Sassen barrel

[RBS53]

Hi All
I am a rimfire benchrest shooter, I am looking to re barrel an action with a stainless steel match barrel. So the question is has anyone had experience of using a sassen barrel. Sassen bought border barrels which were excellent barrels a while back, but I have heard little of Sassen.
Rich

[Daryll]

I had my Mossberg MVP .308 rebarrelled with a sassen barrel... only had a couple of hundred rnds through it so far, ( had it done just before lock-down!) but it looks fine so far...certainly sub MOA...

Daryll.

[RobinC]

Why change it? The weak link with small bore is not the barrel, its the ammunition, and I doubt any non manufacturer barrel will be better than the original match barrel.

Some years ago Walther offered a Border barrel as an option in their small bore match rifles, when at Walthers I asked why? Because some British shooters asked for them was the answer, knowing they do their own extensive testing I asked, are they any better? The answer, no, but they do cost a lot more!

The match barrels from the leading manufacturers are developed specifically for the rifles, they win World Cups, World championships, and Olympics, a rebarrel from another party will not be better, small bores also do at least 200,000 rounds before being worn out, and even then, its usually caused by poor cleaning, or poor ammunition.

Our Walther KK500's have standard match barrels, and shoot top level scores, the only barrels I've heard any one change to on any small bore are Liljia and I think that's more fashion than performance!

Full bores are different, and I could advise you on good match barrels on those, Bartlein or Krieger, but small bores? As long as its a good quality match rifle, I'd stick with what you have, if its not, you'd be better putting your money towards a modern, Walther, Bleiker, G&E, Anschutz or FWB, barrel and action.

Best of luck
Have Fun
Robin

[tim s]

Why change it?

Best of luck
Have Fun
Robin

Robin,

Perhaps it no longer shoots accurately enough? That's the most common reason for changing a 0.22LR barrel IME. Smallbore barrels last a long time, but aren't immortal. You mention that smallbores do at least 200,000 rounds. Is that an opinion or documented fact? I know of quite a few shooters who replaced barrels after 100-150,000 rounds because grouping had deteriorated, proven in formal testing. A Border, Truflite, Lilja, Shilen Maddco etc was fitted and Hey Presto! groups went back to normal. Yes, we all know of barrels that still shoot brilliantly even after enormous round counts, but not all barrels do that.

I disagree totally that an aftermarket barrels is inherently inferior to a factory barrel. Some are meh, but so are some factory barrels. Some are superb. Why would Bleiker and G&E go to the expense of importing barrels from the US if they could just buy locally? Do US BR shooters import Anschutz, Lothar Walther, or FWB? No, not on your nelly!

Suggesting a new barrel/action is all well and good, but if you don't have £1,500-£4k spare, a replacement barrel is a more economical option.

[RobinC]

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

[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.