ReBarreling my rifle? ER Shaw rifle barrles?

[Garrick_]

Anyone have any input on these barrels? http://www.ershawbarrels.com/normal.asp#

Im looking to re-barrel my Savage 110 and trying to get some input on where to go. ERShaw appears to be local to me.

I don't know much about re-barreling a rifle so i wold welcome any input.

A little info on why im looking to re-barrel:

I purchased my Savage 110 (.270 win) in 1997. i had alot of trouble my first two years (stock fell apart, cheep scope wouldn't hold true) I almost got rid of it but held onto it because the gun itself never gave me any trouble.

Im glad i kept it, i love shooting it now that i've fixed it up. I have no trouble with it as a hunting rifle.

I enjoy target shooting with it, i shoot often but always have trouble shooting accuratly after the 3 consecutive round. As soon as the barrel warms my shots start going all over the paper. I was told this was due to the barrel warping when it heated up. Is this normal for this to happen after only 3-4 rounds? It was recomended to me that i re-berrel to a heavier barrel, and a better quality barrel.

So, is this true? will a better barrel fix this problem? What elkse can i do to avoid this problem?

And will an ER shaw barrel fit my needs?

Let me know, and thanks in advance!

~Garrick_

[Tomcat088]

Anyone have any input on these barrels? http://www.ershawbarrels.com/normal.asp#

Im looking to re-barrel my Savage 110 and trying to get some input on where to go. ERShaw appears to be local to me.

I don't know much about re-barreling a rifle so i wold welcome any input.

A little info on why im looking to re-barrel:

I purchased my Savage 110 (.270 win) in 1997. i had alot of trouble my first two years (stock fell apart, cheep scope wouldn't hold true) I almost got rid of it but held onto it because the gun itself never gave me any trouble.

Im glad i kept it, i love shooting it now that i've fixed it up. I have no trouble with it as a hunting rifle.

I enjoy target shooting with it, i shoot often but always have trouble shooting accuratly after the 3 consecutive round. As soon as the barrel warms my shots start going all over the paper. I was told this was due to the barrel warping when it heated up. Is this normal for this to happen after only 3-4 rounds? It was recomended to me that i re-berrel to a heavier barrel, and a better quality barrel.

So, is this true? will a better barrel fix this problem? What elkse can i do to avoid this problem?

And will an ER shaw barrel fit my needs?

Let me know, and thanks in advance!

~Garrick_

Howdy Garrick, maybe I can help you a bit. I will first start off saying that rebarreling a rifle is NOT a cheap expedition, and sometimes the results are "mixed" (I'll elaborate, don't worry). The first thing that I would like to ask is this: What are your accuracy requirements? Are you talking about putting 3-5 bullets in half in or less, or are you talking about being able to put 5 in 1", or 1.5", etc. I'm trying to figure out how much your barrel is currently stringing shots when it warms up.

I will say that it is fairly common for rifle to start to string shots in different places when they get hot. This is dependent on LOTS of factors, and it does still sometimes occur with even good custom barrels like Shilen, Hart, Douglas, etc. It's not necessarily because the barrel warps due to heat, it is actually related to the stress. When barrels are made, rifling cut, etc., stresses are induced into the metal. As the barrel heats up, these stresses start to show, and the metal actually expands in different ways due to changes in the density and stress in the metal. One way that manufacturers try to get away from this is to do stress relief on their barrels like Kryogenics (a type of deep freezing process). Even the way the barrel is rifled, will have an effect on how much stress the barrel has. Many people aren't going to like to hear this, but it is the truth; barrels that are button rifled will inherently have more stress in them, than a cut rifled barrel. There are very few barrels that are cut rifled, the ones that jump to mind are Krieger and Bartlein. Most of the others like Shilen, Hart, Douglas, Lothar Walther, etc. etc, are button rifled. NOW, this does NOT mean that those barrels will not shoot as well, or that they will all show stringing when they heat up. Many of the other manufacturers still kryo, or do other stress relief on their barrels, and they shoot just fine when warm. There are button rifled barrels that don't show any stringing, and there are cut rifled barrels and do show stringing; it's kind of a luck of the draw, hit miss kind of thing. Either way, the changes are slighitly less to have vertical stringing if you go with a cut rifled barrel that is stress relieved. The prices of these barrels are EXPENSIVE, lol.

