douglas barrels??

S

spfld

Guest
Anyone want to give opinions on Douglas XX barrels? I know they are not up to Kreiger or Shilen standards but they dont cost as much either. Get what you pay for or can they be decently accurate.
 
There was a long, long thread on this in the competition forum

http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?74148-Douglas-Barrels

Several things you "know" are, I think, wrong -- The premier grade of a Douglas can cost as much as a Shilen from Bruno or the Barrel Man.

And if you read the thread, opinions differ as to the quality, with the biggest grumble one guy who thought his problem wasn't addressed by the manufacturer, contrasted with others who had a good experience. Lots of opinions on lapped versus double-button, too.

Now, Would Tony Boyer leave a Douglas barrel on Faye's rifle if it didn't shoot first rate? Can we make a daytime TV show out of this?
 
Charles E thanks for the heads up on that thread!! Many facts and opinions offered. I checked Douglas's site and the prices are up there but seem to be a bit less than some of the custom barrels that are so popular currently. I bought a Douglas turned blank recently at what I think is a good price and will install it on my Howa action. What I came away with from the thread is "generally" positive view of Douglas barrels.
I too would like to know what is the double button process, is it employed only on the highest grade barrels and how long has it been used?
 
One thing to remember about Douglas.........

barrels, their "Top" grade is/WAS(??) only available, as installed by them. At least that was the way it WAS, I don't know about NOW. :D
 
Last edited:
brian roberts said:
their "Top" grade is only available, as installed by them. At least that was the way it WAS, I don't know about NOW. :D
Click to expand...
?? Never heard that, it is certainly not true now.

The "double button" is, I believe a particular profile of the button, which leaves the bore extremely smooth. All button rifling displaces metal to form the lands and grooves, so the exact profile of the button could influence smoothness and consistency. I would assume the "double button" is a second part of the larger "button" tooling itself, to achieve this.

But I don't know for sure; maybe Stan Taylor will see this and answer.

Edit:

BTW, for all those who say they don't see Douglas barrels in match reports:

http://internationalbenchrest.com/results/long_range/2010/White Horse/925/WhiteHorse925.php

Spool on down to the equipment lists . . .
 
Last edited:
brian roberts said:
barrels, their "Top" grade is only available, as installed by them. At least that was the way it WAS, I don't know about NOW. :D
Click to expand...

I buy and install dozens of their premium stainless barrels each year. I think you've gotten some erroneous information.

The "double button" process was developed (let's see if I can explain this properly) to "wipe" the top of the lands just in case there was any kind of a "wire" edge left over from the rifling process. "Double button" is somewhat of a misnomer because it is actually a button with somewhat of a waist designed into it and the trailing "button" does the wiping. All Douglas (Tim Gardner) did was incorporated the process into one button rather that two separate passes.

The process had been used earlier but Tim designed this one back in the early 90s when I started using his barrels at the Super Shoot. He claims that I was the one that named it the "double button" but if so, it was purely accidental simply because I was telling other shooters about it and didn't know what else to call it.

If I've gotten any of this information wrong I hope Stan Taylor will correct me. My memory is not what it used to be and if I remember correctly it never was all that good anyhow.
 
I was referring to the barrels produced from the late 60s into the mid 80s(??). There was the Premium, then there was one that I thought was the XX or XX Premium, that was only stamped that way if Douglas installed it. This was back when the two brothers ( forgot their names) ran the works, as a couple friends and I visited the plant. And, you aren't the only one who has problems with the "curtains" on the memory, Mr. C.

Haven't had a Douglas catalog in decades, but yes, they did chamber, headspace, polish and blue their CM barrels, and install their SS barrels, at one time. That may be changed now...
 
Last edited:
Based on sale's! could it be that Douglas does not charge enough. Scope, and action makers' have good success with that line of thought.
 
brian roberts said:
I was referring to the barrels produced from the late 60s into the mid 80s(??). There was the Premium, then there was one that I thought was the XX or XX Premium, that was only stamped that way if Douglas installed it. This was back when the two brothers ( forgot their names) ran the works, as a couple friends and I visited the plant. And, you aren't the only one who has problems with the "curtains" on the memory, Mr. C.

Haven't had a Douglas catalog in decades, but yes, they did chamber, headspace, polish and blue their CM barrels, and install their SS barrels, at one time. That may be changed now...
Click to expand...

