I'm probably opening a can of worms here but I'm going to put this to rest once and for all.
A rumor was started a while back somewhere in PRS that we had a bad lot of steel. The main thing that was said was our barrels where dying prematurely and that Hawk Hill barrels where lasting longer. Also a comment a few times was thrown in there about stress.
That rumor was flat out BS! Thinking it was coming from Hawk Hill as that kept getting relayed to me I even called Shawn at Hawk Hill. We helped him with different things when he started out.
So when I called Shawn and told him what I was calling about and if it was either coming out of his shop or from his shooters I asked him to put a stop to it. Shawn told me and reaffirmed to me that it wasn't coming from him at all and I'll quote what he said in the very next sentence right here..... "Frank if that was true then we would be having problems as well...as our steel comes out of your heat lots." Which that was another reason why I called him. He's using the same steel! So there is no way that there was any truth to it.
I want you all to think of this as well. We make and ship on average 200 or more ammunition test barrels a month. The barrels could be pressure and velocity test barrels (which can also be used for accuracy testing), finished accuracy test barrels and or accuracy blanks that the end user does the finish work on themselves. About 90% of the ammunition test barrels we ship out we do the finish work on complete. Chambers etc...and the test barrels are getting used pronto. They are not sitting on a shelf somewhere for 10 years etc in most cases.
A good example.... just in one caliber one ammunition maker where the accuracy requirement for the box ammo is .65moa. They are burning thru a minimum of 10 barrels a month to the tune of over 5k rounds of ammunition being fired thru them (it's a big magnum round so it's a barrel burner). This is every month and this has been being done for a few years now. If there was truly a bad lot of steel etc.... places like this are going to be calling us way sooner than anyone else. The steel we use for test barrels is the same material we use for anyone else ordering a barrel from us. We don't have special steel just for test barrels etc... or sort stuff out just for test barrels and you and I get the left overs.
If there truly is a problem with steel.... I'm going to hear it from the Gov't, an ammunition maker, a bullet maker etc... way sooner than I hear it from someone that gets a barrel or two or a few a year.
When someone has a problem and blames it on the barrel/bad steel. You have to take what you hear with a grain of salt at times. At times you and I don't always get the whole picture of what is going on.
I can throw Murphy's law in here and say.... if someone does have a problem with a barrel could it be with that particular barrel and that one piece of steel. Sure but one barrel out of a whole heat lot of material doesn't mean the whole lot is bad etc...and one heat lot of material for us can make 10k or more barrels.
Have we've gotten a particular lot of material and had issues with it. You bet.... but it wasn't barrel life or accuracy issues or anything like that. It was the way it was machining. We got a hold of the mill and rejected the whole lot and they took it back and replaced it. Out of that lot of material we only shipped 14 barrels and they where all 30cal and I know the shop they went to. No safety issues or accuracy or barrel life issues. It was strictly machining issues and what affected it was the way the mill made the material. By the way this lot of steel was back in 2009 and you can thank the Obama administration for that! Because what that administration did made the mill take short cuts.
Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels
A rumor was started a while back somewhere in PRS that we had a bad lot of steel. The main thing that was said was our barrels where dying prematurely and that Hawk Hill barrels where lasting longer. Also a comment a few times was thrown in there about stress.
That rumor was flat out BS! Thinking it was coming from Hawk Hill as that kept getting relayed to me I even called Shawn at Hawk Hill. We helped him with different things when he started out.
So when I called Shawn and told him what I was calling about and if it was either coming out of his shop or from his shooters I asked him to put a stop to it. Shawn told me and reaffirmed to me that it wasn't coming from him at all and I'll quote what he said in the very next sentence right here..... "Frank if that was true then we would be having problems as well...as our steel comes out of your heat lots." Which that was another reason why I called him. He's using the same steel! So there is no way that there was any truth to it.
I want you all to think of this as well. We make and ship on average 200 or more ammunition test barrels a month. The barrels could be pressure and velocity test barrels (which can also be used for accuracy testing), finished accuracy test barrels and or accuracy blanks that the end user does the finish work on themselves. About 90% of the ammunition test barrels we ship out we do the finish work on complete. Chambers etc...and the test barrels are getting used pronto. They are not sitting on a shelf somewhere for 10 years etc in most cases.
A good example.... just in one caliber one ammunition maker where the accuracy requirement for the box ammo is .65moa. They are burning thru a minimum of 10 barrels a month to the tune of over 5k rounds of ammunition being fired thru them (it's a big magnum round so it's a barrel burner). This is every month and this has been being done for a few years now. If there was truly a bad lot of steel etc.... places like this are going to be calling us way sooner than anyone else. The steel we use for test barrels is the same material we use for anyone else ordering a barrel from us. We don't have special steel just for test barrels etc... or sort stuff out just for test barrels and you and I get the left overs.
If there truly is a problem with steel.... I'm going to hear it from the Gov't, an ammunition maker, a bullet maker etc... way sooner than I hear it from someone that gets a barrel or two or a few a year.
When someone has a problem and blames it on the barrel/bad steel. You have to take what you hear with a grain of salt at times. At times you and I don't always get the whole picture of what is going on.
I can throw Murphy's law in here and say.... if someone does have a problem with a barrel could it be with that particular barrel and that one piece of steel. Sure but one barrel out of a whole heat lot of material doesn't mean the whole lot is bad etc...and one heat lot of material for us can make 10k or more barrels.
Have we've gotten a particular lot of material and had issues with it. You bet.... but it wasn't barrel life or accuracy issues or anything like that. It was the way it was machining. We got a hold of the mill and rejected the whole lot and they took it back and replaced it. Out of that lot of material we only shipped 14 barrels and they where all 30cal and I know the shop they went to. No safety issues or accuracy or barrel life issues. It was strictly machining issues and what affected it was the way the mill made the material. By the way this lot of steel was back in 2009 and you can thank the Obama administration for that! Because what that administration did made the mill take short cuts.
Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels
Just google search it, and you'll be able to tell which video it is. It was even posted to here a while back in a thread about cleaning guns and suppressors with CLR.
