I have noticed mostly similar phenomena as Matt has.
LW is producing barrels at very large quantities which means the tolerances will vary and this is really noticeable in the choke. Their internals are lapped and smooth but the choke can be a pain in the ass. A statement: a good barrel doesn't need an artificial choke! With artificial I mean an extra step in production to create a choke. Keep in mind with what type of metal you're shooting through the barrel and what its properties are while being compressed. Lead is dead metal and will not act as copper when being sized. If you buy a bullet head sizer for copper projectiles the actual hole is always slightly smaller than the size that's mentioned due to what happens right after the sizing.
The biggest problem at this moment is that pretty much any manufacturer wants to use the maximum length of the barrel and therefore chooses to suffer accuracy over money/profit or they just don't have a clue how a barrel becomes an accurate instrument. Again a nice statement that might cause some controversy: I know a manufacturer just got serious about accuracy when they stop selling barrel length and start listening to the barrels, this also means that pretty much none of the barrels will be identical to the next. A couple of things are very important in barrels that will help to realize it's full potential and as long as you neglect them it's russian roulette / hit or miss. Would you pick an apple from a tree with a wasp- or bees nest nearby and just start biting into it blindly? Would you start looking into it to see if there are things that won't make it pleasant to consume or would you like a 50/50 chance of getting stung in your tongue or worse?
FX has done a good job by taking matters into their own hands and starting to produce their own barrels and trying to create a uniform barrel to hit the market. As far as I know they're doing a pretty good job at creating a pretty uniform accuracy platform but I don't know what their pass rate on barrels is? No matter what you think about the brand, you can't deny that their barrels perform. BSA also has done this for a long time and they also created very good shooting barrels, especially in the sub 12 ft/lbs scene they still have a huge following that will stand behind their barrels every single day.
Chokes are an easy way to cover up flaws in the rest of the barrel and create a higher pass rate of accurate barrels if done properly. Like I said, FX has found a way to create uniformly shaped chokes and therefore you get more uniformly performing barrels. Matt also mentions some good ways to make barrels more uniform performers which FX has used.
There is no way to create a 100% pass rate on barrels since there will always be flaws that sneak in at some point but actually knowing what a barrel needs increases the pass rate significantly! I have learned a lot from buying a barrel that sucked and working on it until it was a good performer. I bought a CZ barrel from a seller from the Czech Republic and it was so tightly chocked that I almost had to use a hammer to get the pellet through the choke, but that wasn't the only flaw. After playing with it and working together with a friend of mine that does the machining (who is at least as ignorant as I am in a good way
) for almost 3/4 year and doing research of what makes a barrel a good barrel I/we found, if I may say so myself, a big part of the solution and from now on I'm using that information for next barrel purchases (turned out great for my latest 4.5mm LW barrel and my current chokeless .25 LW polygonal barrel).
By the way, a barrel is not the only one causing flyers, hold is a very important factor in this. I posted a picture a week ago in my instagram page about hold: my page. There is also a picture on there about cleaning that I also posted somewhere over here on the forum. And if you look closely there is also some information about what a barrel should and shouldn't have, i'm not giving out all the information
Don't take the above personal as I know it might hurt some if I tell that manufacturers don't know what they're doing in terms of barrels.. I'm pretty straight forward by nature so it might sound a bit rude It's easy to blame the manufacturer of the barrels when you don't make them yourself, even the most custom barrels will require some work and feeling for using it with lead projectiles.
You started a nice discussion Roger
LW is producing barrels at very large quantities which means the tolerances will vary and this is really noticeable in the choke. Their internals are lapped and smooth but the choke can be a pain in the ass. A statement: a good barrel doesn't need an artificial choke! With artificial I mean an extra step in production to create a choke. Keep in mind with what type of metal you're shooting through the barrel and what its properties are while being compressed. Lead is dead metal and will not act as copper when being sized. If you buy a bullet head sizer for copper projectiles the actual hole is always slightly smaller than the size that's mentioned due to what happens right after the sizing.
The biggest problem at this moment is that pretty much any manufacturer wants to use the maximum length of the barrel and therefore chooses to suffer accuracy over money/profit or they just don't have a clue how a barrel becomes an accurate instrument. Again a nice statement that might cause some controversy: I know a manufacturer just got serious about accuracy when they stop selling barrel length and start listening to the barrels, this also means that pretty much none of the barrels will be identical to the next. A couple of things are very important in barrels that will help to realize it's full potential and as long as you neglect them it's russian roulette / hit or miss. Would you pick an apple from a tree with a wasp- or bees nest nearby and just start biting into it blindly? Would you start looking into it to see if there are things that won't make it pleasant to consume or would you like a 50/50 chance of getting stung in your tongue or worse?
FX has done a good job by taking matters into their own hands and starting to produce their own barrels and trying to create a uniform barrel to hit the market. As far as I know they're doing a pretty good job at creating a pretty uniform accuracy platform but I don't know what their pass rate on barrels is? No matter what you think about the brand, you can't deny that their barrels perform. BSA also has done this for a long time and they also created very good shooting barrels, especially in the sub 12 ft/lbs scene they still have a huge following that will stand behind their barrels every single day.
Chokes are an easy way to cover up flaws in the rest of the barrel and create a higher pass rate of accurate barrels if done properly. Like I said, FX has found a way to create uniformly shaped chokes and therefore you get more uniformly performing barrels. Matt also mentions some good ways to make barrels more uniform performers which FX has used.
There is no way to create a 100% pass rate on barrels since there will always be flaws that sneak in at some point but actually knowing what a barrel needs increases the pass rate significantly! I have learned a lot from buying a barrel that sucked and working on it until it was a good performer. I bought a CZ barrel from a seller from the Czech Republic and it was so tightly chocked that I almost had to use a hammer to get the pellet through the choke, but that wasn't the only flaw. After playing with it and working together with a friend of mine that does the machining (who is at least as ignorant as I am in a good way
) for almost 3/4 year and doing research of what makes a barrel a good barrel I/we found, if I may say so myself, a big part of the solution and from now on I'm using that information for next barrel purchases (turned out great for my latest 4.5mm LW barrel and my current chokeless .25 LW polygonal barrel).By the way, a barrel is not the only one causing flyers, hold is a very important factor in this. I posted a picture a week ago in my instagram page about hold: my page. There is also a picture on there about cleaning that I also posted somewhere over here on the forum. And if you look closely there is also some information about what a barrel should and shouldn't have, i'm not giving out all the information
Don't take the above personal as I know it might hurt some if I tell that manufacturers don't know what they're doing in terms of barrels.. I'm pretty straight forward by nature so it might sound a bit rude
It's easy to blame the manufacturer of the barrels when you don't make them yourself, even the most custom barrels will require some work and feeling for using it with lead projectiles.You started a nice discussion Roger
Upvote 0