They still chamber barrels upon the customer's request. Never have seen any bluing going on up there and I've been there many times.

The XX stamped on the breech end of the barrels signify a premium barrel, usually, but I only buy premium grade from them and some are not stamped. It may be that they know it's not necessary to stamp them on my orders.....Stan Taylor could answer that question.
 
Brian,
The men that you were referring to I believe were G.R.Douglas and Arlie Gardner, Tims dad, who ended up with the company after Douglas died. The XX meant that a particular barrel had been checked and was found to be within match grade tolerance and straightness standards. I was told that well over 90% of their barrels were of XX quality so if you bought a standard grade barrel for ten dollars less it was most likely a XX grade. Also,for what it's worth, I believe G.R.Douglas was the first barrel makers to realize the detrimental effects of barrel straightening.
 
I'm going to try to explain to the best of my ability the difference between xx premium and xx air gauge. XX premium i grade the barrel to insure it's straight and it will normally fall in the middle of the bore and groove dimensions. XX air gauge the bore dimensions is gonna be very uniform from one end to the other and at the bottom of the spec which we work in .0001 increments and xx air gauge generally is at the bottom. Now i'm going to explain the double button process in making our barrels. The barrels are rifled then they are stress relieved. Then they are cleaned out. Then we run a smooth plug through the barrel which wipes the top of the lands and insures them to be round with the groove, because when you make a button and the helix angle and land depth are lapped into the button. We use a single button with special lube in the bore to do the rifling process which induces stress in the barrel and that's why we have stress relief. Even though the lands from a regular button looks good and is in size as far as the bore spec when you wipe the lands with a smooth plug it insures uniformity as far as the bore is concerned from one end to other. The only barrels that we double button are 6mm and 30 caliber because that seems to be the calibers of choice for shooting competiton. I hope i was clear enough if not call me at Douglas Barrels during the week from 7am to 3pm.
Thanks,
Stan Taylor
 
All of the marking's on my barrel's are machined away. I really don't know what I have until I fire the first group. Fire once , clean once, for the first 100 round's of course.
 
B.Johnson said:
All of the marking's on my barrel's are machined away. I really don't know what I have until I fire the first group. Fire once , clean once, for the first 100 round's of course.
Click to expand...


Are you serious???

You fire/clean/fire for ONE HUNDRED ROUNDS??

al
 
I used to break in (Krieger loves break in ;) ) I've done some truly exotic procedures requiring a notebook, a pocket calculator, full body solvent protection, a quart of peach preserves and a dead chicken, but now I fire/clean a couple times then go for broke. I had one unnamed barrel that fouled a liddle much so I cleaned it down to bare metal and fire/clean/fire/cleaned two times and she was golden.

al



al
 
From several thoughtful people -- Dave Tooley, Dan Lilja, those sorts.

Basically, you're doing two or three things when you break in a barrel. One is to polish out the wire edges in the throat left by the chambering reamer. You can do this with bullets, but fireforming cases with Cream 'O Wheat is even better. Just be a good cook & don't let it get lumpy. If you ever go camping with Al, don't let him cook.

Maybe you're doing a final burnishing of the barrel when you break it in. I believe it, but no proof. That takes bullets.

The other thing, from Dan Lilja, is you're getting carbon in the pores of the steel.

Now, these last two don't happen if the barrel is dirty, esp. with copper. And those sharp edges in the throat will usually make sure there is some copper around. When they're smooth, no copper, and you can finish off the other.

Notice I said "pores." Carbon fouling is different.
 
This is just an oddity. On the several of the recent "Douglas barrel" threads, much has been made of the notion that you don't see them in the top 10 of match reports. So I went looking in the 1,000 yard match reports (Stan Taylor is one of the 50 or so people with a Long Range Marksman jacket), and sure enough, there they were.

But that got me to thinking. You don't see "Hart" for barrel in the match reports very often either, these days. Back when I was starting out in benchrest, that's all I'd use, 'cause that's what the top shooters used. Quick! How many think Hart isn't as good anymore?

But wait, there's more. The next gotta-have barrel was Shilen. Everybody used them. Until that became Kreiger. Is it Bartlien now? Anybody got some new Hart or Shilen blanks they'll sell me real cheap? They sure aren't prominent in the match reports anymore, so aren't worth as much, right? To be a nice guy, I'll give you $100 for a new blank -- best grade -- of either. You can thank me later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top