Colerain or Rice........?

[Stophel]

I've used one Getz barrel, and it was super nice. I have used one Rice, and have another one here for myself, if I ever get around to stocking it up. I like them very much. Very nice. Generally, though, Colerains will fill the bill. I HAVE had one Colerain with a "hiccup" in the rifling near the muzzle (if it was at the other end, I wouldn't mind so much), and Colerain octagon to round barrels tend to be quite lumpy and dippy on the outside surface...which is a PAIN to smooth out. Rayl rifling is too shallow and narrow for my tastes.

 

[majg1234]

I have a long hammock in my 40 cal TVM S MTN rifle...smooth as a babys' butt and very accurate...maybe I lucked up on a good'un. :hmm:

 

[hanshi]

I have a rifle coming with a Rice barrel. I've had fine accuracy with the others but the combination of characteristics I want pretty much dictate a Rice barrel on this new gun.

 

[majg1234]

agree my 58 cal EV from TVM will have a Rice for the same reasons.....the waiting is killing me but letting me save up the $$$ to pay for it :wink:

 

[hanshi]

I feel your pain and suffer the same impatience. Time will really drag for the next few months.

 

[Herb]

Rice charges $20 more for radius bottom rifling. The square bottom is the cheaper. I just ordered a 15/16 x 42" .50 gunmakers special (square bottom) barrel with fitted tang last Tuesday, should have shipped today. I asked about the difference in rifling, as I have a 42" B weight .50 caliber radius bottom rifling barrel that really shoots well. Was told that for pure accuracy the square bottom was better. That rifling is .010 deep compared to .015 for the radius bottom, if I remember correctly.

 

[rocky13540]

I don't think you would go wrong with either mfg. I have a Christian Springs stocked in cherry with a Colerain barrel and it shoots very accurate and cleaning is not a problem. I've never owned or shot a Rice but have friends that swear by them. It's your money have it your way.

 

[PhDBrewer]

Hello all, Resurrecting this thread to see if anything has changed in the last 10 years regarding Rice vs. Colerain. Might as well add in Green Mountain, Getz, and any other current barrel makers.
As most everything is "out of stock", First choice might not be available and it is good to know options. What are folks opinions now on these makers regarding rifled barrels? smoothbore?

TIA,
~William

 

[TerryK]

Rice is the best barrel I ever owned. Super polished smooth.

 

[Roundball 54]

Hi
Another question from me........If I want round bottom rifling I need to decide on the brand of barrel.......either Colerain or Rice.......It will be in a cal.45 and in a B weight. Are there advantages to either brand?
As usual.....Thank you.......Macon

There's no doubt about it . Get the Rice barrel , it's the better of the two you asked about .

 

[thompson50]

I love my Colerain barrel but today I took a new flint 58 to the range. Loads easy and is a tack driver!

 

[megasupermagnum]

I recently had both a Colerain and Rice in my hands. Due to a very poor job by the supplier, I returned the Colerain.

Honestly I don't see what is so special about Rice. I have a 42" C profile swamped 54 caliber with round "radius" rifling. The outside of the barrel looks like it came right off the mill, which it probably did. I don't see why that matters. Draw filing is rather small in the grand scheme of things, and the Colerain had the same finish on it.

The bore on the Rice looks just fine, but it's not like I look at it and go "wow, that's fantastic". It looks like any other rifle bore, good enough, not polished, it doesn't need to be. The C profile Rice is markedly thicker than the C profile Colerain. I suppose that doesn't really matter, it's a matter of what you want.

The big one for me is the breech plug. The plug on the Colerain was fine. The plug on the Rice... well there's no way a human put that plug in. They must have set specs, and a machine torques them. I ended up having to create a jig, and wrench, with 4 foot long cheater bar to get my Rice breech plug out. It left a mark on a barrel flat, which I'm not real happy about, but hopefully I can hide that when finishing the gun. I then fit the plug myself, but in no way did Rice do a good job with the breech plug.

All that said, I've got no real problems with the barrel. As long as it shoots good, I'm happy. My point being, there's nothing special about Rice barrels. They aren't even made of good steel, the stuff is rather soft. It's good enough for blackpowder uses, but not exactly high dollar steel. Green Mountain steel on the other hand is very tough. You can tell right away with a file. If they sold swamped barrels, I'd say they were superior to Rice. The only Douglas barrel I got to shoot had a very smooth bore, either lapped from Douglas, or got that way by shooting. I don't know much about Rayl barrels, but from what I see, they are superior to Rice in every way.

For the cost Rice is fine, same as Colerain. If you wanted the best, I'd go for Rayl.

 

[SDSmlf]

Rice over Colerain all day, but not by a whole lot in my experience. The Rice barrels I have owned did not require the break in or whatever you want to call it that Colerain and Green Mountain typically required, after which they shoot pretty similar, though I am partial towards Rice for round balls, and considering one for conicals. I have not owned Rayl barrel, thus no opinion on them. Given a choice, I’d pick Rice, but would not turn down a gun just because of one of the other mentioned barrels. And for what it is worth, I have had ‘new’ Rice, Colerain and Green Mountain barrels all experience a free trip back to their factories for checkup.

 

[PhDBrewer]

Thanks all for the replies!

~William

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
I have built and used many rifles with Colerain and Rice barrels, round bottomed and square bottomed rifling. The rifle barrels that were the easiest to work up accurate loads for and always shot the best were the Green Mountain and Colerain barrels. The exterior finish on the Colerains was coarser than Rice barrels and needed more draw filing but the accuracy was as good or better. The rifle below has a Colerain rifled "Griffen" fowler profile in D weight cut back to 39" and crowned. It is almost 1.25" across at the breech and tapers rapidly toward the muzzle. It is 62 caliber and has a slight tapered bore narrowing toward the muzzle. It is hands down the best shooting rifled barrel I've ever experienced.

I use Rice barrels a lot and like them very much but as I previously wrote, none were as forgiving during load development as the Green Mountain and Colerain barrels.
dave

 

[bldtrailer]

Colerain barrels offer a gain twist barrel option (as does Bobby Hoyt)
From Colerain sight :
All gain twist barrels will shoot round balls very well, plus allow the use of conical and saboted bullets. To arrive at the desired curve for rifling gain twist some precise mathematical figuring is required, in other words you cannot just throw in some curve and hope it works. With gain twist the bullet starts at a much slower twist rate than what it leaves the muzzle at. As the bullet travels down the bore the twist rate starts to increase, first slowly then faster as it goes. For instance, let’s say in a 42” barrel the rifling machine is set to cut a twist of around 1 in 96” at the breech then the muzzle twist rate will be around 1 in 48”. If the twist rate is increased to a faster rate at the muzzle the twist rate at the breech will also increase, but at a lesser rate than the muzzle. This type of rifling in a muzzleloader barrel comes literally as close as possible to give one barrel the ability to handle most forms of bullets and with a high precision of accuracy. If any of you shoot long range centerfire rifles you might have noticed that the big names in high power barrel manufacturing have also started to make GAIN twist barrels.

 

[PhDBrewer]

What is "gain twist"?

 

[MAC1967]

Rice barrels are great but I think Lou Ferrigno installs their breech plugs for them !!

 

[BadDaditood]

My best performers are Rice,GM and Colerain.
One of my Colerains had issues when new, after a little deburring and polishing its excellent. In fact I took 2nd place yesterday in a trail walk against a dozen cartridge guys with it. ;-)

 

[EC121]

At one time I was getting swamped Colerain barrels for $120. So, I used them. No problems with either brand except Rice has gone to a rougher finish and still charges the same.