New L-W site offers M1 Garand drop-ins, others we might be interested in here.
- Thread starter Greg Langelius *
- Start date
I've heard good and bad about L-W. My own experience has been good. They do a good job in the "drop in" market, I think.
The good and the bad is probably more than most know. I once had a long dialogue with Woody Woodall, and found out that L-W is about the largest producer of barrels worldwide, with a lot of contract runs made to factory barrel specs, and military specs, in addition to their lapped precision barrels. So they are likely to have barrels whose tolerances vary greatly, but each does so according to a required spec. Barrels are all gauged very tightly to whatever spec is in production.
My only custom barrel is a L-W 28" 1:8" SAAMI .260 Rem Savage factory Varmint contour, made as a custom a few years before that spec became the default Savage drop-in barrel for the .260. I got it somewhere around 2002, and used it for 1000yd F Open; only shooting it for comp, and it's still shooting very nicely with my handloads in very sparing practice off the bench. I'm doing some preliminary load development testing on it with Hornady 143gr ELD-X. 43.5gr of H-4350 ain't it yet; will do more loads this coming Spring, working downward from 43.5gr H-4350 since at 4200ft, screaming velocity isn't any big advantage.
When I got the barrel up and running I began a shoot and clean break-in with each shot, but completely stopped getting any copper after the seventh round, so break-in was terminated immediately at ten rounds as a non-event. I figure I've got about 1400rd down it since 2002, and rounds seated to the rifling are still below magazine length. I prefer a jump, and set mine to the .020" to .030" range. Tracking throat migration at about the 800rd mark, I consulted with L-W and they suggested I'd probably be getting about 2400rd overall. But I've hedged that bet and am shooting loads with less steam than back then when I was running 43.8gr of H-4350 with the 142SMKs and 140 A-Max. It appears that reports about LW-50 Stainless steel being especially tough could well be true.
Right now, my Garand is working with a 1953 Winchester arsenal replacement barrel, and shoots like it's really still quite new.
Greg
My only custom barrel is a L-W 28" 1:8" SAAMI .260 Rem Savage factory Varmint contour, made as a custom a few years before that spec became the default Savage drop-in barrel for the .260. I got it somewhere around 2002, and used it for 1000yd F Open; only shooting it for comp, and it's still shooting very nicely with my handloads in very sparing practice off the bench. I'm doing some preliminary load development testing on it with Hornady 143gr ELD-X. 43.5gr of H-4350 ain't it yet; will do more loads this coming Spring, working downward from 43.5gr H-4350 since at 4200ft, screaming velocity isn't any big advantage.
When I got the barrel up and running I began a shoot and clean break-in with each shot, but completely stopped getting any copper after the seventh round, so break-in was terminated immediately at ten rounds as a non-event. I figure I've got about 1400rd down it since 2002, and rounds seated to the rifling are still below magazine length. I prefer a jump, and set mine to the .020" to .030" range. Tracking throat migration at about the 800rd mark, I consulted with L-W and they suggested I'd probably be getting about 2400rd overall. But I've hedged that bet and am shooting loads with less steam than back then when I was running 43.8gr of H-4350 with the 142SMKs and 140 A-Max. It appears that reports about LW-50 Stainless steel being especially tough could well be true.
Right now, my Garand is working with a 1953 Winchester arsenal replacement barrel, and shoots like it's really still quite new.
Greg
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