Justice1327
Well-Known Member
Who do you send your barrels to?
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Nitride a barrel?
- Thread starter Justice1327
- Start date
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They come Nitrided.
Very happy with this clean and practically untouched gas port. This isn't typical with untreated 416R. I have some crime scene photos of those! LOL
IridiumRed
Active Member
Very interesting replies! Bamban, thanks for weighing in again. Seems like youre the guy with the most experience w having lots of barrels nitrided aftermarket, putting a lot of use on them
About all the nitrided AR15 barrels out there / how well it seems to work, thats something that always sticks in my head. Theres a TON of those barrels out there, and i just dont seem to hear about problems?? Now, to be fair, a lot of those arent "match grade" ... or at least arent to the quality of a custom chambered aftermarket barrel, esp say a krieger/bartlein. And the expectations arent as high either (and rest of rifle may not be capable of supporting really high end barrel anyways).
I bet that the vast majority of AR15 barrels that are nitrided from factory dont really get any of the special treatments / breakin that we've discussed earlier. MAYBE some mfgs could soak them in water (seems so easy), but theyre not chambering barrel, installing barrel, shooting it to break in, cleaning, then nitriding. Not practical in manufacturing... most custom builders prob wouldnt do the break in work either, thats a lot of time/effort (and time really is money). Or, if they did do it youd see a big upcharge for barrel nitriding due to all that extra work (which would be fair i think). Ie, if they charge extra $100, 150 for nitrided barrel vs regular barrel, theyre not doing an involved breakin process (could maybe do a breakin w JB compound or similar, knock sharp edges off)
I wonder if a piece of the "controversy" around nitriding barrels is driven by WHAT barrels are being done (in terms of quality), and what expectations are for accuracy. If youre messing w rifles/barrels where 1 to 2 MOA is perfectly acceptable, that could be a different deal then a rifle that can do 1/4 to 1/2 MOA. That ranges from average factory barrel quality w unfloated front handguard AR15 ("general service grade") to blueprinted bolt action, freefloated, bedded in good stock, wearing premium barrel like krieger/bartlein (JUST using these examples as general examples for sake of argument, there are MANY individual examples of rifles that perform outside those examples).
But if youre chasing that consistent 1/4 to 1/2 MOA range, where i think premium rifles run (mostly custom stuff / high end factory rifles, and is realizable w good attention to detail, wo going to benchrest extremes). In this range, everything has to be just right to have this consistent performance. Maybe its in this range where nitriding becomes more "dangerous" in terms of possibly getting not good performance from it. At 1/4 to 1/2 MOA, if you have even one significant item that isnt at least pretty good.... youre not getting that performance.
And the shooters w those rifles are also the ones who will be most critical of the performance you get out of the rifle / notice when it underperforms (low accuracy, low velocity, etc), or performs well for a while, but seems to die early (maybe earlier then whats expected from untreated barrel).
Maybe nitriding introduces enough extra variability from one barrel to the next that it can be problematic, versus service grade AR15s that variability gets lost in the other noise / just isnt noticed by shooters.
Anyways! Fascinating conversation. Id say right now im leaning more towards having a premium barrel (krieger/bartlein) done. Not QUITE there yet, but closer then i was when i wrote my first post on this thread
About all the nitrided AR15 barrels out there / how well it seems to work, thats something that always sticks in my head. Theres a TON of those barrels out there, and i just dont seem to hear about problems?? Now, to be fair, a lot of those arent "match grade" ... or at least arent to the quality of a custom chambered aftermarket barrel, esp say a krieger/bartlein. And the expectations arent as high either (and rest of rifle may not be capable of supporting really high end barrel anyways).