It is true that heavier barrels will tend to show less stringing than "pencil" barrels. The reason for this being that they have more surface area to dissipate heat, and they also are more stiff because there is more mass to support itself. It should be noted though, that even heavier barrels sometimes string, it just depends on the barrel (how it was made, material, amount of heat, etc). They do have the tendency to string less, or do it less often. How quickly do you shoot shots back to back? Even very expensive barrels that are heated up a great deal, can show stringing. Are you fixing a shot every minute or 2, are you shooting at a rate faster than that? On my Krieger barrel (almost $400 for a BLANK, still needed a LOT of gunsmithing work to get it on the rifle); I do not fire shots more often than once a minute, I actually try to keep it down to about every 2 minutes or so. It is a precision rifle, and so I want the bullets to fall exactly where I intend them to; part of doing that is making sure the barrel is not hot. I haven't tried to shoot 3 or 5 shells at a rate of one every 30 or so, because of the quality it probably wouldn't string at all, but on most barrels, especially not heavy barrels, you'd see some stringing.

What I'm trying to say is that you get what you pay for in barrels. I have no personal experience with ER Shaw Barrels, but I have heard that he does good quality gunsmith work. I would venture to say that his barrels shoot a world better than factory tubes, and that they probably clean easier. I still can't quite give you any kind of idea on accuracy. I would actually give him and ask him what you should expect. You may ask him how his barrels are created, and if he makes his own blanks or uses someone like Adams and Bennett, and then he does the gunsmith work. You should realize that making a barrel is no easy task, and chances are he uses some other blanks and does the work on them. I will say that from his website, it appears that the Savage blanks come already threaded, crowned and chambered; if you can get one for $225 and threaded, crowned, chambered, etc, it's not a bad price at all. I saw that the Remington blanks come "short chambered" which means you still have to pay a gunsmith to finish chambering it, and headspacing it. Savage's are VERY easy to change a barrel on, and so it's very possible that the blanks come threaded, chambered, etc; BUT I would still ask. This would mean that when you get the barrel in, you would have to use your headspace tool to tighten the barrel nut to the correction tension so that it has the proper headspace.

Now then, will the barrel fix your problem? It's possible that it might, it's possible that it may help some, but not entirely. Thre is a lot of powder in a .270, and you can heat up a barrel quite quickly. I typically shoot .300 win mags and .300 WSM, so I know all about barrels heating up quickly. The more powder that is being burned in the barrel, the faster they will heat up. A .270 is going to heat up much faster than a .223; a .22-250 will heat up much faster than a .223, it's all a relative thing. So it's possible you may just need to slow down your shooting some, that's what precision shooting is about. Now then, do you really want the added weight of a heavy barrel? Some people like them, others do not; it will all depend on your application, how far you carry the rifle, what its uses are, etc. I love heavy barreled rifles, and I like heavier rifles because I can't push them around or influence them as easily; but LOTS of people do not like them. I just want you to know what you're getting into.

The other thing that I kind of wonder about is this; What is your experience with "big bore" rifles? Are you new to shooting heavier recoiling rifles for a while? I realize you got this rifle in 1997, but how much real experience wit heavy calibers do you have, and shooting them repeatedly? Many times when people start shooting the heavier recoiling rifles (.270 does have some, no matter what people say, sure there's worse, but it does have recoil), their first shots will land on target because their fundamentals are being applied. Many times when people start shooting more than 4 or 5 shots, they start to anticipate recoil, flinch, or snatch at the trigger. People hardly ever notice it, but many times, they're doing it and as a result their shooting suffers. This can give the appearance that it's the barrel, when in fact, it's their fundamentals. Are you using a reliable rest? Are you shooting with your Natural Point of Aim? Are you consistently shooting in the same place in your breathing? Is your Parallax set properly on your scope? If shooting from a bipod, are you loading it? Are you following through properly on the shot? Are you "hard holding" the rifle, or are you shooting "free recoil", or are you mixing the two methods? Not doing any of these things on a big bore rifle can greatly influence how they shoot. I don't mean this as any offense to you, but I've had lots of people tell me their .30-06 or .270 won't group after 3, 5, etc, shots. I sit down and will punch one ragged hole at 100 yards with it, for a whole box of shells. Sometimes it's the rifle and barrel stringing, but sometimes, it's the shooter just needs to practice the fundamentals a little bit more. I've had this happen with experienced and novice shooters, both.

