Schilin or Douglas

[elkslayer54]

I am going to re-barrel my 25-06 which barrel would you pick and why? Schilin or Douglas! Thanks in advance. Bill

FEAR NOT FOR I AM WITH YOU! Walk soft and carry a 300 RUM,

 

[elkslayer54]

Shilen bad spelling

FEAR NOT FOR I AM WITH YOU! Walk soft and carry a 300 RUM,

 

[muzz]

Go with the shielen, Douglas is good but the shielen I think is the better barrel. And you need all the help you can get shooting straight.

 

[elkslayer54]

Very funny, LOL Good to hear from ya been a while!
FEAR NOT FOR I AM WITH YOU! Walk soft and carry a 300 RUM,

 

[RELH]

Elkslayer54;
Douglas is a good brand, but I feel that Shilen has edged them in putting out a quality barrel. I have used the Shilen barrel, in their #3 contour, on ten rifles that I built for customers. These ranged from 25-06 to 300 mag. Every one of those rifles shot groups under one inch at hundred yards, with Federal supreme factory ammo. Some handloads and some factory loads came in at 1/2 inch for three shots.
I purchased my barrels from Brownell's. If your rifle is a Rem.700,or Mauser, you can get the barrel already threaded, and short chambered in 25-06 and save yourself some money if you have to farm out this work.
Brownell's has a online order website at www.brownells.com and you can view and order on this website. They supply alot of gunsmiths and will take orders from persons who are not gunsmiths. They carry a full line of Shilen and Douglas barrels and several other brands also.

RELH

 

[RANGERCON]

A barrel that friends, tacticle shooters, and BR shooters are using are Lothar/Walther.

These barrels are superb!! Nothing wrong with the others, by any means. Just my .02

Website.....http://www.lothar-walther.de/us/aproduction.htm

 

[RELH]

Brownell's also carrys the Lothar-Walther barrels. More expensive then the other two, just depends on how much accuracy you are willing to pay for. One other thing needs to be brought up, the best barrel in the world will not shoot good groups if the parts are not assemble right.

RELH

 

[RANGERCON]

Exactly right, REHL!! So important to have a good "smith" true the action/bolt, etc.

My next LR shooter, God willing, will have a L/W barrel.

Everyone has there fav, I guess L/W is mine.

 

[Bambistew]

The best barrels in the world are only capable of what the shooter can do! Very few people can make those super high dollar mathch barrles shoot to thier true potential and loads have to be supper accurate to make them punch the same holes as well...

I love it when I see people spend $2-3000 on a gun and only be able to make it shoot a 1/2" groups. I would say that 90% of the people out there just can't do any better, maybe more... I got plain jane factory jobbers that will shoot that well. A little tweeking and they're off and running. I find the biggest part of making a rifle shoot well is making sure all parts are operating to thier maximum eficency... Playing with reloads will do wonders for accuracy as well.

 

[RANGERCON]

Iam with Bambistew. And will say that a trigger job alone can do wonders for a rifle's accuracy.
And reloads.

Iam simply stating that the best after market barrel right now, as far as Iam concerned, is L/W.

 

[RELH]

Bambistew;
you are right about alot of hunters spending big bucks for a accurate rifle and they can not even shoot close to it's full potential. I guess they like to have bragging rights, but there are a few hunters that can shoot.
As for factory rifles shooting under one inch or better, it is a crap shoot at best. I have tweek factory rifles and gotten good groups after doing things like bedding the action, seating the lugs for 90 % contact, trigger work, recrown work, barrel lapping Ect! Ect!.
For the guy who does not know how to do this work, he has three choices, buy a factory rifle and hope for the best. Buy a factory rifle and have a gunsmith do the above work for a price tag of several hundred dollars, or buy a custom where the accuracy is guaranteed.
Why I say factory rifles are a crap shoot, is because for every one that I have seen that will shoot an inch of better, ten others will not make those standards. I feel that 0ne in ten is not good odds. So hang on to your factory rifle that does shoot under a inch, because the odds are against you that the next one will not do that.
I have built hunting rifles that have shot groups of .225, 1/4 inch, but my standard for a hunting rifle with a light #3 barrel is one inch max. I would expect alot more of a benchrest or sniper rifle that has a heavy weight barrel and bedded to a machined metal bedding block in the stock. But who wants to lug around a 10-12 pound rifle.

