PVA AI barrels- Cut vs Button?
- Thread starter SFree
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No meaningful end user difference between the two methods. As far as PVA’s button barrels go, they’re are a deal he worked with Rock Creek. The goal being reasonable price with great quality. My understanding anyway. That’s why they’re priced so well. Generally, top quality blanks of either type are identically priced.
Edit: I think you’ll be happy with either.
Edit: I think you’ll be happy with either.
Every time something seems off with a shot or you can’t get your load just right that little voice in your head is going to be wishing you spent the extra $125 
Right or wrong it’ll be there.
Right or wrong it’ll be there.
Man, that's playing the "head game" to the max! LOLEvery time something seems off with a shot or you can’t get your load just right that little voice in your head is going to be wishing you spent the extra $125
Right or wrong it’ll be there.
Honestly, he could spend that extra $125 and just happen to get a POS, no matter the rifling method, brand or 'smith.
Didn't Phil at MPA take over the barrel making from Clay Spenser? Those, unless I am bad wrong, are button rifled and have been screwed on some of the most accurate rifles ever to grace the range.
Hi,
Well someone better tell all those benchrest smallest group record holders that they could have done better with cut rifled barrels instead of those button barrels.
And Tubb with all those Schneider buttoned barrels.....
Sincerely,
Theis
Well someone better tell all those benchrest smallest group record holders that they could have done better with cut rifled barrels instead of those button barrels.
And Tubb with all those Schneider buttoned barrels.....
Sincerely,
Theis
Look at a recent BR equipment list....somebody has told them about cut rifling! Lol
OP
I’m a cut rifled guy, but I’ve just had too many good button barrels to scientifically prove one over the other in tactical precision style shooting.
Josh’s button barrel’s in particular were made as a collaboration between him and Rock Creek to meet his quality standards, at very competitive price point. I havent shot one of them yet, but they’ve been tested and reviewed here by member Padom. They’ve also bee thoroughly tested by other match shooters, as I believe these blanks are used on his John Hancock rifle.
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Supersubes, et al,
I’v had both types myself , Schneider, K&P, and Kreiger , all have been absolute hammers.
I can honestly say even factory Sendero and PSS have been great.
Knowing Mr. Josh’s quest for perfection but at a great value leads me to know that either way will be met with success, no doubt ?
I’v had both types myself , Schneider, K&P, and Kreiger , all have been absolute hammers.
I can honestly say even factory Sendero and PSS have been great.
Knowing Mr. Josh’s quest for perfection but at a great value leads me to know that either way will be met with success, no doubt ?
Sounds fishy I know, but they were from 20 years ago and were both PSS rifles. That goofy .300 Winny loved cheapy Winchester blue box 150gr soft points. One hole driller and the .308 was scary accurate too.
Sent the .300 to McMillan and had it bedded in an A2 tiger stripe stock, then sold it... moron
Sent the .300 to McMillan and had it bedded in an A2 tiger stripe stock, then sold it... moron
Makes zero difference unless you plan to have your gunsmith flute the barrel for you. In that case you NEED to go with cut rifled or the stress relief will screw up the button rifling.
The competitive shooting world is FULL of monkey see monkey do. Or correlation without causality, if you want to get technical.
Are quality button-rifled barrels not stress relieved?
Do you think turning the OD to profile the blank does not induce and/or release stresses into cut rifled barrels?
The best barrel I ever had was a button rifling Spencer barrel, that thing was a laser. About PVA barrels I have both and I can't tell you any accuracy difference between them. Talking to Josh around a year ago I asked him which one he recommended, his answer was, " right now for my own personal rifles I'm using button barrels"
I bey I have that 308's brother. Bought a 700VS 22 yrs ago; man that thing is a hammer. Regularly puts three shots touching at 200yds.
I agree. THEIS’ comment was funny because the BR monkey do is clearly stuck on cut barrels.
Hopefully putting one of his buttoned barrels on today.....if I can just get the damned OEM Tikka barrel off lol.
I have both cut and button rifled barrels from josh. I see absolutely no difference. Buttons cost me less and shoot just as good. In fact, I find it difficult to spend the extra money when I dont need to.
A TIGHT barrel vise, a TIGHT action wrench with some aluminum shims between the jaws of the wrench and the action, a good, long handle on the action wrench, and a 3 pound shop sledge. Maybe a dozen or so good whacks with the hammer, pausing after each one to make sure the clamp bolts on the barrel vise and action wrench are still tight, and you should be in good shape.
