How would you guys feel about recieving your custom barrel with rust on it?

2 minutes with a scotch brite pad and a few drops of diesel and no one will be the wiser .......

people need to unwad their underwear and save it for when something really serious comes along rather than give themselves an ulcer over something so minor .
 
This is were quality is going... ! the people that think this is no big deal never have had a good quality barrel in their hands, never should I have to rework a chamber after paying a ton of money for the work.I assume may of these are friends of the gun smith that did the work and are excusing him... You should never except this in any form.. i have chambered many (private work for friends))barrels with a rougher reamer first then the finish reamer ,then a quick polish...if they were getting dull I would send them in to get sharpened,, they always looked excellent or they would never leave the shop period!!! this is a shame to other gun smiths... its not only about the rust its a reflection of his work!!
 
You wouldn't get a new Kreiger barrel blank and then have all that work done to it by any decent gunsmith or machinist for a $500 total, unless someone is working for free. Lets be realistic here.

Sounds like some communication issues happened in that deal.


Still no excuse for rust, where ever it came from.
 
it not that big of a deal, some time moisture get in and a thin film of rust form on the surface, you can get it out using various oil with minor scrub, WD40 work very well.
 
I think he ordered a blank then cut the chamber, threaded, cut to length and crowned. He may have even had to turn it down to get it to match large shank savage before threading. I don't think Kreiger offers prefit barrels, Is it not still a prefit coming from a dealer that has it machined? He only sent a barrel, didn't send him an action to work with so I'm thinking yes right.

OK. For $500 the dealer obtained a blank, turned, chambered, threaded and crowned it, and sent it to you without having ever seen your action.
You think it is a Kreiger. For that price it is very unlikely.
The dealer has little control over how the rifle shoots. There are way too many factors affecting performance, which which the dealer had no involvement. I would suggest that for a true custom job, the barrel should have been carefully fitted to your specific action. A "one size fits all" approach isn't necessarily inferior, but simply cannot match the detail of a custom installation.
Your complaint is centered around minor cosmetic blemishes. The dealer should have had a look before shipping. If he had, you would never have known.
 
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We all have opinions and are on both sides of the fence. Bottom line is it should have never left the shop that way. The odds that it did not and the rust began to grow while in shipment is highly unlikely. If there is some rust, even slight that can be seen, who could rule out that there is none in the bore? Yes it could more than likely be cleaned up. I will hazard a guess that most of you who are saying it is NO big deal it will be a big deal if it was your barrel.

In regards to what he paid I get my prefits for under 500.00. This is from 3 different blank manufacturers.
 
If its a Prefit, its not a blank barrel. Yes there are a few barrel manufacturer who will do the chambering and all at very reasonable costs that gunsmiths can't meet doing 1 offs.
 
If its a Prefit, its not a blank barrel. Yes there are a few barrel manufacturer who will do the chambering and all at very reasonable costs that gunsmiths can't meet doing 1 offs.

It depends what one sees as a definition of prefit.......

What I see as prefits are barrels for Savages. Anyone can buy a wrench, go and no-go gauge and put it on. For any other rifle that does not have the barrel nut system you cannot call them prefits or can you.

I called mine a prefit or is it????

I drop 2 Kreiger blanks off at my gunsmith. He chambers, threads, and crowns as per the measurements marked in his book for my given rifles action. When I take posession of my barrels, I give them the quick over. When I install it, I remove the old barrel and all the anti seize from the receivers threads. I put anti seize on the new barrels threads, screw the barrel in and torque to 60 foot lbs with a torque wrench. Headspacing on my 6PPC match barrels is NEVER more than 2 thou variation from barrel to barrel. Sometimes as luck has it, they are bang on. So I can call my barrels prefit. It went to my gunsmith as a Kreiger blank and came back to me as a prefit Kreiger but specific to my receiver.

In reality any competant and the key word is competant machinist/gunsmith can make prefit barrels. It is the definition of prefit that can vary.

JMO
 
What I want to know is the total cost which would give a much better idea as to what you received and HOW DID YOU HEAD-SPACE IT?

