400-series SS barrels

[DaveTooley]

Yes. That was quite some time back.

I cannot remember the name of guy that was pushing the LW barrels back then, but I bought one in 1-14 twist for 6PPC, chambered it, and it was not competitive. As I remember, it machined a lot like 17-4, which we cut a lot of at my Shop?

Then, I had one that was donated as a prize and just gave it to someone, I can’t remember who.

I don't remember his name but the company was Blackstar. He had LW put a pronounced taper in the barrels. Like .001" if I remember correctly. He went on to sell the business and screw over the buyer big time. He shipped me a bunch of barrels I didn't order so they would be on the books as receivables. I shipped them to the new owner.

 

[DaveTooley]

He was a jerk, wasn't his name Woody at LW or were you speaking of the so called writer?

Woody wasn't bad. Just a cooperate guy running the GA operation.

 

[butchlambert]

Woody wasn't bad. Just a cooperate guy running the GA operation.

Dave, not my experience. He used to continually bitch that his,LW,barrels won matches and we claimed they were Kreiger or Shilen.

 

[jackieschmidt]

OK, I got the report back from the Lab.
However, out of a request from Bartlien, I am not going to show the actual elemental makeup of the Mod400 drop.
I will say this. The average RC hardness of the drop is 26 RC.
They also did a complete chemical on the 416R drop. I will show the chemical content of it because there is nothing proprietary about it. It’s average RC hardness is .30 RC.

I will say this about the Mod400. It does contain a major alloying element that does, in theory, give it a higher degree of wear resistance in an environment such as the throat of a center fire rifle. It also adds in a little more “toughness”, to put it in machinist terms, which as noted in another post is not the same thing as hardness.
From what I understand, the barrel I have was out of the first lot of material. They could possibly be fine tuning subsequent batches to optimize their needs.
Regardless, the barrel shoots quite well in a Discipline where extreme accuracy is paramont.

 

[jelenko]

OK, I got the report back from the Lab.
However, out of a request from Bartlien, I am not going to show the actual elemental makeup of the Mod400 drop.
I will say this. The average RC hardness of the drop is 26 RC.
They also did a complete chemical on the 416R drop. I will show the chemical content of it because there is nothing proprietary about it. It’s average RC hardness is .30 RC.

I will say this about the Mod400. It does contain a View attachment 1685896View attachment 1685897major alloying element that does, in theory, give it a higher degree of wear resistance in an environment such as the throat of a center fire rifle. It also adds in a little more “toughness”, to put it in machinist terms, which as noted in another post is not the same thing as hardness.
From what I understand, the barrel I have was out of the first lot of material. They could possibly be fine tuning subsequent batches to optimize their needs.
Regardless, the barrel shoots quite well in a Discipline where extreme accuracy is paramont.

Very cool! [I'm still in awe of the experiment you did with a shouldered and nutted barrel.]

I'm thinking many of us are surprised that 416 is harder, yes?

 

[FrankG]

OK, I got the report back from the Lab.
However, out of a request from Bartlien, I am not going to show the actual elemental makeup of the Mod400 drop.
I will say this. The average RC hardness of the drop is 26 RC.
They also did a complete chemical on the 416R drop. I will show the chemical content of it because there is nothing proprietary about it. It’s average RC hardness is .30 RC.

I will say this about the Mod400. It does contain a View attachment 1685896View attachment 1685897major alloying element that does, in theory, give it a higher degree of wear resistance in an environment such as the throat of a center fire rifle. It also adds in a little more “toughness”, to put it in machinist terms, which as noted in another post is not the same thing as hardness.
From what I understand, the barrel I have was out of the first lot of material. They could possibly be fine tuning subsequent batches to optimize their needs.
Regardless, the barrel shoots quite well in a Discipline where extreme accuracy is paramont.

Jackie is correct in what he is saying. That first lot of material actually on our end in the RC test and the material cert came in at 26.5.

The next lot if I remember correctly is at 30 or 30.5.

The hardness as Jackie pointed out is not the only thing to think about and to an extent has some but not all to do with toughness/hardness.

Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels

 

[FrankG]

Were already on our 3rd batch of that material. Still some left over from the 2nd batch and not to mention could even be stragglers left over from the first.

We buy that material per melt in different diameters. For example 1.312", 1.4", 1.5", 1.625", 1.8" and 2.125". So we could get any combination or all of those diameters in one order. All depends on our forecasted needs for the future and what we have in inventory at the time the order is placed with the mill.

 

[LRPV]

Were already on our 3rd batch of that material. Still some left over from the 2nd batch and not to mention could even be stragglers left over from the first.

We buy that material per melt in different diameters. For example 1.312", 1.4", 1.5", 1.625", 1.8" and 2.125". So we could get any combination or all of those diameters in one order. All depends on our forecasted needs for the future and what we have in inventory at the time the order is placed with the mill.

Frank, do you guys actually turn say a 1.8” blank down into a normal HV or even farther down to a hunting contour? I never guessed there would be that much demand for a 2” barrel, just curious I guess how big a 1.25” shanked barrel starts out at. Thanks for the info on this stuff by the way.

 

[butchlambert]

Frank, do you guys actually turn say a 1.8” blank down into a normal HV or even farther down to a hunting contour? I never guessed there would be that much demand for a 2” barrel, just curious I guess how big a 1.25” shanked barrel starts out at. Thanks for the info on this stuff by the way.

They are probably for unlimited and test barrels.

 

[FrankG]

Frank, do you guys actually turn say a 1.8” blank down into a normal HV or even farther down to a hunting contour? I never guessed there would be that much demand for a 2” barrel, just curious I guess how big a 1.25” shanked barrel starts out at. Thanks for the info on this stuff by the way.

No that would be a waste of material to take a 1.8" o.d. down to a HV contour. Not to mention the amount of turning time that would be wasted.

HV with a 1.250" breech diameter are made out of 1.312" material.

The 1.8" diameter material we use for accuracy test barrels that have a largest finished diameter of 1.750". We also use that diameter of material for some guns that use a 1.750" breech end but mostly it goes towards the accuracy test barrels.

The largest finished diameter on finished pressure and velocity test barrels (P&V) is 1.999". So we typically peel that out of the 2.125" or 2.250" diameter material. In standard 416R material we stock up to 2.8" along with 2.5" material. Some of the 50cal accuracy barrels have to finish at 2.250". So a 2.250" diameter blank will not work. Yes we do barrels for customers up to a finished diameter of 2.7"! I just went and weighed a 51" blank that measured 2.625" diameter last week and it weighed 75.15#.

Most of the BR unlimited barrels that finish at 1.450" we peel out of 1.5" material.

Later, Frank