REM/AGE ?

[Tommie]

Tommie, it's common knowledge among shooters who have been using prefit/drop in barrels. They can be had for less than $200 to $515. With that range of price spread there has to be a range of quality. As far as I know, the only high end barrel maker offering a prefit is Krieger, selling for $515(correct Me if I'm wrong). There are some $350 barrels that are well made and winning matches. Even the $200 offerings are better shooters than almost any stock/factory barrel. There "are"some Savage Factory rifle shooters winning matches.

In general,the seller can't get as much money for a prefit, no matter the quality of the barrel blank. There are several reasons for this. How many chambers were cut with the reamer that chambered Your barrel?The tendon threads were cut to a stock dimension, not matched to Your action. It likely won't be from a top quality barrel blank. This being said, there are many prefits out there that shoot very well.

If You are interested in competive match winning accuracy, You should purchase the top quality blank of Your choice($350/$400?),send it and Your action to the top rated Smith of Your choice($350/$400?), and have him do the work. And while Your at it, You should have Your own reamer, You will need it again sooner than You think.

This is My opinion, based on My experience with prefits, despite My limited knowledge of precision shooting. Good Luck

I’d always assumed that the cost savings were due to prefits being built in batches which would lower the per-unit cost. Guess I was mistaken.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I’d always assumed that the cost savings were due to prefits being built in batches which would lower the per-unit cost. Guess I was mistaken.

A good blank is around $345 or so. If you did 3 or 30 chambers its the same work so its hard for the price to go down. That is retail btw not counting for discounts. Ordering 50-80 at a time or dealer pricing still doesnt break it back that far.

 

[Tommie]

A good blank is around $345 or so. If you did 3 or 30 chambers its the same work so its hard for the price to go down. That is retail btw not counting for discounts. Ordering 50-80 at a time or dealer pricing still doesnt break it back that far.

A custom blank is done to customer specs. Twist rate, contour, length etc. The setup time to do that single barrel is completely absorbed by the price of that one barrel. When barrels (or any item) is manufactured in batches, setup costs get spread across the entire batch. In manufacturing it’s referred to as Economy of Scale.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

A custom blank is done to customer specs. Twist rate, contour, length etc. The setup time to do that single barrel is completely absorbed by the price of that one barrel. When barrels (or any item) is manufactured in batches, setup costs get spread across the entire batch. In manufacturing it’s referred to as Economy of Scale.

A gunsmith setting them up properly and chambering them on a manual machine with attention to detail wont lower his price by half just because you want 100 done is what im saying. The only way to lower the price is to automate something. If it takes a gunsmith 2 hrs to chamber a barrel right he is going to do the same thing whether its 100 barrels for a group buy or 100 for 99 different people. Hes not going to make less just because hes doing the same thing that he always does just for one guy. Scale is not even in the equation is what im trying to get at-

 

[Tommie]

Ok nevermind

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Im just saying if you buy 100 blanks and send them to a gunsmith that charges $300 to chamber them that doesnt mean you get a discount, it just means hes going to be working for you for a while. If you wanted them done cheaper youd find a guy that has stepped up to scale and bought a cnc machine to shank them up. He can charge less because hes not sitting there manually threading them therefore you save a bunch of money.

 

[Titandriver]

Had my share of good luck with prefits, all of which were installed on bone stock 700 actions. First pic, top barrel was a Criterion, bottom is a Pacnor prefit. Second pix is a McGowen. Third pix is a McGowan in 260 AI on right, left pix is Shilen in 6BR.

6br 6

 

[mauser284]

Most of the time the prefit barrels are made from cheaper blanks and prepped if not chambered on a cnc. Thats where the savings come in so yes you get what you pay for save some exceptions i guess

Plenty of hi end barrel makers offer pre-fits for Remage and Savages.

The allure is that you can have your favorite gunsmith or barrel maker make you up a batch of barrels and fit them out as you desire. So if you want to have your Remington LA able to do 30-06, 280, 6.5-284, 25-06, 6.5CM etc....you can. You can take your rifle and a spare barrel and tools and swap it out at deer camp if that spin's you round! If you want to have 3 barrels for competition season on hand as you burn out your main barrel with loads already worked up by barrel you have them on hand and can re-fit in a hurry!

I am not going to go down this rabbit hole right now but I used a barrel nut for fine tuning a rifles harmonics. A boy has to have his secrets though!

If conventional wisdom especialy on a good many things relating to accuracy were correct we would not have so many people that have won using un-blueprinted ugly cheaply designed and made Savage actions. So the idea of a prefit being some tacti-cool white trash alternative to proper gunsmiths is not quite accurate! Their is a time and a place all things! Degree's of truth and precision!

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Plenty of hi end barrel makers offer pre-fits for Remage and Savages.

