Custom Rifle Barrels

[v-max]

Hi i have a stalker mate with a remmy 700 243. He has had it for a year now & has put a hogue stock on & a jewell trigger but it has never really shot that well. I was down visiting him & had a shot of it & we changed the stock with my HS-stock off my remmy 700 & it still shot quite poor ie 3" group with factory federal classic & homeloads are a wee bit better. He looked at getting rid of it & went to look at a tikka M590 in 243 with his scope on it & shot 5 bullets under an inch with it so scope is fine. Told the RFD about his rifle & is having it bore scoped & RFD was looking for his rifle + money for the tikka. I told him to leave it & rebarrel it as he has the foundations for it & now he is asking the question what barrel & why??. Im sure his stock is not inlet for the heavyer contour barrels so it would be a standard contour. He is unsure on what to look at with all the makers you get & i told him of ie shilen/Pac-nor/border/archer/krieger/lija/heart etc. I said archer as a cheap option or go for the shilen/kreiger or pac-nor & he was looking to go to 20"-22" long. He is a stalker on a highland estate with red deer etc & dose a bit fox lamping & early morning & den work so just a working rifle if you see. What is you thoughts advice as i dont know enough on it that he should be looking at please. Thanks for any advice form members on this.

[Oly]

Might it be better getting it trued (rather than full on blue-printed) first if the barrel results from the bore scoping looks OK? Might save some cash too.

[skany]

any match custom barrel should be great!

 

id just see whts available in quick time & go with that

 

dasherman normaly ahs pacnors in stock & does a wicked job

 

cheers Andy

[v-max]

Might it be better getting it trued (rather than full on blue-printed) first if the barrel results from the bore scoping looks OK? Might save some cash too.

At the moment he dose not want to spend any more money than he has too & if you are going to blue-print the action you be aaswell rebarreling at same time in my eyes. If the barrel was ok i think it would shoot ok to good. My 22.250 home loaded used to shoot one big hole with 5-shots that you could hide under a 1p coin & i would be happy with a match grade rebarrel job on my own rifle do that again. Might look into the getting it trued but would that not be a blue-print??. He knows that if is to rebarrel then for all he saves with an archer he would go the whole hog as such. Cheers skany i said it can be nowt much in it from what i know & he would need. Sounds good to find what someone has available as i think he will need as quike a turn a round he could. Might give dasherman a PM as i i see he has done a few & a great job aswell cheers for your input.

[Oly]

Think the last time I asked proper blueprinting was ~£400 but true'ing was less than half the price.

[snap_shot]

Someone i know had the same trouble with a remmy, and was told to torque the action screws, and the groups did tighten in when he found a sweet spot in the torque setting....!!!

 

just another option, any of the gunny's here may know this, and the results it might achieve.

 

 

Snap.

[duey]

check the twist, if its a 1-10 instead of the normal 1-12 or 1-14 then moving to a heavier bullet may solve the problem if your shooting 150's try some 165's 175's or 180's

 

ian

[Scotch_egg]

150's in a .243

[Scotch_egg]

On a serious note for a re-barrel alone he will be looking at circa £550 give or take a few quid from most reputable smiths.

[snap_shot]

i could recommend the archer in a 1 in 9, just trailed the 105 A-max and put the 5 into .3 of an inch... at 100 yards.

 

87's go into low .2's and i haven't really tried to achieve a good load...!!!!!

 

seems to like anything it gets to me....lol

 

Snap.

[v-max]

check the twist, if its a 1-10 instead of the normal 1-12 or 1-14 then moving to a heavier bullet may solve the problem if your shooting 150's try some 165's 175's or 180's

 

ian

Hi when you say 150's/165's/175's etc do you mean grain of bullet as its a 243 & 100g is the max he uses in a factory round for guests. He homeloads & uses 87g v-max for 10yrs or so.

Thanks for the replies never thought of torquing it into the stock what sort of ft/lb should it be done too??. Wont rule any thing out at this stage.

