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What are your opinions on prefit barrels?

For the majority of the people out there a shouldered prefit is a very fine option. Main thing is to get an action you can buy one for and not have to get it fit for that exact action. If whoever spins it up uses good components then itll be fine. Im just glad theres enough good actions out there that a shouldered prefit can even be possible. Ive been sending them out for many many years. Seems like only 10yrs ago you could only do it with 2-3 actions now theres a lot. I guess when you say prefit, most think of the mass produced barrels sitting on a shelf getting a chamber jammed in it and sent out by some random machinist not a barrel done by your gunsmith
 
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I love how this thread covered shouldered prefits to nut prefits to calling gunsmiths failed machinists. Then to shouldering the weapon. LOL. But you are all wrong. It’s the CROWN!!! If you don’t shoot with a custom crown your a loser. Cheers
 

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I am a 78 year old that shoots two Model 12 BR rifles off a good portable bench. Both will shoot mid .2 to mid .3" consistently. I will bet my next SS check there are competitive shooters here that could wind matches with either one. One is a Shilen Select Match and the other is a 6BRA from the Urban Rifleman.
 
"Sometimes I like to dance around in my underwear... doesn't make me Madonna..."

Seriously. ANYONE can call themselves a "gunsmith". The term means everything from I work on lever guns, to pistols, to I repair Dads old shotgun, and yes, I build rifles... and ANYONE can call themselves that. It is truly a "one size fits all" term. Throwing it around like it means something... is... well... silly.

Threading and chambering barrels, cutting contours, etc etc is more like a machine production job than a "gunsmith". If you can get a guy that has done about a 1000 of them, and knows every trick to doing it right, that would be the guy I would call... and that is more like a production job.

Cutting a barrel has nothing to do with bedding a stock, or building a stock, adding a buttstock, or doing trigger jobs, or assembling a rifle, or etc etc etc I have ZERO desire to EVER do any of those things for other people. So, I guess I will never be a "gunsmith".

So much is made of headspace... like I said... I think a lot of this talk is silly.

It is 95 percent the barrel. There are lots of good barrels.

Nice straight hole of constant diameter, with a good design with a nice finish (never hurts).

Contour the barrel. Cut the chamber straight to the hole, put a nice "hone" finish on it, cut threads to spec, cut a nice crown (threaded muzzle optional), put a nice finish on it, put a nice finish on the barrel.... everything else is salemanship and marketing IMHO.
 
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Little is truly custom in our game. Actions certainly aren’t custom, they are named models that are precisely machined in a “factory” with minimal handwork to hopefully be exactly the same, one to another. If they weren’t the same, then you couldn’t order up a chambered barrel, which all the smiths can and do fill, based on specs. It would be pointless and frustrating to have more than one of them. Items that are produced exactly alike are the opposite of “custom.”

A stack of barrels made to a “spec” before a customer has ordered them isn’t in any way problematic to me, if the barrels are good. We rely on specs all the time on parts with tighter tolerances and greater costs. Most “f-open” barrels don’t even have a contour, we call them custom anyhow but they are cut bar stock, plain cylinders, that have no front or rear. They are drilled and rifled, usually tracing a giant screw’s twist, with nothing attached, indexed, tapped, planed, threaded, or coated onto them; definitely not custom to a particular gun, with the only non-automated decision having been made, being when to stop lapping them.

My powder, brass, primers and bullets better not be custom. I don’t think getting right a shouldered pre-threaded barrel’s head-spacing is necessarily harder than other tolerances the action is not provided for. A trigger’s 100% reliable sear engagement with cocking pieces is the most important function of a gun but I haven’t had any difficulty interchanging unmodified pre-made bolts, triggers, hangers, etc. Many bolt upgrades and different faces from inventory across brands manage perfect integration as well.
 
Little is truly custom in our game. Actions certainly aren’t custom, they are named models that are precisely machined in a “factory” with minimal handwork to hopefully be exactly the same, one to another. If they weren’t the same, then you couldn’t order up a chambered barrel, which all the smiths can and do fill, based on specs. It would be pointless and frustrating to have more than one of them. Items that are produced exactly alike are the opposite of “custom.”

A stack of barrels made to a “spec” before a customer has ordered them isn’t in any way problematic to me, if the barrels are good. We rely on specs all the time on parts with tighter tolerances and greater costs. Most “f-open” barrels don’t even have a contour, we call them custom anyhow but they are cut bar stock, plain cylinders, that have no front or rear. They are drilled and rifled, usually tracing a giant screw’s twist, with nothing attached, indexed, tapped, planed, threaded, or coated onto them; definitely not custom to a particular gun, with the only non-automated decision having been made, being when to stop lapping them.

My powder, brass, primers and bullets better not be custom. I don’t think getting right a shouldered pre-threaded barrel’s head-spacing is necessarily harder than other tolerances the action is not provided for. A trigger’s 100% reliable sear engagement with cocking pieces is the most important function of a gun but I haven’t had any difficulty interchanging unmodified pre-made bolts, triggers, hangers, etc. Many bolt upgrades and different faces from inventory across brands manage perfect integration as well.

This one is yours...

 
I am not a gunsmith. But I have looked at many chambers like your video shows. But the 6BR Savage video looks like you have a land that runs all the way back to the neck on one side. So chamber would be off .0003-.0005 depending on free bore diameter size. The finish on the chamber looks different than what I have seen. Are you polishing or sanding the chambers and free bore?
 
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I am not a gunsmith. But I have looked at many chambers like your video shows. But the 6BR Savage video looks like you have a land that runs all the way back to the neck on one side. So chamber would be off .0003-.0005 depending on free bore diameter size. The finish on the chamber looks different than what I have seen. Are you polishing or sanding the chambers and free bore?

Lands and grooves on every barrel are different. In fact, these bore scope videos have little to do with anything in my opinion. I've seen chambers with varying grooves that shoot lights out. But since the "straight belt" videos surfaced on the Internet people are now convinced they can assess a chamber runout from a borescope. This is a bunch of nonsense IMHO. I post the videos of some of my chambers to show it is not impossible. But I put little stock in it.

How would one land being slightly different on a 6 land barrel determine runout? That makes no sense. Then to put a number on it is downright irresponsible IMHO.

But I am NOT going to argue it. I've heard so much nonsense being thrown around on these forums. My barrels shoot. I can prove that. The borescope has caused me more phone calls and questions than I care to get into.

I make the videos because people like videos.

I do borescope every chamber. Most people do not. They would have no idea they would have chatter or finish problems. And yes I look at the throat out of curiosity mostly.

These were sanded with scotch brite to even the finish. I find it gives nice honed polish to the surface. Smooth as butter but not too shiny.
 
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I have a buddy of mine who is a high Master Palma shooter. He went to Gordy gritters School to learn how to chamber barrels back in the day. And apparently he was quite good at it as was Gordy gritters. I asked my friend how did you check your Chambers back in the day because no one had borescopes. He said they didn't. They just went and shot them. These are high Masters some of which have won the Nationals. They didn't even have a way to check and see if they had for surface finish or a chip much less look at the throat.
 

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