Bartlein barrel from Craddock Precision, 16" 223 Wylde, quick review

matt33

Sergeant
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Minuteman
Apr 1, 2009
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Bradford/Susquehanna Co, PA
I just received a Bartlein barrel from Craddock Precision. It's a 16" 1:7 twist, cut rifled 5R stainless steel mid-length. 750" GB. I don't have a good scale, but I think it's listed at 2.1 pounds.

I'm going to send this barrel off to have it converted by D Wilson to work with my LMT MRP, but I wanted to make sure it shot well first. I mocked it up today, my goodness, what an absolute hammer!

I just wanted to provide a quick review in case anyone is on the fence about spending $700 plus without reading a whole lot of reviews, I am beyond happy with this Barrel.

It's gassed perfectly for my needs, the gas port is around. 074". It also shoots lights out with everything I've tried, and I've done zero load development. I just shot a generic load of 77 SMK, 23.5 grains of IMR 8208 XBR. The first 10 round group I shot after a quick break-in with 20 rounds of cheap M855 was .82", and the first 8 rounds went into the .5"s. I'm not making excuses, but it was damn cold, gusty, and snow was blowing in my face. Velocity was 2,649 FPS with decent extreme spread and SD. I'd imagine as it breaks in I'll pick up some speed and it will be close to 2700.

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Nice! One of my favorite loads, Im shooting 23.6gr of 8208. Great load it seems, might be one of those universal good loads.
I really think it is. I've never had that load shoot poorly in any AR that I've tried.

It's nice because it's also fairly fast, a little slower but in the same ballpark as MK262

I was lucky enough to bank 16 lb of that powder just before it dried up.
 
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