[baldie]

The guy is a keeper ?

Then the first question i would ask....is when if ever, he last cleaned the barrel correctly. I,m not being clever, or obtuse, its just from personal experience of keepers, and deerstalkers in general....is that they dont clean their guns full stop.

First job for me would be a damn good scrub out, then a few 20 minute soakings with sweets 7.62.

 

Then i would check the crown.

Then i would take it out of the stock and inspect. If all ok, it would be put back in a stock that was stiff [ not hogue] unless it was the fully bedded version. If it is the pillar bed only version, i,d poke the fire with it.

The torque setting is 55 inch/lbs.

 

The twist rate in the rifle is 1 in 9 1/8". This means it will shoot all weight bullets REASONABLY. It also means it may like lightweights such as the 58 grain v-max for fox, but its not a certainty that it will shoot 100 grain bullets effectivley. If he,s using factory ammo in 100 grains, its a fair bet that the bullet is a long way from the lands. Remmy,s have long leade,s.

Handload some rounds nearer the lands. When using 100 grain bullets, try the slow powders for that weight, rather than the fast ones.

 

You cant blueprint a rifle, and use its standard barrel.

The threads have to be opened out to true them up.

Border archer barrels are the equal of any other button rifled barrel, and give a cost effective choice for a sporting rifle, plus they are scottish. All my match rifles bar one, is fitted with one. I rate them, and fit them to the majority of rifles i re-barrel.

I also use Lilja, Pac-nor, krieger, Border cut, tru-flite , and Bartlein.

 

As an aside..is your mates gun wearing a sporter weight barrel ?

If so, is he allowing it to cool properly between groups ?

[duey]

opps soory not reading thread correctly and assumed was 308 not 243 DOH going back to my hole now!!!!

 

ian

[devilishdave]

i could recommend the archer in a 1 in 9, just trailed the 105 A-max and put the 5 into .3 of an inch... at 100 yards.

 

87's go into low .2's and i haven't really tried to achieve a good load...!!!!!

 

seems to like anything it gets to me....lol

 

Snap.

 

What load were you running with the 105s?

 

Dave

[snap_shot]

What load were you running with the 105s?

 

Dave

 

 

i was running lapua brass, cci brench rest primers, 39g of n160 seated 20 thou of the lands....

 

ATB.

 

 

Snap.

[v-max]

The guy is a keeper ?

Then the first question i would ask....is when if ever, he last cleaned the barrel correctly. I,m not being clever, or obtuse, its just from personal experience of keepers, and deerstalkers in general....is that they dont clean their guns full stop.

First job for me would be a damn good scrub out, then a few 20 minute soakings with sweets 7.62.

 

Then i would check the crown.

Then i would take it out of the stock and inspect. If all ok, it would be put back in a stock that was stiff [ not hogue] unless it was the fully bedded version. If it is the pillar bed only version, i,d poke the fire with it.

The torque setting is 55 inch/lbs.

 

The twist rate in the rifle is 1 in 9 1/8". This means it will shoot all weight bullets REASONABLY. It also means it may like lightweights such as the 58 grain v-max for fox, but its not a certainty that it will shoot 100 grain bullets effectivley. If he,s using factory ammo in 100 grains, its a fair bet that the bullet is a long way from the lands. Remmy,s have long leade,s.

Handload some rounds nearer the lands. When using 100 grain bullets, try the slow powders for that weight, rather than the fast ones.

 

You cant blueprint a rifle, and use its standard barrel.

The threads have to be opened out to true them up.

Border archer barrels are the equal of any other button rifled barrel, and give a cost effective choice for a sporting rifle, plus they are scottish. All my match rifles bar one, is fitted with one. I rate them, and fit them to the majority of rifles i re-barrel.

I also use Lilja, Pac-nor, krieger, Border cut, tru-flite , and Bartlein.

 

As an aside..is your mates gun wearing a sporter weight barrel ?

If so, is he allowing it to cool properly between groups ?

