A high price is not necessarily indicative of a great barrel, and likewise Vice-Versa. My shooting buddy took a liking to my Stag Model 6 Super Varminter 24" 1:8" AR (recent searches suggest the barrel may come from McGowan). But he was not about to shell out for the entire rifle, so he bought a bargain barrel on a whim, and used it to complete a gun he was building on an 80% Lower.
This one. At this price, I'd say get one and still buy your nicer barrel besides.
Once he had it up and ready to run, I gave him a bunch of my 600yd F T/R loads (CCI BR-4, HDY 75gr HPBT-Match at max mag length, 24.4gr Varget), and he's really pleased with the combination.
I don't know what your altitude is but we shoot at 4200ft ASL, and the Hornady standard calculator shows the load doing a conservative 1300fps-ish at 1000yd. This assumes a 2900fps MV, which may be a conservative estimate in the 24" barrel.
I am reworking my load downward (to around 23.5gr-23.7gr Varget, since I don't really need to be going that fast for my local shooting environment), and giving him the rest of my older loads, made with unfired Winchester brass.
I just bought 700pc of Starline 223 brass at Midway for about $.22 per case for this year's shooting season, as an experiment. Reviews on Midway are mixed, but the positive ones are absolutely glowing. Also picked up 500 bulk packed HDY 75gr HPBT-Match W/C from the same source, a good start for the year.
Greg
PS, some nice targets, Padom. You've probably convinced me to take some extra time and test for seating depths after all.