Lothar Walther?

[Rust]

Butch - I got all of the bushings "just on case" so that of things were not as ordered I woudn't be waiting. Over the years I've been occassionally relegated to waiting for solutions via Fed-Ex and anymore would rather pay a little more up front rather than wait. Fortunately the barrel was as ordered,.2596" if I remeber correctly and I may not, still can't find the old order sheet) and happily the bushing was in hand. I'd have measured the bushing just now but as I just discovered both my 6.5 X 284 and .223 match reamers seem to be "temporarily misplaced". Guess how I'll be spending the next hour or so doing.

milanuk - match program barrels come from Germany, or at least the last two I've gotten did.

jthyttin - My match program barrels have been lapped, easily identified with my borescope. I always scope new barrels to make sure I don't waste time on one with an obvious defect.

Out of curiosity I slugged one of my barrels prior to chambering and it has a definite taper from the breech end to the muzzle, so I would think at the very least they would have had to finish lap it after profiling to get that little bit of a taper.

 

[Ackman]

You'd be real happy with either barrel. Altogether I have aftermarket barrels from 15 different makers..... 2 are Schneiders, .223AI and 6-250, and they're just terrific. I'd buy another without any hesitation. And there are 3 Lothar Walthers, a .22Mag and,2) 22-250AI. Haven't messed with the newest one much, but that first .22-250AI is probably the favorite of all. It has every bit the accuracy of the Harts, Shilens, PacNors, etc. and being a 22-250AI is amazing because it just doesn't copper foul and never has. The LW steel really does wear better......after 1200-1500rds of 50's at 4100+, throat wear is less than 1/2 what you'd expect from loads like that. I'd definitely get another LW, especially for a hot chambering.

Some people say they don't like chambering them.....if they don't,then they just don't. Maybe some people are just stubborn about changing their methods. The guy who chambered mine didn't complain and had no problem, and there are other riflebuilders who have no problem either. Talking with Woody at LW is always informative and I'm always glad to learn something.

 

[memilanuk]

My experience with Lothar-Walther barrels extends to two of their pre-threaded and chambered barrels - a 24" .308 Win 1-10" twist barrel and a 24" .223 Rem 1-8". Both clean up fairly easy, and shoot more than accurate enough for what I got them for,varmint/tactical). The .223 Rem shoots very well, especially with 50-55gr bullets. They gave it a somewhat short throat, but I set my wife up with it using B80VLDs and it shoots fine for F/TR out to 1000 - holding pretty good vertical all the way.

I had the opportunity to stick a borescope up the spout of the .223 barrel recently... didn't think I'd be able to see much, as it had upwards of 300rds through it since the last cleaning,such is life with multiple-yardage-multiple-day F-Class matches). Surprisingly, there was very little powder fouling, and some streaks of copper at the corners of the lands. Thats it. Patched it with WipeOut Accelerator and WipeOut PatchOut, soak for 15 minutes, repeat, soak a little longer while I'm loading/tinkering in the shop, patch it dry and put 'er up, done.

I am considering getting another one for an upcoming project. The only thing that worries me is that enough gunsmiths seem to be shy of the LW steel for the reasons already mentioned here.