they learned it from Boots when working for/with him, and that he had made them promise not to make it while he (Boots) still was.
Mike was making 5-R when I spoke with him, and told me he felt legitimately able to do so without violating his promise because at that time Boots wasn't actively doing it.
Jack said his understanding of what Boots told them was that they were not to use his 5-R system until he (Boots) had retired. He also said that as Boots hadn't retired at that point, he (Jack) was honouring the request and was NOT making barrels using Boots' system, at that time.
Me, I can't go back in time and become a fly on the wall to see who did what with whom, how long, or when. But it is my first hand knowledge of what each told me personally that I was referring to in my post, not what a fourth barrel maker says.
Posts: 9685 | Location: Cave Creek 85331, USA | Registered: 17 August 2001
Who is Butch? Gary Schneider moved his operation from Phoenix, to Payson several years ago. He made 5P rifled barrels for McMillan. Never wanted to call them Poly but McMillan did.
Originally posted by DocEd: Who is Butch? Gary Schneider moved his operation from Phoenix, to Payson several years ago. He made 5P rifled barrels for McMillan. Never wanted to call them Poly but McMillan did.
Sorry, I meant Boots. Sometimes my fingers don't type what I am thinking when I am multi-tasking. I have gone back and corrected that post.
My country gal's just a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still.
Posts: 9685 | Location: Cave Creek 85331, USA | Registered: 17 August 2001
When I was still shooting high power rifles in competition, all of my bolt guns were built by George Fullmer and all had Schneider barrels. Any shots of mine which strayed away from the "X" ring were my fault, not the barrel's. My .308 barrels would generally last for 2000 rounds before the accuracy at 600 yards started to drop off. At that point, I would have the threads cut off, the barrel rechambered and set back, and they would be good for another 2000 rounds. I don't know many hunters who put 4000 rounds through a barrel in a couple of years' time.
This is one of my rifles, with George Fullmer's favorite barrel contour:
About 20 years ago when I was into silhouette shooting Schneider barrels were the favorite. I had a 7/08 that was made with a thick muzzle to make it steady to hold. The man who invented what is now Rem Oil had a sophisticated bore scope and Schneider barrels looked as smooth as glass inside. I had about 4000 rounds through mine with no accuracy decline.
Posts: 3073 | Location: Pittsburgh, PA | Registered: 11 November 2004
My wife, Sara, used a Schneider 6MMx14 twist on her IBS Varmint Hunter class rifle to win the IBS 200/300 Yd. Nationals and become the only woman to ever be IBS "6X Score Shooter of the Year" in 2000.
