barrel blank
- Thread starter muzzleblastm38
- Start date
yodave, what you say is a general rule of thumb. Most people, including myself, tend to do it this way.
Now, IMHO, it really isn't necessary. I have played with a couple of match barrels that were made on 1 1/4 straight tubes x 36in. One was .308 with a 1-14 twist rate and the other was a .224 with a 1-8 twist rate. Both were Gaillard barrels and extremely high quality.
On a bet, I threaded and chambered the marked end of the barrels first. The 30cal was chambered with a 308 Palma Match reamer that has always cut incredibly close chambers. The other was chambered with a very tight .223 Rem reamer that I picked up at a gun show.
Both shot well, right from the very first rounds. Ok it was established that both of these barrels were competitive shooters. So, off they came, the chambered sections were cut off. I then cleaned up the muzzle ends, threaded and chambered them with the same reamers, installed them on the same actions and took them to the range with ammo loaded up for the first test batch. No difference. They both shot equally well at 100 and 200 yards.
That was a good bet for me. I made a couple of hundred bucks and sold the 308 Palma Match chambered rifle to the fellow that made the bet. The .223 rem rifle stayed with me for a couple of years and moved on. I never flipped the barrels on either of those rifles back to their original positions. To my knowledge they are still performing well, even though their barrels are installed backwards.
IMHO, a good quality, precision made barrel doesn't care which end you chamber. Mind you if the barrel is tapered or contoured, you don't have a choice as to which end to chamber.
The biggest argument for using the marked end, is that the bullet travels the same direction the cutter or mandrel traveled. There is something to be said for that argument, so I chamber the marked end like most other people do, when it comes to barrels with no contour.
Now, IMHO, it really isn't necessary. I have played with a couple of match barrels that were made on 1 1/4 straight tubes x 36in. One was .308 with a 1-14 twist rate and the other was a .224 with a 1-8 twist rate. Both were Gaillard barrels and extremely high quality.
On a bet, I threaded and chambered the marked end of the barrels first. The 30cal was chambered with a 308 Palma Match reamer that has always cut incredibly close chambers. The other was chambered with a very tight .223 Rem reamer that I picked up at a gun show.
Both shot well, right from the very first rounds. Ok it was established that both of these barrels were competitive shooters. So, off they came, the chambered sections were cut off. I then cleaned up the muzzle ends, threaded and chambered them with the same reamers, installed them on the same actions and took them to the range with ammo loaded up for the first test batch. No difference. They both shot equally well at 100 and 200 yards.
That was a good bet for me. I made a couple of hundred bucks and sold the 308 Palma Match chambered rifle to the fellow that made the bet. The .223 rem rifle stayed with me for a couple of years and moved on. I never flipped the barrels on either of those rifles back to their original positions. To my knowledge they are still performing well, even though their barrels are installed backwards.
IMHO, a good quality, precision made barrel doesn't care which end you chamber. Mind you if the barrel is tapered or contoured, you don't have a choice as to which end to chamber.
The biggest argument for using the marked end, is that the bullet travels the same direction the cutter or mandrel traveled. There is something to be said for that argument, so I chamber the marked end like most other people do, when it comes to barrels with no contour.
go to know......but from my understanding it has to do with the hand lapping and the over bore condition that results from the compound, more imminent from the lap is started, the result is a tapered barrel per say that is tighter at the muzzle end...........but then again I either read that on the internet or got the info from some drunk guy laying over a lathe......
I think most barrel makers will tell you to chamber the end that has the info stamped on it including my barrels.
When a barrel gets lapped more strokes of the lap are given to the breech end of the barrel to keep the muzzle end tighter.
Yodave is right when a bullet gets fired it needs to keep tight all the way down the barrel until it exits ,if it gets loose any the gun will not group.
When a barrel gets lapped more strokes of the lap are given to the breech end of the barrel to keep the muzzle end tighter.
Yodave is right when a bullet gets fired it needs to keep tight all the way down the barrel until it exits ,if it gets loose any the gun will not group.
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I don't know how the previous responses missed it...
The inside.
Since the vast majority of barrel blanks are contoured it is easy to see which end gets the chamber... if it is a full blank it is always the stamped end.
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