Match Grade Barrels?

[greybeard50]

#1. How do you know that you are "not that good" if your equipment will not give accurate, repeatable results?

#2. $25 is a wonderful price to pay for a smooth bore. A knowledgeable machinist would probably charge $200. Or, you could shoot 700-1000 shots before you start seeing the inherent accuracy of your barrel.

Your choice...join the pool of potential winners, or stay in the pool of donors to the prize pool.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Did Douglass do that to all the barrels?
Did the also designate them as "match Grade"

I have never heard that Douglas did any special burnishing to any of their barrels.
They did market a "Premium" or "XX" barrel. I have two. But all that means is they were checked for straightness and (lack of) run-out. Douglas bored after drawing the steel stock to octagonal and most had the bore drift a bit to one side. The premiums got lucky and bored center.
BTW, the Douglas stamp on a flat is an indicator that that flat should be mounted straight up or straight down when a rifle is built.

 

[Vaino]

Douglas button rifled their MLing bbls and is still doing it w/ their CF bbls.....Fred

 

[Rifleman1776]

Douglas button rifled their MLing bbls and is still doing it w/ their CF bbls.....Fred

Right, but no special "burnishing" or polishing that I am aware of.

 

[Vaino]

I agree. Should have used "button rifling" in lieu of burnishing.

My Douglas bbl was super accurate from the first shot and when using it for a LR in 1976, I well recall, seeing it was my first MLer, the breeching work and sawing off 2" from the muzzle and recrowning.

The breeching {first one} was tricky because if I missed putting the stamping on the bottom, it was another go around. W/ other brand bbls since, my breeching skills have improved but now buy bbls that are breeched.

The rifling groove depth on my Douglas bbl is .008 and it works fine...don't know why many bbl makers have much deeper grooves at about .015-.016. Makes obturating the grooves much more difficult.

Didn't buy a Douglas XX bbl and have had no problems w/ the sight adjustments being too far to the sides .....Fred

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Some folks will never know the difference between a good barrel and a match barrel. And for many of such folks there will never be a difference.

There is a reason why an unused NOS H&H barrel will bring over $500 to a target shooter.

But before spending hard earned money for the alleged best, consider that shooting a muzzle loader accurately depends on literally dozens of factors. Sights, barrel length, lock speed, breech, loading consistency, holding consistency, eye sight, upper body conditioning, breathing, fatigue, muzzle crown, etc. There are also environmental factors such as wind, light, dampness. In the overall scheme of things, you really ought to be a very good paper target shooter before you will be good enough to even notice the difference with a match barrel.

I competed for years against folks who were much better offhand shooters. But their loading techniques from the pouch were inconsistent and I would sometimes beat them just because I could more consistently control other factors. Off the bench at 100 yds, if I watched the wind, I could usually shoot an half dollar 5 shot group with a match barrel, and in the calm, much smaller.

A poor shooter will shoot poorly with any barrel, even the finest match barrel. A sloppy crown, or sights that are too wide, automatically voids all advantage of a match barrel.

For instance look down the stock sights of a TC Renegade at a 100 yd target, and then look down the stock Buffington sights of a model 1884 Trapdoor. Note how much finer the trapdoor sights are and how much easier to aim accurately. That is just one factor to maximizing the accuracy you have in any barrel.

Lastly, what some sell as match barrels might not really be match quality. A burnished round groove barrel may cost more. It may not necessarily shoot better. H&H rifles were choked slightly at the muzzle. I think it made a difference in their accuracy. The round groove rifling was also at a much greater radius curve, geometrically, with very narrow lands. I am not aware of any current maker that makes a Pope style rifling for muzzle loaders, except perhaps Bobby Hoyt.

 

[Farren55]

All this said what would you suggest to someone looking to improve the quality of their shooting, practice, and what else?

 

[Rifleman1776]

All this said what would you suggest to someone looking to improve the quality of their shooting, practice, and what else?

farren, that is the purpose of this entire forum. Stick with us and read. There are jillions of factors involved.

 

[M. De Land]

The trouble with button rifling is you are usually limited to about .004 in groove depth last I read up on it ,which is to shallow for patch use.
More likely a broach is used for rifling in the .008-.012 depths. The other method for deep groove rifling is single point cut rifling.
Buttons require barrel annealing when sizing up to the nest diameter.
Often a barrel will be normalize (annealed) 2-3 times before brought to full diameter with a button.Because of this button rifled barrels are quite often a good 10 points softer on a Rockwell scale.
Another problem with button rifling is they open up radially if any amount of lathe turning or flat milling is needed near the muzzle. This is caused by the button compression tension into the barrel steel.
Cyro-treating them helps relieve this condition as well.
I believe Rice barrels are 12L14 and for that reason I don't care for them.
I'll take a GM any day of the week over all others. I have hand lapped several of them and have found them to be remarkably even of land and groove width although I did work one with some run out in it on a Black powder cartridge rifle.

 

[Pete G]

I can't quite grasp the concept that if a shooter is not that good that he should settle for less than top grade equipment. If you have a shooter capable of shooting into a 4" group and a rifle capable of a 3", that means a 7" group on target, but if the shooter gets better, let's say shooter is capable of shooting into 1", then the best he can hope for is a 4" group. A more accurate barrel is always better, regardless of shooter skill level. I learned a long time ago that you do not win matches by shooting 10's; you win by NOT shooting 9's, and that will not often happen with less than top equipment.

