lothar walther

[sp260]

Anybody have any experience with these barrels?

 

[Holland]

Hi
I got a 308, with a lothar walter barrel, very good, easy to shoot in, and very accurate

 

[UK]

very good but hard on reamers so a lot of gunsmiths wont use them

 

[22/250]

got one on my rpa but as above post i have also heard they can be hard on reamers. no more accurate then an other aftermarket barrel so i was told. only plus side is being tough you may ge tabit more barrel life out of them. dont no how true that is though ?

 

[2644ever]

Got 2 of them (.308 and .30-338) and they are very tough to chamber as LW uses a different grade of steel, more appropriate to tools or springs I would say. After having worn out both reamers, I would strongly advise you to chamber with a rougher first. Accuracy is above average but not on par with a Supermatch PacNor 3-groove... They also seem to be very durable: A friend of mine who works as a sniper on a SWAT team has shot over 10,000 factory rounds in his LW barreled PGM-UR rifle with no loss of accuracy and a barely worn throat.

 

[constructor]

Great production grade, good lapping, slick, not so much a match barrel IMO, I'll stick with Krieger or Bartlein.

 

[CJ6]

I have an LW in 30-284 (Polygonal rifled)hunting rifle and I'm quite pleased with it. Accurate,cleans easy,wouldn't hesitate to get another one.

 

[czkorkoran]

I have 2 rifle with LW in 6.5x47Lapua (both are straight contour ,dia 1.1",26" -1700 shot and dia 1.2",28" - 700 shot) , I can confirm quality and accuracy.I thing that the more shots has the more accurately is ...

 

[TX65]

Never had an issue with LW barrels,, Accuracy was very good and easy to clean. They are made out of LW50 Stainless which is harder than the stainless used by most barrel makers. Krieger was making 410 stainless barrels for awhile... Dont know if they still are. The harder stainless requires special machining speeds or you will wear out a steel reamer very quickly. Some gunsmiths don't like them because they are hard,,, a lot of other gunsmiths have no problems chambering them. If LW chambers your barrel, they use carbide reamers.

I have put many thousands of rounds through LW barrels and I have never worn one out. Not to say you can't wear one out, I just usually end up replacing them when I do a major overhaul because of fatigue on other parts.

 

[Rust]

I use LW match program barrels in 6.5, .308 and .223. I also use PTG M-42 tool steel reamers which seem to last well, big thing is don't try to force the reamer in, the steel is tough.

Opinions vary, I like mine.

 

[UK]

LW barrels are not really a harder grade of SS my term above 'tough on reamers' is the wrong term to use, LW SS is a non free machining SS, lower 'something' content I think, therefore chip flow over the cutting surface gives more resistance leading to reamers blunting faster.
As said by someone else carefully matched cutting fluids and speeds will make them as easy to chamber as anything else, US gunsmiths are probably more used to the soft as putty SS generally used by the American barrel makers, these would usually have the accuraccy edge as the cutting of the rifling is much easier to do making it more uniform, hence why they make them like that, the flip side is the barrel will usually wear out faster, you will have a job to kill off a LW barrel.

 

[kemen4]

Seems this firm used LW barrels and there's quite a long bit on working the metal ..
http://www.blackstar-barrels.com/body_gunsmithing_tips%20(082204).html
I use a LW on a 6.5, it cleans easily and