I bet that the vast majority of AR15 barrels that are nitrided from factory dont really get any of the special treatments / breakin that we've discussed earlier. MAYBE some mfgs could soak them in water (seems so easy), but theyre not chambering barrel, installing barrel, shooting it to break in, cleaning, then nitriding. Not practical in manufacturing... most custom builders prob wouldnt do the break in work either, thats a lot of time/effort (and time really is money). Or, if they did do it youd see a big upcharge for barrel nitriding due to all that extra work (which would be fair i think). Ie, if they charge extra $100, 150 for nitrided barrel vs regular barrel, theyre not doing an involved breakin process (could maybe do a breakin w JB compound or similar, knock sharp edges off)
I wonder if a piece of the "controversy" around nitriding barrels is driven by WHAT barrels are being done (in terms of quality), and what expectations are for accuracy. If youre messing w rifles/barrels where 1 to 2 MOA is perfectly acceptable, that could be a different deal then a rifle that can do 1/4 to 1/2 MOA. That ranges from average factory barrel quality w unfloated front handguard AR15 ("general service grade") to blueprinted bolt action, freefloated, bedded in good stock, wearing premium barrel like krieger/bartlein (JUST using these examples as general examples for sake of argument, there are MANY individual examples of rifles that perform outside those examples).
But if youre chasing that consistent 1/4 to 1/2 MOA range, where i think premium rifles run (mostly custom stuff / high end factory rifles, and is realizable w good attention to detail, wo going to benchrest extremes). In this range, everything has to be just right to have this consistent performance. Maybe its in this range where nitriding becomes more "dangerous" in terms of possibly getting not good performance from it. At 1/4 to 1/2 MOA, if you have even one significant item that isnt at least pretty good.... youre not getting that performance.
And the shooters w those rifles are also the ones who will be most critical of the performance you get out of the rifle / notice when it underperforms (low accuracy, low velocity, etc), or performs well for a while, but seems to die early (maybe earlier then whats expected from untreated barrel).
Maybe nitriding introduces enough extra variability from one barrel to the next that it can be problematic, versus service grade AR15s that variability gets lost in the other noise / just isnt noticed by shooters.
Anyways! Fascinating conversation. Id say right now im leaning more towards having a premium barrel (krieger/bartlein) done. Not QUITE there yet, but closer then i was when i wrote my first post on this thread
From our team manager on a batch of 12 barrels I sent to the junior team.
"Using your test fixture - best barrel was .23 MOA, worst barrel was .67 MOA. Test fixture was in a ransom rest, fired on a shotmarker electronic target. Light mirage at 200 yards target distance. Ammo was 77smk with 24.7 gr SWP"
All the donated barrels from Shilen are their Select Match 7.5T Ratchet twist, preturned to 1.00x straight. I spin them up for competition finished at 20.
The test fixture he mentioned is a Remington bolt action with a purposed built adapter to screw in an AR15 barrel. When I send the barrels to the team I loosen the barrel extension to be screwed and torqued back on after precision testing.
"Using your test fixture - best barrel was .23 MOA, worst barrel was .67 MOA. Test fixture was in a ransom rest, fired on a shotmarker electronic target. Light mirage at 200 yards target distance. Ammo was 77smk with 24.7 gr SWP"
All the donated barrels from Shilen are their Select Match 7.5T Ratchet twist, preturned to 1.00x straight. I spin them up for competition finished at 20.
The test fixture he mentioned is a Remington bolt action with a purposed built adapter to screw in an AR15 barrel. When I send the barrels to the team I loosen the barrel extension to be screwed and torqued back on after precision testing.
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Justice1327
Well-Known Member
You touched on many of the things that I'm thinking about and considering. I have a couple barrels. I'm getting ready to send off with some defiance actions that all need to be nitrated. Some of the barrels are already broken in and shoot three-quarter to half MOA . I'm gonna send off a couple more that are not broken in And I will keep a very close eye on the barrel as I shoot it and break it in to see what it looks like and note any changes.
HRM Johnny
Well-Known Member
Excellent. Please keep detailed notes as much as it is possible. Also, please keep us informed.
