Which pcp barrel is the best? IYO!!

[Redick]

Getting a good barrel with an airgun has been a crap shoot for me. Most require some degree of work to get them to a point where i am personally happy with them.

I have only had one barrel ship with a rifle that was complete garbage, and that was the one that came with my Taipan Vet (Standard). I fixed that by busting my ass for days to make the perfect adapter to run FX barrels, where I have a 600mm slug liner, 2 700mm slug liners, and 2 pellet liners that I have hoarded because they are laser beams.

All 7 LW barrels that I have had for my EDGuns were either perfect out of the box or fixable. The one that I had to put in the most work with is my .30 cal barrel (590mm), but I got that thing throated and crowned perfectly and the bore polished to a mirror:

If you have a great barrel, never let it go and take great care of it

Where is the crown?

 

[zx10wall]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome. 

 

[Redick]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome.

There's always a best

 

[zx10wall]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome.

There's always a best

Let us all know when you find that definitive "best" then bud.

 

[Redick]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome.

There's always a best

Let us all know when you find that definitive "best" then bud.

You've tuned and seen your share of barrels I'm sure you prefer one over the other. Also the topic says in your opinion!

 

[Centercut]

There's always a best

I agree with Derrick. There isn't a "best" brand, but there is a "best" within that brand. Unfortunately, you can't just go out and buy it, you need to either get lucky or test many to find "the one". I do think as far as having more "the one" in any batch of barrels the Daystate LW A.R.T. gen2 barrels may be at the top, but I can't say from experience, just anecdotally...

 

[mtnGhost]

Getting a good barrel with an airgun has been a crap shoot for me. Most require some degree of work to get them to a point where i am personally happy with them.

I have only had one barrel ship with a rifle that was complete garbage, and that was the one that came with my Taipan Vet (Standard). I fixed that by busting my ass for days to make the perfect adapter to run FX barrels, where I have a 600mm slug liner, 2 700mm slug liners, and 2 pellet liners that I have hoarded because they are laser beams.

All 7 LW barrels that I have had for my EDGuns were either perfect out of the box or fixable. The one that I had to put in the most work with is my .30 cal barrel (590mm), but I got that thing throated and crowned perfectly and the bore polished to a mirror:



If you have a great barrel, never let it go and take great care of it

Where is the crown?

On the other end  

There's a cotton patch stuffed down in there, but I'm not one for macro photography with an iFail camera  

 

[zx10wall]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome.

There's always a best

Let us all know when you find that definitive "best" then bud.

You've tuned and seen your share of barrels I'm sure you prefer one over the other. Also the topic says in your opinion!

Well, an indication of my opinion would be to crack open my gun safe. Within you’d find a Taipan Veteran with an FX barrel system, a Uragán with a reported CZ barrel, several EDguns with LW barrels and some Crickets with CZ barrels and LW barrels. There is also a Daystate with a LW barrel.

So again, I don’t think there is a best. Of course, the frequency of great barrels is more prevalent in one manufacturer over the others but I couldn’t tell you without a case study.

Here is my opinion though, I really don’t think all barrels from the same manufacturer are equal. I think you have tiers of quality. For example, I believe Daystate’s LW barrels are superior to say Taipan Veteran LW barrels. 

 

[Long_Gun_Dallas]

I prefer to give opinions before reading others, so forgive me if anything is repeated.

It’s not so much the brand name. What makes a great PCP barrel IMO is fine rounded lands and shallow grooves for no to little blow by. 
As far as consistency in shot placement, or “accuracy” well, a entire conglomerate of things depend upon that. All I can say is I’ve bought used guns that gave me better groups than pictured in the ad for its sale. 

Sounds like the TJ barrel I have, and FX barrels 

 

[Redick]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome.

There's always a best

Let us all know when you find that definitive "best" then bud.

You've tuned and seen your share of barrels I'm sure you prefer one over the other. Also the topic says in your opinion!

Well, an indication of my opinion would be to crack open my gun safe. Within you’d find a Taipan Veteran with an FX barrel system, a Uragán with a reported CZ barrel, several EDguns with LW barrels and some Crickets with CZ barrels and LW barrels. There is also a Daystate with a LW barrel.

So again, I don’t think there is a best. Of course, the frequency of great barrels is more prevalent in one manufacturer over the others but I couldn’t tell you without a case study.

Here is my opinion though, I really don’t think all barrels from the same manufacturer are equal. I think you have tiers of quality. For example, I believe Daystate’s LW barrels are superior to say Taipan Veteran LW barrels.

Excellent explanation and thank you for the response 

 

[boscoebrea]

Anschutz

 

[Vetmx]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome.

There's always a best

Let us all know when you find that definitive "best" then bud.

You've tuned and seen your share of barrels I'm sure you prefer one over the other. Also the topic says in your opinion!

Well, an indication of my opinion would be to crack open my gun safe. Within you’d find a Taipan Veteran with an FX barrel system, a Uragán with a reported CZ barrel, several EDguns with LW barrels and some Crickets with CZ barrels and LW barrels. There is also a Daystate with a LW barrel.

So again, I don’t think there is a best. Of course, the frequency of great barrels is more prevalent in one manufacturer over the others but I couldn’t tell you without a case study.

Here is my opinion though, I really don’t think all barrels from the same manufacturer are equal. I think you have tiers of quality. For example, I believe Daystate’s LW barrels are superior to say Taipan Veteran LW barrels.