Is this for me? If so its on a savage, I used go gauges and a barrel nut. The price was 570.00 shipping and tax in. I could have opted for a Shilen select match instead....at the time that would have been 510.00
 
Canuck not sure if you are directing that to me????? But if you are, when you get into the sport of SR Bench Rest and I mean at the competition level and shooting custom actions a person who knows his way around a lathe and measuring devices,does not need your action to headspace each barrel every time.

BR shooters who use gunsmiths around the country do not send there entire rifle every time they need barrels chambered. They take measurements, keep a file on that particular serial numbered action. When they need barrels chambered up the customer orders the blanks, and have them shipped to the gunsmith they use. The fellow I use, has my reamer and cuts ONLY MY chambers with it. The first barrels he did after the initial build he verified with the go gauge. It was bang on. This was just chambering to the measurements he took off of the first barrel. Like I said after that there has never been a chamber shorter. If anything they have been slightly longer and the most was ever 2 thou.

That is all I can tell you. I am not the machinist/gunsmith. This man knows his way around a lathe. I have seen some work he has done and he leaves NO stone unturned. He shoots BR as well.

Fortunate for me and unfortunate for others that he keeps his client base small.

I get 2 barrels, cut to length, chambered, threaded, crowned and outside finished for $1+1+1,3+2, 0............................. ;-)

Honestly, I read all to often that BR shooters are arrogant. Well I would tend to agree in one regard. When we need something in regards to bullets, barrels, powder, etc........... or where to find things, or who we may use for our work we are real careful with that info.

Bottom line, guys need to work together.
 
A commercial generic prefit will screw into just about any action of the make. A prefit made by a benchrest gunsmith for a specific action - for which he has the detailed specs - is a different thing entirely. It will go right in and not even need to be checked with gauges.
 
tiriaq, yes I would hope a generic prefit would fit 99.9% of Savage receivers.

Going through this thread from the beginning I think there is some terminology that is getting misinterpreted.

Firstly the way I read it the OP got a prefit barrel. A Kreiger at that. That is the terminology he used.

From my understanding Kreiger does not make prefits. This would lead me to believe the OP went to a gunsmith and said he would like a Savage Prefit in .223 Remington. What happened was the gunsmith in question chambered, threaded and crowned the appropriate twist barrel that he had ordered from Kreiger.

The OP said he did not see the barrel blank so he does not know for sure. Yes any barrel blank you get is stamped or marked by the maker. When a barrel is chambered, threaded, crowned those markings are cut off because they are at the end of the barrel. The chamber end that is.

So in reality was it a prefit as we know it? No.

Any gunsmith can have a reamer and chamber, thread and crown it to lets say SAAMI specs of a prefit barrel. So in the OP eyes it was a prefit.

This is my take on it. Cdn Shooter clarify if my interpretation is wrong??????

Again, I will go from the extreme end. If the said barrel sat on the shelf after said work was done for 1 month and then shipped I could not see any reason for rust. I would hope after all the work was completed it would have been flushed and given a light coat of oil.

I said it earlier I leave barrel blanks in a wooden cabinet, pull them out every so often to give them a check over and have yet to see any rust. These are Kreiger, Bartlein and McClennan. I have used barrels in barrel sleeves from Plenty o Patches and have yet to see rust after months.

Again, JMO
 
I'm curious. What chamber/throat in 223 was cut and what rifling twist and bullets being used?
.7 to 2" moa doesn't sound like any new Krieger to me.

Chambered in .223 no turn neck, throated for the 75gr amax, 1:8 twist and have tried a few bullets but the 75 gr amax is the best shooter so far. I'm using sorted and fully prepped(no neck turning) Lake city brass, fed match primer, Varget from 24.5-27gr in .2 increments, never found a varget load that would go under .5. I started with Win 748 and found at 25gr I could shoot a few .3s but overall I can't claim it is any better than .6 average as I have been trying to shoot the .5 challenge and can't do it with this rifle. I've had others shoot it as well, including a guy that was shooting .1s and .2s with his old BR rig so I'm really trying to keep it "real" in finding whats going on with it.

I'm going to send the rifle to another smith to have it checked over, maybe that will turn something up. I should add that I'm keeping an open mind with this and I haven't ruled out other problems that could be going on that would have nothing to do with the barrel.
 
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