RELH

 

[Bambistew]

I got to disagree with you on the one in ten, maybe Whinchesters or Rugers but in my experience with Remington... For $25, you can buy bedding and lapping compound. You can lap the lugs to make better contact, and bed the actoin and lug yourself, it doesn't take wizardry to do these things. Tweaking the trigger is usually a snap too. I have five factory plane jane Remingtons, all with trigger jobs and some bedded. All of them are capable of shooting 1/2" groups. One in particulare with a #1 contour shoots less than that... another factory SUCKS ADL with my reloads will shoot waaay better than I can. I've easily shot 1/4" 5 shot groups with it. I just can't justify spending $2000 on a rifle... That will what? Make me shoot an 1/8th to a 1/4 better... Hell I don't know if I can shoot any better anyway. At my reasonable ranges in hunting is a half inch to an inch really that much to worry about? It's been my experience with Remington anyway that 5 for 5 factory jobbers will shoot very well... Now the Rugers and new Winchesters are a diffrent story... They may be in the relm of 1 in 5 but I don't think they are near the 1 in 10 mark...

 

[RELH]

Bambistew;
I stand by my 1 in 10 figure. I am basing this on 12 years of working on customer rifles, even brand new ones. I am basing this on pulling a factory rifle out of the box and trying several top brands of ammo and make that rifle shoot a group of 1 inch or better.
The average for most factory rifles is around 1-1/2 to 2 inch group. Most of these rifles can be made to shoot under 1 inch by working on them. the #1 problem is bedding, #2 is improper crown or burrs at the muzzel.
I agree that most hunters do not need a hunting rifle that will shoot 1/2 to 1 inch groups. the problems lays with most hunting magazine writers always seeming to have a rifle that would shoot minute of angle while writing their hunting stories. So most hunters feel that they also need a very accurate rifle to get their game, even if they can not shoot the rifle to it's full protention. I believe Jack O'Conner was right about saying that most of the minute of angle groups were fired by the writer's typewriter and not his gun.
Even from your statement, it appears that your Remingtons were not up to par and you had to work on them to get them to shoot the groups you wanted to achieve.
I agree that a rifle that shoots a 1/2 group compared to a rifle that shoots a 1 inch group is small potatoes, but try to sell that to a person who thinks he has to have a benchrest rifle in a 7-8 pound package. He will not accept the fact that a 1-1/2 inch grouping rifle will be all he needs.
Like you I could not see spending 1,000 to 2,000 bucks on a custom rifle, heck! I did not have the money, so I learned how to build them myself and accuracy is a big thing with me, but I do try to put it in it's proper place and not fret about 1/2 inch.
I used the Howa 1500 action to build the custom elk rifles with Shilen barrels and sny. stocks. Everyone of those rifles shot under 1 inch with FACTORY AMMO using Nosler Partition bullets or it did not leave the shop. I sold them for 950 bucks, not 1500-2000. Try and get your average factory rifle to do that as it comes out of the box.
The Remington action is a easy one to tweek for accuracy, but I feel that the Howa is even better, It is almost a twin to the M-700, but has a better recoil lug setup, and a better Sako style extractor.
There will always be hunters that are satisfied with their factory rifles, and there will always be others who wants something more in their firearms for the same reason we have Fords and Chevys and fancy sportscars.

Good Shooting;
RELH

 

[Bambistew]

RELH, I totaly agree with you about pulling a rifle out of the box, running some factory's though it and you will get 1-2" groups probably 9 out of 10 times. But then you compare $900 rifles to $500 rifles... Hell I can take any factory rifle throw a new barrle on it and be able to shoot 1" goups too. I like my guns to perform to thier maximum potential, but don't want to spend a grand on them to cut my goups down to 3/8" when 1/2-3/4" will do me just fine for 99.98% of my shooting needs. Thats money I can spend on hunting! Hell thats way better than I can shoot in the field, even if my rifle shot 1/4" groups off the bench it wouldn't increase my ability in the field noticably.

On the other hand why would you spend a minmum $400 on a new barrle and tweaking the action and then another $350 for a stock that's rigid enough to make the rifle shoot to its potentail, just to shoot factory ammo? I don't shoot factory ammo at all, there's no point in it... it costs me more money, is not as accurate and so on.

Do people that spend this kind of money on guns shoot factory ammo? Their crazy if they do! The only reason I would build a rifle of this caliber (pun intended) would be for match comps, but for a hunting rifle where 2" goups at 200 yards is plenty good... Is it really worth it to cut it down to an inch at 200? Maybe if I was vamint hunting, but then I would just shoot the factory sucks vamint rifle that has had nothing done to it... and with my reloads it will shoot 3/8" groups!

