Barrel Replacement Costs

[jd1123]

Hello everyone. Thanks to the community for all the good information in these threads. Great to learn from everyone out there.

I'm looking at getting a long range rifle, and I'm stuck between the Howa 1500 and Remington 700. Aside from all the comparisons in quality (which are plentiful on this forum and other), what would the difference be in the cost of rebarreling?

I've snooped around a bit and can't seem to come up with a good cost estimate. From what I understand, there are many more aftermarket options for the Remington, which would most likely make it easier to find a barrel and perhaps even a smith to work on the gun. I've also read that removing the factory barrel of a Howa is difficult and may increase the cost.

I really don't know what is involved in rebarreling a gun, and perhaps I may never need to do so, but I would like to know if it's considerably more costly to do it on a Howa and by how much. If possible, can please someone do their best to give an apples to apples (as much as possible) cost comparison for different barrel types (custom aftermarket barrel replacement for each, factory replacement for each etc)?

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[turbo54]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

It will cost the same.

A premium barrel blank runs ~$300

Installation is the same for both rifles, and depending on smith, runs from $200-300 typically, not including other action tune ups like truing.

 

[cav.scout]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

Go with Savage, you can rebarrel it yourself with a go guage and a barrel wrench its very simple no smith envolved.

 

[jd1123]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

Thanks for the info guys.

scoutsout - I've heard that about savage, but I'm a bit wary of trusting doing my own work on something like a firearm. What specifically makes it different than the others in terms of being able to do the barrel change yourself?

turbo54 - Appreciate that. Would getting a ready-made barrel (whatever you would call it) lessen the cost? I know you can get Remington take offs for decent prices, and I'm guessing there are sources for prefit barrels. I'm just concerned that I won't be able to find this for the Howa at a reasonable cost. Is this accurate?

 

[sawman556]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

If you all ready know for sure that you will shoot enough to burn up the barrel, I would go with a custom barreled action to start with. If you can afford the ammo that will required to shoot it out, the re-barreling cost is not something to worry about. If you're on a tight budget I would go with something like the 700 SPS Tactical. It will serve you well and you can upgrade it as you go. It's hard to say not knowing how much you shoot or what your budget is.

 

[turbo54]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jd11123</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks for the info guys.

scoutsout - I've heard that about savage, but I'm a bit wary of trusting doing my own work on something like a firearm. What specifically makes it different than the others in terms of being able to do the barrel change yourself?

turbo54 - Appreciate that. Would getting a ready-made barrel (whatever you would call it) lessen the cost? I know you can get Remington take offs for decent prices, and I'm guessing there are sources for prefit barrels. I'm just concerned that I won't be able to find this for the Howa at a reasonable cost. Is this accurate? </div></div>

A monkey can do a perfect job rebarreling a Savage. It's that easy. The design difference between Savage and all the others is in how the barrel is properly located (fore/aft) in relation to the bolt. The Savage barrel is threaded into the receiver the appropriate amount using a headspace gage ($25), and then a jam-nut cinches it in place. You can remove any Savage model 10 barrel, and properly install it on any other Savage model 10.

Nearly every other rifle locates the barrel by how the barrel is machined. On a Remington or Howa (or others), you screw the barrel into the receiver until its tight, then you torque it. You may NOT safely interchange a Remington barrel from one to the other. Each barrel is custom-fit to its own action, and that fitting work is beyond the scope of what a home hobbyist can or should do. Meanwhile, the hobbyist is easily capable of rebarreling his Savage.

You essentially can't buy a "pre fit" barrel for any rifle but a Savage, with few exceptions...so rebarreling is going to include buying a blank, picking a gunsmith, waiting for him to get to it, and paying him a couple hundred bucks. You can buy a factory barrel, ir someone else's take-off to save a few bucks, byt I'd argue it's hardly a good choice being you'll be paying someone $300 and waiting months for them to install a $100 barrel of questionable goodness. Much wiser to pay the $200 extra for a premium barrel...installation is the same price.

Exceptions: you can buy a Remington prefit barrel, that "retrofits" a savage-style barrel nut. They call this hybrid a Rem-age.

Some Rifles are designed for quick change barrels. The AI's are like this, as are Sig Target Rifles, and others I'm sure.

 

[majohnson2]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

Everything depends on what your expecting for accuracy. Premium barrels like the Kreiger SS 6.5 CM blank I had installed, was $379 shipped. Then another $300 to have it fitted on my R700.

Small groups don't come cheap.

 

[Sendero_Man]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

Barrels are like car/truck tires... part of owning a rig. You don't quit driving cause you need new ones !

 

[BoilerUP]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Sendero_man</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Barrels are like car/truck tires... part of owning a rig. You don't quit driving cause you need new ones ! </div></div>

+1...barrels are consumable in the same way bullets, powder, & primers are consumable.

Barrel life can be a concern, but even at $600 installed for a premium barrel that's $0.24/round for a 2500rd barrel life or $0.15/round for 4000rd barrel life.

That could be one year or 10 years of life, depending on use...

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Barrel Replacement Costs

I think it's rather soon to be considering rebarreling before even obtaining the rifle.

Brand-wise, of your choices, I would consider the M700 more preferable, simply becasue it's more common and more smiths are familiar with the process on that action.

I own and prefer Savage rifles, and they are certainly more amenable to barrel swaps by anybody, in that the barrel nut feature eliminates the shoulder machining that most other actions require to properly headspace the barrel. If imitation is the ultimate compliment, then several other makers are beginning to use the barrel nut as well.

Some Savages have their barrels on pretty tight, and can be irksome when removing the factory barrel for the first time.

Replacement barrels are made for the Savage by many makers as prefit, ready to install. This is only possible because of the barrel nut, and can eliminate the barrel shoulder fitting/machining that adds the additional expense for barrel replacements on other makers actions, like Remington, Winchester, etc.

Some time back there was a bit of distrust voiced about possible negative effects of the barrel nut on accuracy. Years of widespread experience have proved such mistrust to be totally without any basis in fact.

Greg