I've bought seven or eight barrels from them. Most were medium bore (8mm-35cal) along with one 6.5 and one 22 (8"twist).
The barrels are all well finished inside and are nice and straight with the exception of the 22 which, as luck would have it, I bought for myself. It's not terrible but is not as good as the others.
The interior finish is good and dimensions seem uniform. The contouring is done on a new CNC lathe and is well done.
I have some reservations regarding the rifling form. The radius of the tops of the lands is smaller than the radius of the bore. In other words, the lands are high on the edges. Whether this is intentional and mirrors the contour of the button or whether it is an artifact resulting from a mismatch in bore/button sizing, I can't say for sure. They rotate the blank as the button is pulled through which should result in a consistent twist rate.
They do not counterbore the breech end of the barrel to start the button (I think they should).
My 22 barrel, at the breech end, had one groove which was .0004 shallower than the others. I cut off 2 inches and it was then OK. The edges of the lands are roughly .0003" higher than the middle of the lands. As I said, I don't really like this form. I seems to me the thin section of the high edge is likely to erode more quickly, Also, such a form adds surface area which might increase the tendency to foul. This is just my personal belief and all may feel free to ignore it!
I turned this barrel, which I purchased as a 1 1/4 inch blank, to a light varmint contour. It turned well and showed no tendency to "walk". I chambered it to 22-250 throated for 80 grain bullets. It was fitted to a CIL950 T action (a single shot Savage 110). I used a RPA recoil lug (1/4 inch thick) and fitted the barrel conventionally (no nut). I added a third action screw and bedded the barreled action into the factory stock.
So far, I have fired 40 rounds of 75 grain Bergers using varying charges of 4320. Bullets are seated just into the lands. The ammunition is loaded using Hornady dies with the sleeve of the seating die replaced with one cut with the chamber reamer.
Accuracy at 100 yds has been respectable with five shot groups running around 3/8". Conditions have been very windy; too windy for me to do much meaningful accuracy testing at 300 meters. My 300 meter groups have been 1 inch tall and 3 1/2 to 4 inches wide! I hope to get out and test in calmer condiditions. As it is, I'm not able to shoot any better with my 6BR which is a solid low .3moa performer so the 22-250 might not be too bad when the wind eases up a bit. It would be nice if it quit snowing too!
The barrel seems to clean up easily and all in all, I'm not displeased. There is no doubt in my mind that these barrels are just fine for a hunting or live varmint rifle. They may not be quite up to benchrest quality but they are pretty darn good. I'll keep buying them. Regards, Bill
