Barrel profiles for LW Build
- Thread starter ShrtRnd
- Start date
I had a rifle built last year, Defiance AnTi long action, Benchmark #2 @24" chambered 280AI, AG composites Carbon All Terain stock, and standard Rem 700 BDL factory bottom metal, and a Trigger Tech, with a Vortex Razor LHT on top. The rifle balances perfectly, recoil is negligible, and accuracy is excellent, it likes the Hornady Precision hunter 162 ELD-X and I am wrapping up load development with 160 grain Nosler Accubonds.
- Location
- Brockville, ON
KS Arms has a couple nice LW profiles in the #0 and #1 profiles. Good length for those lightweight tapers.
Most of my rifles that have re-tubed were 700s. I like the factory 700 Mountain Rifle contour. It's fairly light but not too light.
Handling suffers if it's too light or too short and one needs to consider well the stock/bbl/scope and mounts combo for good handling. The rifle that works the best for me is a plain jane 700 LA in a TI take off stock with a 22" MR contour King bbl with Talley LW mounts and a Leupold 2.5-8 in 257Roberts.
I have a 22” #1 benchmark on a defiance anti in a AG privateer stock. I believe it was 5 1/2 lb bare. I don’t have a lot of time behind it yet, but seeming like a nice balance. It is snappy though in the 6.5 prc, considerably more then my 6.5 swede in the same weight.
I got my barrel quote in from JC Customs. Wasn't as bad as I anticipated, but he's unable to mimic the same Mtn profile on my 700 MSS and suggested a #3.
Somewhere in one of the many UL/LW and Sheep Rifle threads i have saved, i saw a 260Ai w/a #3 in a B&C Stock that was about 6-3/4lbs roughly. I have contacted that CGN'er and was told it was a Bartlin barrel blank iirc
Somewhere in one of the many UL/LW and Sheep Rifle threads i have saved, i saw a 260Ai w/a #3 in a B&C Stock that was about 6-3/4lbs roughly. I have contacted that CGN'er and was told it was a Bartlin barrel blank iirc
If you get the barrel “close” but bigger than you want you could always get someone to turn it to what you want. Of course, SS would make it easiest.
SCG
Remage will reduce weight because of the thinner breech diameter so that #3 will likely be close to the mountain contour , it will also fit on any 700 if ever you decide to sell it so you can get more$$ for it than a take off shouldered fit.
I run remage type barrels on most of my setups now , they are a snap to install and shoot evey bit as good as a shouldered fit , I just finished a 260 rem on a 700 in a B&C stock with a light sporter as a deer rig it shoots fantastic and light to carry
The only ones I had to adjust were stocks that had been bedded you need to remove a bit for clearance under the nut , this is easy and about 5 minutes work with a chisel and sandpaper
I went with a slightly different approach.
Bill Leeper has done all my gun work for the last 30+ years, so I don't know how other gunsmiths would approach this. For the big game rifles I've had Bill rebarrel or build, I've asked him to rebarrel with the skinniest barrel he decided was possible and at the same time would deliver hunting accuracy - not target accuracy. Hunting up here on the Continental Divide, there's a whole lot of carrying versus how much actual shooting.
A 30/06 Husqvarna featherweight Husky came back as a 30 Newton with a slightly slimmer barrel than the original (20.5" barrel) and an additional 4" of barrel length. Bill pointed out it was easy to cut if down to an equal 20.5" length - but pretty hard to put the cut off pieces back. So he would cut it back in whatever increments I wanted if the extra weight/length was more than I wanted.
After carrying and shooting it at the 24" length, beside another Husky still in factory configuration in .308 Winchester to shoot beside it for comparison for weight/length, the 30 Newton barrel remains untouched as Bill first built it. I haven't bothered weighing the 30 Newton against the .308 Winchester to see what the weight difference is (they wear identical scopes and Con-Trol bases and rings as well as identical factory stocks), but I doubt it is very much. The longer 4" of barrel makes it nicer in the hands for deliberate shooting, and any reduction in how handy it is compared to the 20" length for things like snap shooting doesn't seem to change much.
Another rebarrel was a Husqvarna Mannlicher style 30/06 to 358 Whelan. Again, specified making the barrel as slim as possible. There's obviously a bit of difference in the final contour Bill turned the Ron Smith blank down to, versus the original 30/06 barrel, but again the difference in weight to me, trying to figure out which one was heavier while holding each of them in my hands, hasn't motivated me to weigh them to figure out the difference.
I don't know if Bill turned the barrels he's done for me on rebarrels/builds to a specific contour he chose, or even if he turned them down as much as was safe to minimize weight. I told him I wanted my big game mountain rifles as light as possible - but to also apply his own knowledge and experience while doing so. Bill is also a sheep hunter, not to mention a pretty damned good silhouette, benchrest, and fullbore rifle competitor. That to me was valuable take advantage of while giving him a rifle to do a barrel for with my request that it should be as light as possible.
Just a different way of looking at how you specify and get your job done, that's all. BTW, the worst grouping I've gotten out of rebarrel/builds done by Bill after being given those specifications is a BLR rebarreled from .308 Win to .358 Winchester. It groups 180 grainers pushed pretty hard into just under 1.5 MOA for 5 rounds. In comparison, the 30 Newton in the factory stock is breathing close to 3/4 MOA for five rounds and a 358 Norma Magnum, again in the original featherweight skinny factory stock, keeps 5 rounds just inside 1 MOA.
That works for me as far as hunting rifles you carry up and down mountains all day goes.
During my ongoing perusing online, I've seen UL, LW and Hybrid (Mtn/Hunter) builds all with a varying range of barrels from #1 to full on heavy barrel Varmint profiles. From C.A.F builds (cheap as f...), Custom Builds with various actions and barrels, up to $15k complete rifles by Fierce, Gunwerks etc.
You definately see a contrast between the different setups. If we break it down by specific species a little further, say Sheep, Elk or Mule/Whitetail out West as to what's used here in Ontario there's even more of a contrast.
My original question was based purely out of curiosity and maybe a gentle push towards a certain profile if there was a consensus towards a particular profile on my current build in progress.
I spent most of last year as operations manager for a friend who bought the carcass of what was once Montana Rifle Company, which started out as purely being a rifle barrel manufacturer, and then later split into a rifle division and the barrel making being sold to Remington to supply their rifle barrel demands. Proof Research and their barrels are only about five minutes away; McGowan was fifteen minutes the other way. I never specifically asked either of them if their barrel profiles were standardized within the industry. As far as I was concerned, MRC's rifle barrel profiles were developed/arrived at specifically to be paired with their actions to make the rifle models they advertised and sold.
When we started taking orders for rifle barrels once we got going again, the manufacturer would send us the profile dimensions for that run of barrels, they didn't ask us for which profiles they were offering for sale.
When your business is focused on offering individual drop in barrels versus filling orders for barrels purchased several thousand at a time, I would presume you start looking at profiles that lend themselves to being as close to drop in as possible. But I would still guess, if forced to, that there is no standardization of rifle barrel profiles within the industry.
