Totally agree. No chance I'd buy one any time soon. We had a really shitty barrel from FAXON that they did not make good on.
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Did it shoot bad or are you just an obsessive barrel cleaner?
That sounds like a Faxon problem, there are other companies that produce Melonite treated barrels.
If I had opened a business 15 years ago and every barrel or rifle I produced shot 2-3" groups like BCM, DD and all these other "professional" grade firearms I would have been out of business in a year. But then again there are a lot of people out there that are fine shooting a rifle that shoots 2-3" groups as long as it has a big name everyone can see. :D
It shoots good. But I want to shoot my cast lead bullets in it. You need to start with a bare barrel with lead. Any copper will grab the lead and can cause it to lead up the barrel. These will be powder coated but I want it to be able to be spotless so if something happens I can't blame it on the copper build up.
JB would not touch it. I ran a very tight fitting patch with jb an kroil for at least 50 strokes and it did not touch it. It did not remove any of the black coating either.
My buddy Nez runs BanBan's Barrel Barn in North Austin. He makes all the Texas State Rifle Team barrels for the senior and junior teams, and Ken Stephens has won the President's Match at Camp Perry with his tubes.
Nez cuts Shilen blanks, chambers, cuts the crowns, threads for mounting the barrel extensions and flash suppressor, then sends them out for nitriding here in Texas.
Once they return from nitriding he places them in large tubs (actually old ice chests) and alternately soaks and rinses off all the salts from the hardening-blacking process. I think he says he leaves them to soak a week or two. This turns the water brown-red like rust.
Once done he'll dry them, mount and torque on the barrel extensions, then I believe he drills the gas ports.
A good nitrided barrel will hold precision and last a long time. Chrome-lining has the advantage for military (service-combat) grade barrels for longevity for automatic fire and high heat iterations, but both are still affected by chamber pressure and heat.
Andy, I am running my 65gr bullet at 2600fps. The variables are not the same as a 22rf when it comes to leading. I have leaded up more 22rf barrels than I have with my centerfire barrels. I love my rf rifles but I can load my 223 for less than I can buy 22rf ammo. At least with the components I have on hand. With all this new bs going on I will not buy anything for now. I seen this coming and really stocked up on components 4 years ago. And up till the bat bug hit. I have not bought anything since. I have enough stuff to keep me shooting for at least 5 more years.
Nitrided barrels are the way to go in my experience. Ive used melonited barrels from ARP, Lothar Walther, and Criterion. All of them shoot MOA or better. They seem to be immune to copper fouling and clean up fast when they need it. They don’t rust. We used one of ARP’s melonited scout profile barrels as a bullet hose for a few years and couldn’t kill it. The kid we gave that upper to still hammers steel out to 600 yards with it to this day. The only cl barrels I have left are LMTs and 1 Colt Socom. The LMT cl MWS barrels are freaks. They shoot better than any cl barrel should.
At this point I’m not sure if you are seeing copper or discoloration. If it is copper it’s got to be deep into the bore to survive lapping. A bore that rough seems like a poor choice for shooting lead even if you do get all the copper out.
You probably just need to shoot it and see what happens at this point.