From what I have seen and all the people that I've talked to... those high dollar barrles will only shoot as good as the ammo! Junk ammo will net you 1-1.5" goups as well. But with good reloads and some factory ammo they will shoot better than factory jobbers about every time.

What I'm really getting at is with competant reloading and about $25 you can have less than MOA in just about any factory rifle out there, they're pretty far and few between that won't shoot that well! It's just not worth it to me to spend the $600-$1000 just to make it shoot factory ammo into a 1" group.

 

[RELH]

Bambistew;
You will be surprised how many hunters do not reload their own ammo. And alot of the hunters that do, have not learned how to load very accurate ammo that will match or exceed factory ammo in accuracy.
Of those customers that bought the rifles, only 2 was into reloading their own ammo, and one of them had just started reloading. He had a ton of questions for me on how to set up his reloading equitment.
Also you may not beware of the fact that some ammo companies have made great strides in the accuracy of their ammo. It is not like it was ten years ago where you had to load your own to get decent accuracy.
The factory ammo I used for my guaratee of under 1 inch, was Federal Supreme in their Nosler Partition load. It has proven to be very consistant accuracy wise. Black Hills also loads some very accurate ammo in the .223 caliber.
Military snipers and police snipers do not use hand loaded ammo, and the ammo available to them is very accurate.
you are a minority in your way of thinking concerning firearms and ammo, the average Joe is not going to take the time and learn to tweek his own gun and load accurate ammo. Most guys who reload, only started doing it in order to save money for the amount of shooting they do. Only a few of them will learn to load accurate ammo and use that ammo on their hunting trip.

RELH

 

[TheKnack]

Both barrel makers offer great barrels.

My personal opinion is that 100 yard groups do not really show the potential of the rifle. Some bullets fly great up close but lose stability after 100-200 yards due to bullet construction or from firing them in the wrong barrel twist rate. But then again most hunters in my opinion have no business shooting at long range. Spend some time at the gun range and you will see 90% or more of the guys there should not shoot past 50 much less 100 yards. Most of the guys at the range idea of a 1" group or less is two bullet holes close together somewhere on the paper after shooting a whole box of shells.

If you shoot a lot the following will help increase accuracy in most rifles.

Make sure the scope mount you use is installed correctly. I have seen way to many scope mounting jobs where the bases and the rings were lose and the guy at the range wonders why he cannot get good accuracy.

Most will find a good trigger job will decrease group size.
Just make sure you have someone who is qualified do it if you have not done it before.

If the trigger job does not work then free float the barrel or have it done for you and try again. Most rifles respond best to free floating the barrel but I have seen where some of the smaller diameter barrels like to be partially or fully bedded. Start will free floating first since adding bedding is easier than taking it out after.

Buy good ammunition from several manufacturers and try them out or better yet reload your own ammo. Follow reloading manual instructions for powder and bullet weight. Usually the best loads are the ones that the powder fills most of the case volume while still being within safe pressure levels and still delivering good velocity.

If your still not getting acceptable accuracy you may be flinching. Try this- When the range is hot and firing is allowed leave your rifle at the bench pointed down range on the bags. Have a friend or a range officer help by having them either put a round in the chamber or not in your rifle while your back is turned so you cannot see if they did or not. Have them tell you when to try a shot and turn around and go to the bench and fire as normal. On the time that you squeeze the trigger and no round was in the chamber you will know if you are flinching or not because it will be obvious. It is a little embarassing but it teaches you a lesson and lets you know.
Just remember that flinching actually causes more felt recoil than if you were to shoot normally. Try dry firing at the range and then a couple rounds. If your still not hitting the target well then repeat the flinch test again.
If you cannot cure the flinching maybe you should think about a rifle caliber with less recoil or try different recoil pads.

Just my long 2 cents.
Best,
Jerry

 

[RELH]

Jerry;

Those are very valid points, if all hunters were to follow your advice, there would be some very big eye openers to alot of hunters. I am willing to bet alot of hunters would be switching to non-magnum calibers, or would pratice alot more in order to cure that flinch with their favortite mag rifle.
The only thing I would add, is that a 4-5 pound trigger pull is not that big of a deal to take away from accuracy if the trigger is consistant in pull weight and breaks crisp everytime.
The vast majority of the time when I pulled the empty case load on a shooter, I and the shooter saw alot of barrel movement due to flinching. Once learning they have that problem, most shooter were able to correct the problem.

RELH