Hi & thanks baldie you have given alot to think about on the matter. Yes he cleans his rifle & i spoke to him last night & said it has got worse as time has gone on ie the groupings were 1-1/2" when he got it & he thought it would tighten up after 50-60 rounds. It has done the opposite & he has been so busy with stags/hinds etc as he has had 40 stags & 350 hinds & now he has the time to really play with it. The hogue is a full aluminium chassy like my HS-stock & his older tikka used to shoot 1/2" all day long but was shot out so he got the remmy with the idea to semi custom it in time thinking he could get 4-5yrs out of the standard barrel to save money to blue-print rebarrel etc. As i said it is in at a gunshop & they are going to bore scope it if they know how/what to look for??. Just looking down the barrel both ends with the eye looks good compared to my 22.250 barrel. As you say baldie the crown could be the problem & sorted give him a few years out of it till he has the cash as for barrels for him what he dose its nowt in it really buy the looks & iv told him the archer has a great pedigree from people i know that have them cheers once again all.

[baldie]

" Its got worse as time went on "

 

That sound to me like the barrel is badly fouled, despite your friend cleaning it.

 

most of the copper removers on the market today, are utter crap my friend, and people believe they have got their barrels clean, when in reality, they have not. KG, wipeout etc....all have rave reviews etc.......they are crap.

 

If your solvent doesn,t stink to high heaven of ammonia....it wont get all the copper out. Been there, and do it for a living.

 

I scrub out with a pb brush, and hoppes 009. Then soak with same, then brush out again. Then several wet patches with sweets on. Then a good wet scrub with the same on. Then dry patch out.

I then repeat the above . Its amazing how much carbon can get trapped between the layers of copper. If you dry patch out with a really tight patch, it will help shift it.

 

Sweets is the strongest copper solvent available, and because its thick, it sticks to the bore all the way round, unlike thinner compounds.Dont leave it in any longer than 20 minutes though.

 

Have a go at your mate,s barrel...i,ll bet money this is the problem.

 

We "bottom " the bores on old military arms like enfields, mausers etc, with this method, and it can take up to six treatments as outlined above, to remove it all. Only a borescope will reveal the truth.

[maltbuck]

A slight deviation on the thread,for which I apologise.

 

But it would appear that many custom riflesmiths dislike Lothar Walther tubes, mainly due to their hardness when it comes to reaming (or at least that is my impression - they may just not be as good as the US based makes??).

 

However, would this perceived increased hardness be of benefit when considering the use of "overbore" calibres such as the 6.5 x 284 or the 7mm WSMs of this tantalising world!!??

 

Assuming cleaning of throats/barrels is maintained as routine.

 

MB

[baldie]

Thats quite true Maltbuck. I wont use them for a couple of reasons.

1. they are indeed harder , and therefore wear reamers prematurely. They need different speeds, and also different fluids. A pain in the arse when your coolant/oil flush is set up with your favourite type.

2. I,ve personally never seen one that was a good shooter. i dont know any competative shooter that uses one either.

I know there are extremely accurate rifles out there with Walther barrels on, because there are guys on here with them...i,ve just never seen a good one personally. I wont recommend something i wouldn,t use myself.

3. Walther barrels were pushed by all and sundry when they were cheap, and the vendor was making a nice cut out of them. They are no longer any cheaper than a border or an american barrel.....so all of a sudden, no one seems to be using them anymore.

4. We had 150 barrels made for 10/22,s with Lothar Walther liners........they were all an absolute bage of shite. Unfit for sale as a match barrel. Their accuracy is no better than a standard ruger, and we have to sell them as such....losing a huge amount on each one.

 

Just my own opinion. There are several gunsmiths who are perfectly happy using Walther, and good luck to them.

You will get a slightly longer barrel life from one, due to the increased hardness .

[MarinePMI]

Baldie,

 

Interesting (and good) info on the Walther barrels. I was wondering what the deal was with them...

[maltbuck]

Thanks for the info Baldie.

 

Regards

 

MB