Those are the theoretical numbers of course. We have all seen a target where the rifle shot left and the shooter wobbled right. Some days are just better than others.

 

[M. De Land]

I agree! I heard it put another way once but very similar to what you said;
I isn't the 10s that win the match but rather the lack of 7s and 8s, in pistol shooting.

 

[azmntman]

per my last day out with the ol Ky pistol I'd have been quite happy with a few 7 n 8's :redface: I was actually shooting a better group off hand than on a sand bag?

 

[Vaino]

Rice bbls are button finished after the rifling is cut and their groove depth is .014-.016 deep w/ the round bottom rifling. Personlly I think that's too deep and .008-.010 would allow the patch to obturate the grooves better.

We all have are preferences and most MLing bbls are made from 12L14 steel which has proved to be sufficient for MLing bbls.....Fred

 

[M. De Land]

Yup,it does do the job and machines beautifully and probably is fine if hot rolled.
My Douglas barrel on my .54 is very accurate and I'm quite certain is made of 12L14 but may have been cold rolled, I'm not sure.
So far so good! I have no plans to change it but my druthers are 1117 or 1137 hot rolled.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

If a gun is "Match Grade" then it means that it meets the requirements for a specific competition.

Um...no... I don't think that's what was ever meant by the term.

Most rifle matches that I've been a part of, whether fixed ammunition or muzzleloader, there were rifles that nobody considered "match" rifles...as well as ammunition.

"Match grade" normally means that inconsistencies have been either eliminated, or have been reduced so that the skill level of the actual shooter is what is being tested, not the lack of uniformity of the mechanical components.

True, there are no "standards" for using the term for a company's product. Yet, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" :grin: A company that touts its shooting equipment as match grade, that fails to produce winning scores in the hands of skilled marksmen, will soon earn the reputation of being fraudulent. While a company that does not use the term, which produces equipment that is used by those winning matches, will soon gain the reputation of producing Match Grade or Match Quality components, regardless of the company's verbage.

LD

 

[longcruise]

If you go to the rice website you will see that they describe what is different about their "match grade" barrel. So, you read that and make your decision! The rest is semantics, IMO. Any devoted match shooter probably has his own idea of what is match grade, that being, the one he trusts to shoot a match.

Rice does not button rifle their barrels! They burnish their cut rifling. There is a big difference. Button rifling involves pulling a rifling button through a blank that has been bored and usually polished before pulling the button.

I'm pretty sure TC barrels are truly button rifled.

In the world of modern rifle barrels, button rifling is not considered top quality. Cut and polished (lapped) or hammer forged are a more precise barrel. My actual experience with modern is not extensive but the most accurate modern barrels I have shot were hammer forged.

In the 18th century pretty much all American made barrels were hammer forged and then rifled. Ned Roberts describes barrels built for match shooting as being cut rifled and then carefully hand lapped usually leaving a slight choke in the last few inches near the muzzle.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Yes, Yes of course labeling something "match grade" denotes that it is different. That's a no-brainer. That label does not guarantee a superior product as it means different things to different manufacturers. It would be far better if the just labelled it according to the differences instead of using a misleading marketing term.

Some manufacturers put a genuine effort into their match grade products. For others it is just an economic opportunity.

Those who can't understand that must have deep pockets.

 

[Rifleman1776]

:youcrazy:

If you have a shooter capable of shooting into a 4" group and a rifle capable of a 3", that means a 7" group on target, but if the shooter gets better, let's say shooter is capable of shooting into 1", then the best he can hope for is a 4" group.

That concept only applies in Mississippi. :rotf:

 

[Tom Compton]

Then the gun shoots 3" left and the shooter shoots 3" right. He thinks he did a great job. As a Louisiana friend said "God shot that 10, I shot a 7 low right".

 

[Vaino]

Like many descriptions for many of the items purchased in this country,the reputation of the producer is tantamount in deciding which product to buy.

We're a country that doesn't like regulations, so much of the commerce has no rules that govern the manufacturing quality, the method of selling and the "fine print" of the warranty and return policy. "Buyer beware" should be the motto of the shopper in this country.

The most gov't regulated industry in the USA is the auto industry and the reasons are mainly 2 fold....safety and fuel consumption. Both common sense regulations which the populace approves of, as do I.

The gun building guilds of Europe, especially Germany, set standards for the gunmakers and their guns, but when the gunmakers came to this country, there were no regulations governing anything. It was one big "free for all".

So if a modern day bbl maker advertises his bbls to be "match grade", he can do anything he wants to do to sell his product. If his bbls live up to his advertising, he'll succeed, if not, he'll go under. That's how our free enterprising system works....but, it allows people to buy shoddy products until the maker is no longer in business.

All the US bbl makers presently doing business in this country are producing quality products...doing otherwise would surely put them out of business because "bad news" travels quickly and these companies are small and can't afford even a partial loss of customer base.

We're fortunate to have the high quality bbls available by all the makers...it shows the dedication of these "artisans".....Fred