Originally Posted by
a1fabweld
I've had a scratch on my butt for a long time to build a Grendel and pulled the trigger a few weeks ago ordering parts. I wanted a reasonably light, match grade rig to tinker and experiment with. I ordered the fluted AA 18" barrel (on sale for $200 right now through AA) and a bunch of other stuff including an AA bolt, a BCM carrier and NF FFP scope. I figure since AA developed the round, I'd run their stuff. Ordered 1200 rds of Hornady SST loaded ammo today. 1000 to stash and 200 to shoot and reload. The AA stainless barrels are not coated in any way afaik. I'm still on the fence about nitriding, but I like the idea of it. New barrels have tooling marks/burrs inside and breaking them in is how you remove them or "lay them down". If you take a brand new barrel with the burrs in the bore from machining and nitride it, the imperfections internally seem like they'd become hard & remain. I've talked with some of the long range guys I used to shoot with about this and they agree. But being that barrels are so cheap m ok replacing it every 5-10k rounds to achieve the max accuracy potential for the barrel. One think I can say for certain is that the guys I used to shoot the 1000yd matches with locally, not one of them had a nitrited barrel. All raw stainless bores with the exception of a few new guys who ran non-lined steel barrels on factory rifles. The only part I'm waiting on now is the barrel. I assume they're back ordered. Everything else will be here this week and I'll post my humble review when it's done.
As far as shooting steel cased ammo through a non-lined bore, I can't see how it would damage anything. The laquer coating might leave some residue in the chamber but as far as permanent damage to the barrel, I doubt there would be any. I plan on running some Wolf through mine just to see how it shoots.
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