I just want you to consider all of these things, and what your accuracy requirements are before you spend a great deal of money to "fix" the issue. Sometimes just a bit more of proper practice can make a significant difference. If this is mainly a hunting rifle, it may be fine to just leave it how it is, because the rounds that count (first 3), are landing on target. If it's more of a target rifle or something that you put some round counts on, it may be worth rebarreling. Hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any other questions or things that I need to elaborate on. Take care.

P.S. I read some more on their website, and their barrels are button rifles, right and twist, and finish in "white" (meaning only bare metal or stainless). It sounds like they lathe their own barrels, but they may not. They just said that the barrels are made with some of the finest machinery, etc, not that it's their machinery. Either way, you may want to ask some more questions; $225 is a significant purchase (to me), and asking questions can never hurt.

[mrnyman]

What TomCat says , plus , yes rebarreling a rifle is a job for a specialist, its like a hundreed things that has to be done with precision like head spacing , leading etc . Personally i dont shoot my guns enough to shoot them out but if i do i'd probably just buy a new rifle or let a good gunsmith do the job.

And yes ER shaw is a quality maker, they make barrels for other makers, MY fullsize AR has a ER shaw barrel and its sweet.

Nyman

[Garrick_]

Thank you for the replies!

First i have to say, for hunting purposes my 110 is a dream and it's never failed me in dropping my dear, I rarely shoot anything over 75 yards or so. Wanting to do work on my rifle is only for target shooting purposes only.

I've been shooting with my father and grandfather since I was 8. (I’m currently 27) I started with a single shot .22, and quickly moved to my fathers .308. when I was 11 I finally started to get some meat on me and my grandfather let me shoot his 1903, 30-06. I loved it, I could shoot it all day long and not wanna stop! I saved up some money and bought the .270 and I enjoy shooting it. So I have experience shooting larger rifles, but I don’t know if I have a lot of experience shooting them correctly.

I can say I don’t think I’m leaving enough time between shots, I’m usually only waiting about 30-40 second between shots. I will have to load some more rounds and try giving it 1-2 minutes between shots. I’m almost positive this will help with 3rd 4th and 5th shots.

My groups currently (at 200 yards) my first two shot will be (usually) are within 3 inches of each other. The third will be no more than an inch or so higher, the fourth about 2-3 inches high, and the fifth another 2-3 inches higher. To me the first three shots will kill my deer, but it still seems (from a target shooting perspective) awful. My father shoots a model 88 Winchester in 308. He only shoots it at our range (we have a range set up on family property, off of sandbags) once a year. He will take three shots, at least one of them are touching, or in the bulls eye, and often times all could be covered by a half dollar. Then he packs it up and waits for deer season. I couldn’t do that with my rifle is my life depended on it, I’ve tried! He has tried shooting my rifle as well, and gets more or less the same results I have. I can’t shoot his quite as well as he can, but it’s much better than my 110.

So is it my rifle? Is it me? Will replacing the barrel increase my accuracy at all? Are my dads shots more than I should desire out of my rifle?

I have no problems spending money on my rifle, as long as it’s going to make a difference and not be a waste of money. Im preped to spend $250-350 to make this rifle i already have a better shooter. But i want to make sure thats what i will be doing.

[mojo]

as a side note ... If you (anyone) have a Stag or Del-Ton AR, it's very likely that you have an ER Shaw barrel.

[41 Redhawk]

Before I spend the money on a rebarrel I would glass bed the action and free float the barrel. Often stringing problems are caused by bedding. If that did not help I would add upward pressure on the barrel at the fore end to see if that helps. Some barrels like to be free floated and some respond to fore end pressure. If none of that helps then look at a barrel.

Note to Tomcat. ER Shaw does make their own barrels. In fact they started out a barrel makers first and added gunsmithing later.

[BenKeith]

I was just before rebarreling my old 40 year old 6mm Remington because it's groups had opened up to over 1". I was sending another rifle for McGowen Barrels to have it rechambered to a Rem 260 and almost sent the 6mm, glad I didn't now.