The allure is that you can have your favorite gunsmith or barrel maker make you up a batch of barrels and fit them out as you desire. So if you want to have your Remington LA able to do 30-06, 280, 6.5-284, 25-06, 6.5CM etc....you can. You can take your rifle and a spare barrel and tools and swap it out at deer camp if that spin's you round! If you want to have 3 barrels for competition season on hand as you burn out your main barrel with loads already worked up by barrel you have them on hand and can re-fit in a hurry!

I am not going to go down this rabbit hole right now but I used a barrel nut for fine tuning a rifles harmonics. A boy has to have his secrets though!

If conventional wisdom especialy on a good many things relating to accuracy were correct we would not have so many people that have won using un-blueprinted ugly cheaply designed and made Savage actions. So the idea of a prefit being some tacti-cool white trash alternative to proper gunsmiths is not quite accurate! Their is a time and a place all things! Degree's of truth and precision!

I never said there wasnt any good prefits. It started with the cost of some finished barrels being cheaper than a good blank. All prefits are not quality and all chambering jobs arent even close to being equal. Green mountain makes barrel blanks just like bartlein does.

 

[1911nut]

3 Shilen prefits for Savage target actions. All three shoot way smaller than I could’ve expected. One shoots like a Tony Boyer jr

 

[Bill K]

Most of the time the prefit barrels are made from cheaper blanks and prepped if not chambered on a cnc. Thats where the savings come in so yes you get what you pay for save some exceptions i guess

So the pre-fits that are on Wilson barrels are cheaper blanks ? Can't be that bad since Cooper uses Wilson's.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

So the pre-fits that are on Wilson barrels are cheaper blanks ? Can't be that bad since Cooper uses Wilson's.

Coopers?

 

[CharlieNC]

Higher volume results in reduced cost per unit, it's a simple fact of manufacturing economics. Labor is only one component of the equation.

 

[Big Mc]

I did a search and found a 2 year old post, what's new? I have a rx1 700 30 br that I will replace the barrel. Who makes the best REM/AGE for it?
TYIA. Don

I attach my pre fits with a henway. Looks great.No Barrel nut.

 

[urbanrifleman]

Ragged Hole Barrels is a site sponsor. They make prefits from Wilson barrels and they flat shoot.

People can poo poo Wilson blanks, but those would probably be the same people that poo poo most everything. Wilson is also by far the most popular barrel sold for Service Rifle. Both Compass Lake and White Oak have literally made 10s of thousands of competitive barrels from Wilson blanks.

I have a 243 upper for my Ar10 and it has a Bartlein barrel that I had custom made. It shoots really small. The bone stock 308 DPMS barrel that came with it shoots possibly smaller. It's a Wilson.

 

[Bill K]

Yes Dusty. The last I new Cooper uses Wilson barrels on their rifles, so I would guess Wilson barrel blanks are not a cheaper grade.
And some companies that make pre-fit barrels use Wilson barrel blanks for their barrel choices.

 

[Fast14riot]

Had my share of good luck with prefits, all of which were installed on bone stock 700 actions. First pic, top barrel was a Criterion, bottom is a Pacnor prefit. Second pix is a McGowen. Third pix is a McGowan in 260 AI on right, left pix is Shilen in 6BR.

6br 6View attachment 1151922View attachment 1151925View attachment 1151924

And that exact same 260AI CBI barrel is still shooting lights out for me! Minus a little bit of throat erosion since I got it from you, but chasing the lands is working just fine. My next barrel will be the same thing.

 

[GSPV]

One person’s “shoots lights out” is another person's “didn’t get a sniff of anything”.

Dusty largely shoots short range BR where five five-shot groups averaging 0.25 MOA might be that “didn’t get a smell of anything”.

The top shooters there buy many Krieger, Bartlein, etc blanks per year and have them hand chambered by a top gunsmith in the hopes that they’ll find a handful that will compete at the top level. The rest they sell off quietly.

I’ll go back to my hole now.

 

[Titandriver]

And that exact same 260AI CBI barrel is still shooting lights out for me! Minus a little bit of throat erosion since I got it from you, but chasing the lands is working just fine. My next barrel will be the same thing.

Pretty crazy isn't it Alex - not too shabby accuracy for something a guy can do at home, with no wait time, for roughly half the price, on a standard 700 action. I'm actually going to put a 6.5x47L chambered Bartlein "bug nutz" barrel on a Borden Mountaineer action as soon as it gets here from Southern Precision Rifles - hopefully by the end of this month. Wanna see how much "better" it'll shoot than one o' them cheapo prefits!

 

[Titandriver]

One person’s “shoots lights out” is another person's “didn’t get a sniff of anything”.

Dusty largely shoots short range BR where five five-shot groups averaging 0.25 MOA might be that “didn’t get a smell of anything”.

The top shooters there buy many Krieger, Bartlein, etc blanks per year and have them hand chambered by a top gunsmith in the hopes that they’ll find a handful that will compete at the top level. The rest they sell off quietly.

I’ll go back to my hole now.

My bad - didn't realize we were discussing benchrest rifles - sorry!