I believe the difference is in the leade. The .002 difference in depth or a slightly different angle into the rifling can make or break a barrel. It can change what kind of pellets it likes. This part of the barrel is often overlooked by airgunners but never overlooked by gunsmiths. Buy a good barrel and make sure the first thing and the last thing your pellet or slug touches is perfect and things generally go well. I have seen china barrels that look like a caveman rifled them. But with a new crown and leade cut, shoot spectacular.

 

[mtnGhost]

I don't believe there is a "best". I've seen exceptional barrels come from FX, LW & CZ. As said, if you find a standout bore, keep it because they all aren't awesome.

There's always a best

Let us all know when you find that definitive "best" then bud.

You've tuned and seen your share of barrels I'm sure you prefer one over the other. Also the topic says in your opinion!

Well, an indication of my opinion would be to crack open my gun safe. Within you’d find a Taipan Veteran with an FX barrel system, a Uragán with a reported CZ barrel, several EDguns with LW barrels and some Crickets with CZ barrels and LW barrels. There is also a Daystate with a LW barrel.

So again, I don’t think there is a best. Of course, the frequency of great barrels is more prevalent in one manufacturer over the others but I couldn’t tell you without a case study.

Here is my opinion though, I really don’t think all barrels from the same manufacturer are equal. I think you have tiers of quality. For example, I believe Daystate’s LW barrels are superior to say Taipan Veteran LW barrels.

I believe the difference is in the leade. The .002 difference in depth or a slightly different angle into the rifling can make or break a barrel. It can change what kind of pellets it likes. This part of the barrel is often overlooked by airgunners but never overlooked by gunsmiths. Buy a good barrel and make sure the first thing and the last thing your pellet or slug touches is perfect and things generally go well. I have seen china barrels that look like a caveman rifled them. But with a new crown and leade cut, shoot spectacular.

Yep, just as I have been saying - the barrel throat (aka leade) is critical! Sometimes the softer barrels can break in, but often there are people that go crazy chasing down accuracy problems in other places. I bought most of my throating reamers from Pacific Tool & Gauge (aka Dave Kiff), because I knew that I would not be able to make my own tools that would let me control the process for cutting the leade in. This tool is very important for slug barrels or longer ammo period, but they can often fix the problems for pellets by removing a tiny bit of material 

 

[P_Bachman]

Anschutz

Ding-Ding! Winner.



What determines - for me - what is my best barrel is how accurate it is with how many pellets. In this case, my SPA PP700 wins by a landslide. 29 .177 pellets tried, 27 of them shoot groups the size of a quarter or less when rested on a single bag at 20 yards. This is a pistol, too. 18 pellets accurate enough to shoot nickel size groups, 14 shoot dime-size groups, 4 shoot single-hole and those 4 cover 4 different shapes: pointed, WC, dome, and HP. My PP700 is creeping up on 4 years of age and has ~ 17k pellets through it.

The LW in my Leshiy is darn good- considering it actually shoots Destroyers halfway decent blew my mind. It's not very picky, either.

However, you never hear of inaccurate BSAs, and every single Anschutz I've had the pleasure of touching was a laser.

 

[Parrotculler]

That's a very big fire starting question!! Lol. I have used lothar walther, cz, the in house barrels from kral, and Hatsan and so far my favorite was the cz barrel. It chewed up almost everything I fed it and sub moa. Haven't really used anything from FX so sorry no help there. My priest 2 had a cz barrel and it was ridiculously accurate with any pellet I fed it and did well with slugs. Additionally, the kral barrel is super accurate with pellets and doesn't shoot slugs though.

TNT19 where do you buy those CZ barrels? I would like to get some (based in EU).

To some other posts, great experience with the bsa/gamo cold hammered, but hard to find in .25 which I prefer. And check out the Cometa, equally cold hammered. Very accurate although the guns themselves are underrated/require work to shine.

 

[thammer]

I've never had a proper crown and leade on a TJ barrel that didn't shoot lights out accurate. My opinion it's the best barrel out there in certain calibers. I think it's lacking in 22 and 25 cal pellet barrels but that's remedied by a new mandrel.

 

[aussiegav]

I put a BSA barrel on a HW100 and it was superb.

 

[Arzrover]

No one has mentioned any Korean barrels ..... I have Shin Sung, Sam Yang, and Eun Jin rifles and barrels that shoot just as well at 100 as my LW Daystates, FX St and STX, and HW equipped rifles. No experience yet with CZ but also have very nice BSA, FWB, and Steyr equpped rifles that are quite accurate. The BSA, TJ, Korean, and Steyr are Hammer forged. The WORST barrel in my inventory is a TJ that was marketed for Marauders by Marmot Militia. Just awful...

I would agree that the leade and crown make or break one. I've bought and fitted a lot of LWs and feel they are most consistent in bore dimensions from unit to unit. I believe Mike N of Thomas rifle fame has stated that he has prepped over 400 LWs and only had 2 that he couldn't make shoot well.

Bob

 

[Dairyboy]

The WORST barrel in my inventory is a TJ that was marketed for Marauders by Marmot Militia. Just awful...

I find that crazy! Ive had multiple of those barrels and have shot sub moa at 100yds multiple times with them. My best 5 shot group at 50yds with a .22 was with one of those. Only lubed JSBs with FP-10 and have to clean the barrel every 100-200 shots.

 

[B.Guns.]

I've had great luck with the LW barrels in my Airforce guns. I can shoot almost any pellet and get nice groups out to 30-40 yards.