Best Barrel

[sprice]

I figured I would resurrect this thread instead of starting a new one; vicious cb made some great points about why we don’t hammer forged stainless for accuracy benefits. But stainless has chromium, and chromium is work hardened, so perhaps stainless would be the better steel to hammer forge because it will also get work hardened and become even more dense?!

[GH41]

Lot of smoke being blown around here. I wonder how much of it will find it's way up the OP's ass.

[sprice]

Lot of smoke being blown around here. I wonder how much of it will find it's way up the OP's ass.

Thanks for your contribution to the discussion; what do you mean?

[stascom]

I figured I would resurrect this thread instead of starting a new one; vicious cb made some great points about why we don’t hammer forged stainless for accuracy benefits. But stainless has chromium, and chromium is work hardened, so perhaps stainless would be the better steel to hammer forge because it will also get work hardened and become even more dense?!

It still won't be as dense as a CMV barrel. Why settle for the softer metal, if you're forging it anyway? The point of using SS is to be able to cut it precisely. If you're not cutting the barrel... It might make you feel warm and fuzzy to have a CHF SS barrel (which you can get) but I suspect most people wouldn't care for one. And the manufacturers probably understand that.

[sprice]

Good point, the reason I ask is because I’ve located several ss chf nitride barrels, but it doesn’t seem like many people are making a cmv one.

[joeg26er]

Then there is Polygonal rifling. Some say that's better than the traditional rifling??

[turnburglar]

To the OP: it sounds to me like you are chasing accuracy of the platform by trying to add up all the features that you read are 'best'.

Honestly a tight group is much more about finding that magic combination of bullet that your barrel likes. YOUR barrel. Barrels from the exact same batch (same specs) may like different loads. The best example of this besides dragging a ton of guns out and shooting all the bullets through them, would be to watch Molon's precision threads he does on barrels. Consistently through his posts: a barrel with 'poor' specs (CL/4150) can shoot INCREDIBLY good. Infact if I was really really bent on getting the 'best barrel' I would get a Colt. Thats based just on Molon's documentation.


In reality I just bought a faxon match. I bought the barrel more for the profile and length (14.5 gunner) than I did for the nitride, stainless Steel, or even the 5r rifling. I simply choose the match over the regular barrel because I have a real stash of 77gr ammo and do like shooting my carbine as far as the desert will let me. Honestly though I doubt as a shooter I would put either barrel passed its mechanical accuracy.

[MegademiC]

I figured I would resurrect this thread instead of starting a new one; vicious cb made some great points about why we don’t hammer forged stainless for accuracy benefits. But stainless has chromium, and chromium is work hardened, so perhaps stainless would be the better steel to hammer forge because it will also get work hardened and become even more dense?!

That’s not necessarily how alloys work.
Density and hardness are independent of one another.

[sprice]

Thanks for the info guys, I’m just thinking out loud and trying to figure it out.