I had concerns with the Cadex/Unisig barrels as well. To the point where I was planning on putting a rifle together in .338 Lapua with an R7 long action and a Bartlein barrel. I was planning on running a strike nuke chassis as well. I ended up talking to Ryan over the phone when I was ready to order my parts and he had lots of good things to say about their in house barrels. When I did the math at the time, I could purchase a complete Shepherd in .338 Lapua for $1000 less than it would cost me to build it using a Bartlein barrel and having it fit to the action. That’s complete with action, barrel, stock, magazine, machining, brake and trigger. Not including the drag bag.
At that point, my thoughts were to buy the complete rifle and Bartlein barrel to have fit if the accuracy wasn’t what I was hoping for. To my surprise, after 60 rounds of load development, I’ve got a load producing one inch groups at 200 yards (half minute) with an SD of 6.8 fps. Im by no means a seasoned reloader either. Maybe 5 years at it. Probably marginally better than factory. I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but more than likely I’ll take this load out to a 1000 next, then hopefully a mile. For me, a half minute is enough for ringing steel.
Needless to say, this particular barrel shoots! Your mileage may vary, but I’m happy with it. Who knows how long it’ll continue to perform, but I’ve got a Bartlein to replace it with when it does start to slip. And all for less money than starting from scratch. Plus a free drag bag!
Not my first Cadex, and won’t be my last.