I've always considered myself one for keeping my bores in very clean condition but I recently change bore cleaners. While cleaning with the new bore cleaner, I could not get a clean patch out of the barrel after a number of cleaning passes and was trying to figure out WHY?? I finally made a couple of passes with a wet brush, let it sit over night and tried again the next day, still got dirty patches. Did a couple of more passes with a wet brush and let it sit again. I did this for four days before I finally got a clean patch out of the barrel. I finally figured out my old bore cleaner was not getting all the carbon out of the throat but was polishing off to where it looked pefectly clean. After this last cleaning with the new brand, the rifle is back to where I can cover 100 yd three shot groups up with a nickle.

So, with all that said, make dang sure you bore is CLEAN. It took me a week to get what I guess is 40 years of buildup from what I have always thought was a clean bore. I have since checked all my barrels but since the 6mm is the main one I've shot over the years, the rest were very clean like they were suppose to be.

[41 Redhawk]

So what's the name of the new bore cleaner?

[BenKeith]

The cleaner was Butch's Bore Shine. It took the copper out fairly quick but was still kinda slow on the years of carbon. Quit getting green but was still getting dark carbon. I've always used IMR4350 in the loads I've shot in the 6mm. I guess it was a little slow and was leaving more residue than I was aware of and my old Brite-Bore solvent was getting out, so I finally cheated the after a number of soaking with the Butch's. I pluged off the chamber and filled the barrel with some Berryman 0901 Parts Cleaner. After sitting for 20 minutes, I dumped it out, ran a brush and then some Butch's through it. Flushed it with brake part cleaner and then the next patch with Butch's on it was perfectly clean, even after a number of strokes.

One word of caution to anyone thinking they might want to try the Berryman. DO NOT get this stuff on your hands, and DO NOT do anything that will get any of this in your sinks. A few drops of even a very diluted solution of this crap will take all the oil out of your skin so they will dry, crack and peel for weeks afterwards. Rubber and most other stuff don't like it either, it will swell all the seals in your sink drain system to the point they will push completely out, (learned that one many years ago rinsing some carb parts I had soaked in it. Just handling parts after they have been rinsed can cause your skin to dry so wear gloves.

I've used Barryman's for many years for soaking pistons and carbs, this crap will disolve carbon like nothing else but it's something you had better know what you're dealing with. Actully EPA has made them change the formula over the years so this new stuff is nothing like the old stuff but you had better still respect it.

[BenKeith]

After making sure the bore is CLEAN.

I'm guessing it has a wood stock so my next step would be to make sure the stock is not touching the barrel beyound the chamber area. Over time wood can warp and apply pressure to the barrel. This will change impact points as the barrel starts to stress from the heat. I seriously doubt the factory barrel was ever stress relieved after being bored so they walk some anyway. If the stock is adding pressure it greatly adds to the problem.

How much cool down are you giving it between shot? A 270 barrel is going to generate a lot of heat because of the velocity and size bullet. You can't just just start ripping off shots with the factory barrel.

As mentioned, if you know how, try glass bedding the action and free floating the barrel. Pillar post are well worth the investment also, they can do wonders for settling one down.

My next step would be having the crown inspected and possibly re-crowned. It's extremely easy to damage the crown with improper cleaning methods and this will seriously affect accuracy.

From there, I would start working on my load. Reloading is the next step to making a factory rifle shot better. Even with factory loads, try different brands and different bullet weights, not all rounds are the same so experiment, you can sometimes find a factory load that will shoot in your rifle almost as good as a well tuned reload. I always tell people, don't shot what you want to shot, shot what the rifle wants to shot.

Now, to your question on having a new barrel installed. Send E.R. Shaw the barreled action and they can do a complete rebarrel, polish and blue for a little less than $400 but expect it to take up to six months, but you can just about rest assured, it will shoot better than it has ever shot before. Now, if you can find a very good gunsmith that knows his stuff, they can usually get you a barrel and install it a lot quicker.

Now, if you want to greatly insure the chances of getting at realy good barrel, I think the next step up from their barrel is the McGowen barrels. It will cost more but they can usually turn one around in 6 - 8 weeks. I just sent an action off to them so I can tell you pretty close to what the one I'm having done cost.

Their #4 Sporter countour, Fluted, chambered for a 260 with a 1:8 twist, threaded and mounted in a Mauser action, face the bolt, lap the locking lugs, thread the muzzle for a muzzle break and make a cap for the treads, polish and blue barrel and action will not leave much from $700.

One more thing to check, if you can't call you shot and the muzzle blast is not blinding you when you fire it, you will never shoot a tight group. By calling your shot, I mean know exactly where the cross-hairs were on the traget when it went off.