Thinking about a stainless nitrided barrel, anybody have any real world experience?

[Knife_Sniper]

I'd speculate that everyone with a Larue rifle may be using a nitrided and/or melonite stainless barrel. IIRC, Noveske holds some type of patent regarding same. I can't say anything bad about mine. It seems on par with my old Bartlein/Compass Lake SPR barrel.

I haven't viewed for myself where Criterion claims 1/2 MOA out of their barrels. Double BS for a chrome lined barrel. Anyone who claims that for a AR15 barrel IMO is full of shit. Using worked up handloads that MAY be possible in extremely rare cases, but I still call bullshit unless I saw it in person. We're talking machine rested bull barrels and very precise reloading techniques.

I've shot hundreds of measured groups. IMO, a VERY accurate AR15 will hover just below 1 to 3/4 MOA when averaged over many groups over time. Using very high quality factory loads, this will be closer to or just above 1 MOA on average. I've shot extremely small groups, but they are a statistical rarity. Its very dishonest to take the smallest group you've ever shot and claim that to be the average accuracy of the complete shooter/rifle/ammo combo.

How about 10 round groups from a button rifled chrome lined barrel?



Sample size of 2, both ten round groups.



The Criterion + Straight Jacket has shown tremendous accuracy potential and it is simply a button rifled barrel which is chrome lined. Those groups are from a 10x bushnell optic and my 52 Hornady ELD match loads over 25 of varget. I am sure if I had a machine rest this barrel could do better.

I was introduced to Teludyne Tech and the straight jacket by David Bailey who agreed to jacket my Criterion chrome lined barrel for T&E.

The mean radius is always smaller than the extreme spread, and is a valuable measurement. I have learned many things since first testing the Criterion and the barrel has evolved into something quite new. I would say never deal in absolutes. Chrome lined barrels are never that accurate right? This one is.

Or at least the chrome lining isnt destroying or diminishing the potential I would say.

I will agree with the satement that ammo is paramount.

[Jsp10477]

There is absolutely no way someone is shooting 1.5" at 300 yards with a chrome lined AR15 barrel. The manufacturing process alone on a button rifled barrel almost guarantees that you will get more vertical dispersion than that at 300 with .223/5.56mm. Add in the chrome lining itself and I'll go so far as to say it isn't even possible, let alone guaranteed.

Assuming, let alone almost guaranteeing, that a button rifled barrel can't be as accurate at distance (based on rifling process) as a cut rifled barrel is laughable. Most understand the advantages of cut rifling. Most properly stress relieved, lapped, etc, match grade button rifled barrels cost about as much as a barrel from Kreiger direct. The White Oak's seem to be the exception.

I never saw a 1/2" guarantee in anything posted.

[Hammer_Man]

Hey everybody thanks for the replies. After reading some of the input from this thread, and reading some reviews on the net, I decided to go ahead and order a Daniel Defense 18" rifle length S2W barrel. The current production models of this barrel are listed as having a chrome lined bore, but most reviews state it is a pretty accurate barrel none the less. I'm sure it will all come down to ammo selection, and my own abilities (or lack thereof), but I'm sure this barrel will serve me well for a long time.

[Cold/Bore]

How about 10 round groups from a button rifled chrome lined barrel?



Sample size of 2, both ten round groups.



The Criterion + Straight Jacket has shown tremendous accuracy potential and it is simply a button rifled barrel which is chrome lined. Those groups are from a 10x bushnell optic and my 52 Hornady ELD match loads over 25 of varget. I am sure if I had a machine rest this barrel could do better.

I was introduced to Teludyne Tech and the straight jacket by David Bailey who agreed to jacket my Criterion chrome lined barrel for T&E.

The mean radius is always smaller than the extreme spread, and is a valuable measurement. I have learned many things since first testing the Criterion and the barrel has evolved into something quite new. I would say never deal in absolutes. Chrome lined barrels are never that accurate right? This one is.

Or at least the chrome lining isnt destroying or diminishing the potential I would say.

I will agree with the satement that ammo is paramount.