Turning on a lathe introduces very little stress into the metal in the same way that using cut rifling introduces far less stress than button rifling, because they're essentially doing the same thing. Cut rifling carves the rifling into the barrel a very small amount at a time, just like turning on a lathe is cutting the metal itself generally by no more than 50-150 thousandths of an inch at a time (depends on the lathe and tooling). Button rifling introduces stress because it doesn't cut, it just literally pushes all the metal it doesn't want out of the way kind of like squeezing play-doh. Cutting = little to no stress, button rifling = very high stress.
In addition, here's a good source that talks about stresses introduced during machining of metals: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.625.8674&rep=rep1&type=pdf
The key takeaway from this source is that the stress introduced from traditional machining processes is so little that it was only measurable within .2mm (~8 thousandths) of the machined surface and the depth of maximum compressive stress was .05mm (~2 thousandths) from the surface that was machined. It's clear that the miniscule stresses introduced during the cut rifling process wouldn't be affected by machining the outside of the barrel in any fashion, unless you plan to machine a pencil barrel or deep flutes with a thickness of less than 10 thousandths in any location.
Stress relieved barrels are not always perfectly stress free barrels. You can remove almost all of the stress in the barrel but it's impossible to guarantee that it's stress free, which is why it's a good idea to start with a process that introduces less stress from the start if you intend to make large and deep cuts like fluting.
That said, this small residual stress after the stress relief process doesn't matter if you're not intending to flute your barrel. You also shouldn't flute the barrel in the first place if accuracy is your primary concern.
You're welcome to disagree, I just explained that stress relief will never remove ALL stress (though it gets pretty close to that most of the time) and also explained how contouring a barrel introduces an incredibly negligible amount of stress into a barrel in the first place. In terms of best practices, you're better off fluting a cut rifled barrel than a button rifled barrel. Many button rifled barrel makers, such as Shilen, also strongly recommend against fluting their barrels.
If fluting releases stresses built up in a button rifled barrel and the barrel distorts to the point where it affects accuracy, then contouring a button-rifled blank will do it even worse due to the amount of material removed.
Fluting cuts are much deeper than barrel contouring, generally speaking. There's also a reason that pencil contour button rifled barrels aren't exactly renown for their accuracy potential.
Your assumptions about how this works would be correct if someone were to cut the flutes full depth in one or two passes. But nobody in their right mind would do that.
Stress relief doesn't care how many passes you take to cut it, it just cares about whether you're cutting away material that holds stress in it.
Fluting cuts go deeper (closer to the centerline) than contour cuts, by definition. They cause increased stress relief in button rifled barrels as a result because they are cutting into material that is more stressed.
The Brownells barrel vice with rosin held tight. No issues. Used the PVA internal lug wrench and it sheared. I believe it was designed to do so at 135 lbs. Hit it with an extended Kroil soak, then heat then 2 whaps with it in the impact gun before one good whack with hammer on a cheater and breaker bar sheared it. Debating picking up a Brownells action wrench or just using a 31mm wrench which should fit perfect on the receiver flats by my measurement.
Sorry to the OP for thread derailment. Wasnt my intent!
amazing im i need of a 6.5 barrel for my AI and im wondering the same thing!!! what contour are you going with?
Sorry, I should have been more specific regarding the action wrench... use one that grabs the action from the outside. I use this one from Northland Shooters Supply, with the cap flipped to clamp onto the flat top of the T3 action:
I have an AI AT button rifled barrel in 6br with about 500 rounds on it from a well known smith.
Accuracy was good at first (1/2-3/4 moa) but didn't get great until after 200 rounds. I was told that might be the case by some experts on here that have shot a lot of button rifled barrels. I saved $300 over a cut barreled pre-fit. Totally worth it.
Accuracy was good at first (1/2-3/4 moa) but didn't get great until after 200 rounds. I was told that might be the case by some experts on here that have shot a lot of button rifled barrels. I saved $300 over a cut barreled pre-fit. Totally worth it.
Most likely a medium Palma, possibly a marksman contour. 24-26”
Don’t cut rifled barrel have a longer barrel life than button rifled barrels? Or is that one of those in theory vs in practice things that doesn’t really materlize?
Nobody has ever been able to prove that one way or the other. Like most everything in gun land, anecdotal evidence, leaps to conclusion, and confirmation bias rule the discussion.
