Help with troubleshooting a barrel

[SecondsCount]

About 10 years ago a friend bought a new Remington 5R stainless in 223. We tried different bullets and loads, both factory and reloads, but it never shot that well ~1.5-2" at 100 yards. After about 150 rounds, he took it to a gunsmith who pulled the barrel and said the lugs weren't true. He fixed that part and put a Bartlein on it. The gun shot several .3s the first time to the range

Recently I ended up with the original barrel and screwed it on an action that I had. After headspacing, I tried some more loads through it and am getting the same results.

It was a free barrel so I could throw it away but I'm kind of curious now as to what may be causing an issue. If I drag my fingernail across the edge of the crown, it does feel like it has a sharp edge, but I would of thought the gunsmith would have seen it as a problem if it was.

I don't have access to a borescope but a friend does. What should we look for?

 

[K22]

Sometimes you just have to turn mother's picture to the wall and move on. Going down the rabbit hole of using up valuable components and incurring gunsmith charges chasing a bad barrel may not be the best thing to do.

As far as the crown, recrowning is relatively simple to do and inexpensive. I'd be more concerned with consuming components trying to get this barrel to shoot. I'm not a gunsmith so I can't advise you on what to look for other than any obvious visual imperfections in the crown area.

The first thing I always address on a problem rifle is the bedding. If the barrel isn't bedded properly, it just isn't going to shoot well. It doesn't appear that is the problem here since when the barrel was replaced on the other rifle, it shot fine. Was the other rifle rebedded as part of the barrel replacement?

 

[Bill Rodolph]

Look for a chamber that is not concentric with the bore. You can tell if the lands are cut even all around bore with the borescope.

 

[MikeT49]

This is one of those times when a Borescope is actually useful. It can provide useful information and not just freak you out. You can see a crooked throat by different length "ramps" leading up to full height lands. Had this issue. Barrel would put 2 bullets together and spit one about an inch away. I also had a barrel that had a gouge across the lands just in front of the leade. Same target results.

 

[tommeboy]

remington chambers on all their barrels are all off center. Look in from the chamber end a look for a "c" at the throat. It will look just like the letter C

 

[338 Mollett]

I worked on a few Rem. factory barrels that would not shoot and found them to have fish mouthed at the muzzle . I cut them off and re crowned them which greatly improved their performance.Could be the same case here but you will need an accurate set of bushings to find out. Or the damn thing just won't shoot !

 

[Rsadams]

I have to agree with the post that say even for free it's not worth the cost of reloading supplies right now... Now if you're just looking for something to do which I am extremely guilty of sometimes then go for it.... How's the crown...

 

[jdh47]

What 338 M said could be true. Clean the barrel. If you have them try different gage pins in the muzzle end. Find one that fits good and see how far it will go in before it stops.

 

[paperpuncher]

I agree with the above posts Cut a little off the muzzle and recrown it I might even try a deep cleaning with JB or Iosso first I would cease and decide wasting components after that

 

[redrockranger]

Just guess. Waste of time . Money. Unless you can do it yourself.

 

[Forum Boss]

Just get rid of the bad barrel, and don't waste the ammo.

I had one factory barrel in .260 Rem. It would split shots, sometime 0.8" apart at 100. I spent months trying to tune loads. Then I screwed on a Pre-fit PacNoc in 6mmBR. The first measured group was 0.168" for four shots. It consistently shoots in the mid-2s or better with virtually any powder and decent bullet.

It is pointless to waste time on a crappy barrel. You could have it recrowned, but that money is better put towards a Krieger or other good barrel.