You must be Lothean at thenewrifleman.com . I enjoy your articles. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[hdrolling]

Hey everybody thanks for the replies. After reading some of the input from this thread, and reading some reviews on the net, I decided to go ahead and order a Daniel Defense 18" rifle length S2W barrel. The current production models of this barrel are listed as having a chrome lined barrel, but most reviews state it is a pretty accurate barrel none the less. I'm sure it will all come down to ammo selection, and my own abilities (or lack thereof), but I'm sure this barrel will serve me well for a long time.

My DD M4V11 PRO has this barrel and it's very good. I'm sure it will work for what your wanting to do with it.

dd 1 by hd_rolling, on Flickr

[bp7178]

How about 10 round groups from a button rifled chrome lined barrel?

Sample size of 2, both ten round groups.

The Criterion + Straight Jacket has shown tremendous accuracy potential and it is simply a button rifled barrel which is chrome lined. Those groups are from a 10x bushnell optic and my 52 Hornady ELD match loads over 25 of varget. I am sure if I had a machine rest this barrel could do better.

I was introduced to Teludyne Tech and the straight jacket by David Bailey who agreed to jacket my Criterion chrome lined barrel for T&E.

The mean radius is always smaller than the extreme spread, and is a valuable measurement. I have learned many things since first testing the Criterion and the barrel has evolved into something quite new. I would say never deal in absolutes. Chrome lined barrels are never that accurate right? This one is.

Or at least the chrome lining isnt destroying or diminishing the potential I would say.

I will agree with the satement that ammo is paramount.

Kind of illustrates my point. Both are extremely accurate groups. But, neither is 1/2 MOA. I understand the difference between mean radius and extreme spread, but for purposes of this conversation no one was talking about mean radius. The accuracy of factory Criterion barrels was called into question due to a rather dubious claim about them being 1/2 MOA. Putting a jacket on a factory barrel...its no longer a factory barrel.

[Knife_Sniper]

Kind of illustrates my point. Both are extremely accurate groups. But, neither is 1/2 MOA. I understand the difference between mean radius and extreme spread, but for purposes of this conversation no one was talking about mean radius. The accuracy of factory Criterion barrels was called into question due to a rather dubious claim about them being 1/2 MOA. Putting a jacket on a factory barrel...its no longer a factory barrel.

Point taken sir. This combination is not 1/2 moa 100% of the time. Its only 1/2 moa 75% of the time.

75 percent of the group for both targets is .48 MOA out of a sample of 20 shots. Ergo when my performance, the barrels performance, and the loads performance are in sync I can count on the majority of my shots to land with 1/2 minute and then the latter 25 percent to land within a sub minute.

So what defines a 1/2 minute rifle? A sample size of 100 where each bullet lands within a 1/2 minute? That would be pretty definitive but almost impossible due to the human, environmental, and rifle/load factors coming into play.

Likewise we can agree thst 3 and 5 shot groups dont paint a perfect picture either.

As you suggested, an inteligent shooter should look at multiple shots over time. Wether we compress the shots into two ten round groups or 10 - 5 shot groups really is just semantic. That's simply our prefered way of chopping up the human /load / rifle performance into chunks of manageable data... But they must all be averaged.

When we superimpose our groups to paint the picture of rifle/shooter/load performance we will undoubtedly have flyers and as such we *can* call those outliers since they should be in the minority of a good group. Should they be discounted? No.

Hence if 75% of my rounds land within a 1/2 minute thats satisfactory to me on a gas gun. If the flyers, be they mechanical or shooter error still land within sub moa that is still satisfactory to me. That tells me that the rifle, load, and shooter are doing something consistent 75 percent of the time.

Whats the next biggest factor in this rifles accuracy? Shooter. To err is human. I did my best but no doubt I am the likely next biggest source of precision loss in those above groups. I am not a machine rest and I found it fatiguing to shoot those groups with a 10x scope.

Now on to my point:

In the grand scheme of things, do you really believe criterions chrome lining process is the limiting factor in this particluar rifles precision?

I do not.

I will aquire more magnification and re-shoot this load later this fall / winter.