Sassen barrel

[tim s]

Yes, on the prototype testing on the KK500 Walther, they had two that did 250,000 on the machine loader, both were cleaned, and still shot perfect, I saw the barrels, and saw the results.

I've also seen so called shot out small bore barrels, some even well up in number of rounds, then just cleaned properly, and they then shot perfectly. The point I'm making is that it is rare for a small bore barrel to be genuinely shot out, damaged by poor cleaning usually with a poor rod guide yes, badly fouled yes, but genuinely shot out, very rare. I'm aware of a case where one was visibly shot out in 10,000, and I saw that sectioned, but that that was due to a manufacturing fault with the primers, and was some time ago.

And yes a new barrel, when run in, will shoot well, it damn well should do, so may seem like the answer, but I'm not convinced that with small bore it genuinely is the answer, or was necessary, a good careful deep clean, careful ammo selection, will likely produce the same result

You can't compare US Bench Rest on barrels, it is almost totally full bore, a totally different kettle of seafood, between my wife and I we've had 5 barrels replaced in full bore target rifles in the last 7 years, when they go, they go, and they fall off a cliff.

In small bore the ammo is the weak point, and yes there are good barrels and bad ones, often the same make, why we get selected ones. By the way Carl Walther make their own barrels, I've seen them being made on their own 100+ year old machine, they also use Lothar Walther (a different company) on some models.

My advice was aimed for the original poster, and for him to be sure he will get an advantage by going to the hassle of rebarreling, when it may not be necessary.

Have fun
Robin

Robin,

No, Walther's factory test barrel does not prove your statement that smallbore barrels do at least 200,000 rounds. It only proves that these barrels can, not that every single barrel will do so without question. You said smallbore barrels, ie all and any, not some. Now if Walther guaranteed their barrels will shoot 10-ring groups for 200,000 rounds, that would be different. But they don't. Test barrels are often exceptional, and factory test shooting shooting does not replicate real world shooting. I believe Eley have (had?) a test barrel with 300,000 on the clock. Some years ago Border advertised that Israeli Olympian Guy Starik had retired his Border (fitted to an early Walther KK200) after 300,000 odd rounds. If this performance was normal, why advertise it? "Buy a Border, It's average!" would not be good marketing. They referred to this barrel because its performance was exceptional. Other very experienced shooters have retired barrels far earlier than this though. Are they unlucky? Are they very fussy? Perhaps, but it would be an insult to their intelligence to suggest that they could not clean properly, or are unable to tell good ammo from bad.

0.22LR Bench rest is a thing too. If anything the specialist barrel makers that supply the US market are far more innovative than Anschutz or Walther, playing with twist rate, groove number and profile, and chamber dimensions. Some of the must-haves, like a .75in barrel tenon to avoid constriction ahead of the chamber, are questionable, but we all shoot the same bullets.

I understood for whom you wrote. You might have meant your first post to be a word of caution, along the lines of: "replacing a barrel is very expensive, and unless the old one is knackered, you may not see much improvement. If you haven't already done this, clean the snot out of the existing barrel, and test more ammo before parting with £800". But it didn't come across this way, at least to me. For all we know the OP has extensively batch tested and it won't group under 1in at 50m, or it's full of rust pitting and leads like nobody's business.