Noveske Afgan barrel is a stainless barrel rifled at Pac Nor's facility on using Noveske tooling
Here is a good interview with Noveske that explains all this
http://ww .defensereview.com/noveske-rifleworks-n4-light-recce-carbine-john-noveske-interview-part-one/
Noveske is one of the best stainless barrels you can get . At first the barrels look pricy but when you consider they come with Vltor gas block ( in some cases gas tube because they use the goofy intermediate....longer than mid length ) gas system ) than is pinned on barrel its actually not that bad
His upper is typically Vltor Mur or VIS uppers
IMO - if you want a higher end AR then buy anything you can get your hands on , like a SR15 or Noveske N4 or stainless upper
You can't compare a Noveske stainless barrel upper to a KAC SR15
The apples to apples comparison would be a Noveske N4 upper. The N4 uses a CHF lightweight barrel made by FN using a M249 machine gun blank
The KAC SR15 uses a Diemaco / Colt Canada CHF barrel
Don't worry about the SR15 "E3" being proprietary bolt. Once you play with both ( I posted pics sometime back ) , the benifits of the SR15 design far outweights the fact that its proprietary
In addition, you can use a standard bolt and carrier assembly in a SR15 in an emergency according to KAC . I couldnt care less that the SR15 replacment bolt is more expensive. Consider this, even if you change the bolt @ 20K rounds, you would have spent over $8K in ammunition ! Another couple hundred for a KAC bolt seems inconsequential
Both the SR15 and Noveske N4s are lighter than a upper built on a Noveske stainless. A half lb doesn't seem much on paper until you use it. The SR15 and N4 points like a dream