AR barrels.. NEA or S&J?

jjr said:
No 7.5" barrels?
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Only 7.5 retailers/makers in Canada seem to be NEA (maker), DLASK (maker) and Questar (who are selling Lothar Walther 7.5's).

Seems to be a small niche market.

I have an NEA on my 7.5" PDW and it's great.

If S&J start making them as well, all the better - I'd like to see one in a lightweight gov't-style profile.
 
I have 2 S&J Barrels...one has close to 5000 rounds through it, and it has been excellent (looking kinda beat up now, but otherwise is still great). The other one I used in my last build, and the finish was beautiful. It has only had a few hundred rounds, and it too has been awesome. I have nothing but good things to say about S&J barrels.
 
Hey BBB... so i ordered a 14.5 S&J barrel from Lanz Shooting Supplies, they were out of stock, so they will be ordering more tomorrow.. how long will it take untill they'll have it? and will these barrels have Niteride Finish already..?
 
Suputin said:
Apparently what is harder to do is spell BARRELS properly. Also fwiw the process you are describing is gas NITRIDE not nitrate. :slap:

But hey why sweat the details when making precision components like rifle barrels? :rolleyes:
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Shouldn't you be identifying yourself as someone having a business arangement with NEA when you put down one of their competitors?

Strikes me as only being fair, after all not everyone knows...
 
Dmitri said:
Hey BBB... so i ordered a 14.5 S&J barrel from Lanz Shooting Supplies, they were out of stock, so they will be ordering more tomorrow.. how long will it take untill they'll have it? and will these barrels have Niteride Finish already..?
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everyones out of stock at this time, i think lanz, one shot , sfrc have some 11.5 but thats about all
all ar15 bbls going foward will have the nitride finish
There are aprox 50 of the nitride finished bbls out on the market inc the 8 test units, but all but about 10 of them and 4 test bbls were sold over seas, so your chance of finding our nitrate finished product in canada are slim, untill the next run coming shortly.
bbb
 
Claven2 said:
Now you need to make your 14.5" in a C8 pencile profile and offer a 16" bbl option with a simulated Simon Sleeve... It's a nice market nobody seems to be exploiting and a very Canadian-specific requirement ;)

Of course, if you are buying your blanks pre-profiled, forget what I said... :(
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could be a project for some time in 2012
our blanks are raw and we profile and chamber them in canada, that lets us machine them to anysize we see a market for.
I have been told that Casey at tac ord has done one so maybe ill talk with him and we can get somthing going sooner then later.
 
Dietz said:
I see you're doing 16" middy, any chances of having some 14.5" middies as well?

Please? ;)

Any chances of knowing the expected price tag of a F marked FSB equipped 16" middy barrel? Taper pins?
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yes for sure 14.5 and 16.5 mid, i want a middy for myself!!
we have to do a little testing on the 14.5 middy before we sell them as i want to make sure we get the port size right, not to many people wanting to share that info so we will do out own testing first, to make sure it will run on basic Fed 223 as well as good stuff liek the PMC .556 ss109
bbb
 
badboybeeson said:
yes for sure 14.5 and 16.5 mid, i want a middy for myself!!
we have to do a little testing on the 14.5 middy before we sell them as i want to make sure we get the port size right, not to many people wanting to share that info so we will do out own testing first, to make sure it will run on basic Fed 223 as well as good stuff liek the PMC .556 ss109
bbb
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Might I suggest you also function test it with 55gn MFS? This seems to be the most problematic (read: underpowered) .223 on the market right now and it's popular with a lot of shooters because it's so cheap.
 
I did a build for a friend using one of the S&J Nitride finished barrels. The carbine shoots very well and the quality is on par with other top end manufacturers.

There is no loss of accuracy as is apparent with a chrome lined barrel, and the barrel life is apparently lengthened. There is probably only 1k or so rounds through this thing so I obviously can't comment on the longevity over a bare steel barrel.

Way back when Simon and I talked about this project and having this treatment done, NEA wasn't even thinking about ARs. A lot of research and time went into this and for the record, from all the companies I spoke to, the gas nitriding is the more consistent and controlled process when compared to the liquid bath.

Steel or nitrided, you are getting a quality barrel from S&J.

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North Eastern Arms said:
That doesn't sound likely. Our barrels are not made of uranium. What's the weight on that complete upper setup?
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I don't know, doesn't sound too far fetched to me. The C8A3 with 15.9" barrels weighs more than a C7A2 with 20" barrel, all due to the profile under the handguards.
I have an 11.5" HBAR that feels substantially heavier in the hands than a rifle with 14.5" government profile. I can't tell you the exact differences because I haven't weighed them but I would be interested to find out how heavy a NEA 14.5" is compared to one with a government profile.
 
Claven2 said:
If I'm not mistaken, NEA is the other Canadian maker using an NC process and I believe they opted for salt bath ferritic nitrocarburizing.
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Nope.


angryeyebrows said:
Way back when Simon and I talked about this project and having this treatment done, NEA wasn't even thinking about ARs. A lot of research and time went into this and for the record, from all the companies I spoke to, the gas nitriding is the more consistent and controlled process when compared to the liquid bath.
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I didn't know you were privy to our meetings when we started discussing AR's and barrels. We started down the Barrel road long before we decided to make a rifle. However, our barrels aren't bath nitrided. It is for sure a sub-par processing within the 'nitriding' industry. It's still better that many other forms of processing, but if you're going to go that far why not go a little farther? Gas is more controllable than salt bath for sure... However it comes down to the processing house to give you the proper end result that you're looking for. Gassing can have a lot of variation depending on the operator and operation used. Bath nitriding is more consistent in end result from batch to batch.. That being said, salt bath nitriding has been used with great effect on precision barrels. It all comes down to the house doing the work.

Claven2 said:
The "Cadillac" of these processes is called plasma-assisted ferritic nitrocarburizing (aka ion nitriding). It's done at much lower temperatures in the work piece and results in less chance of dimensional alteration. It also works better on stainless steels than the other two processes. I don't think this process is being used by any barrel suppliers in Canada, though I suspect some US makers may have adopted it - it's been rumoured the CMMG "WASP" NC treatment is of this type.
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You're right there. ;)

All I can state that we employ an 'advanced form' of nitrocarburizing.
 
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North Eastern Arms said:
I didn't know you were privy to our meetings when we started discussing AR's and barrels. We started down the Barrel road long before we decided to make a rifle. However, our barrels aren't bath nitrided.
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Of course I'm not privy to your in house discussions! What a silly thing to say. Perhaps I should have said talking instead of thinking. I do however know that when I started my research into this form of barrel finishing, there wasn't even a whisper about ARs or AR barrels from your company. In fact you were barely up and running and still toying with the idea of the Swiss Arms lower.

Now to be fair, I have not used your barrel first hand nor did I claim that the S&J barrel was better. I simply stated that in my experience, the S&J is a solid product with a lot of thought and time put into the design.

Now in order to be perfectly transparent, what is the process that you use? I think the consumer would be interested in knowing exactly what they are getting. Care to post your specs?
 
Claven2 said:
I stand corrected then. I have one your first productin run barrels and it looked bath processed to me as I thought I had ID'd the drip-point on the bbl extension from when it was hang-dried, but I could be wrong - it's happened before.
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It's from the oil we dip the barrels in after finishing.
 
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