I think it depends on what you want to do. If all you want is a Sub Moa gun you do not need anything better than a Wilson Barrel or a Lothar Walther barrel have the gun smith check the action and true up anything that needs it. Just buy a profiled blank and let your smith thread and chamber it so he has the option of re-cutting the threads in the action if they are not centered and concentric.
I would not put a Krieger, Brux, Boots cut rifled barrel on a hunting rifle or a barrel burner like the 6.5-300 Weatherby you will be lucky to get 500 rounds down range before accuracy degrades.
In fact if the gunsmith is good at his trade I have seen a lot of "sub-moa" guns with Green Mountain barrels on them. Even the best barrel in the world will not shoot well from a poorly machine action. On the other hand a very average barrel can be very very accurate if installed on a very well machined action.
The problem with average barrels is not accuracy potential as I have seen premium barrels not shoot too. You have best practices and quality control and neither come cheaply. When you standard is average then you will likely have a perfect bell curve with equal number of insanely accurate barrels to junk barrels with most of you barrels being of you "average standard". So you accidentally make some great barrels and some terrible barrels but you make mostly acceptable average level of accuracy barrels. This means you can make a profit off of volume sales at a lower price point and put quality control off onto someone else in this case the machinist or gunsmith.
As you raise you standards and follow practices that are far more stringent than best-practice you eat into time and man power. To guarantee your reputation you have to check each piece during or after machining this take times in the form of man power. Every time you slow the line down to add quality control that is more time and less production. It also means you have to decide if you will be a one level of quality shop or are you going to have tiers of quality. Adding tiers reduces rejects and improves your bottom line but you are always flirting with disaster in terms of you reputation. Do you straighten yes or no? Do you sell your rejects at cut rate to select shops with a contract of non-disclosure? Do you set up multiple companies one to cater to target shooters and hi end smiths and another to cater to OEM rifle manufactures? If you found one method was more productive and produced a better product do you shutter the other company or the other method and just make one product?
I like Brux Barrels for any shooting sport that does not require me to shoot from a bench rest. Are they better? I have no clue! I have had great luck with them from a consistency stand point. I have had great luck with LW, Krieger, Bergara, Wilson, Douglas XX, Lija. At some point I think it is luck of the draw and more down to the smith than anyone else. When it comes to a hunting rifle I would not go with an unknown or a low tier OEM but I would not spend $500 or more for a hunting barrel or varmint barrel. If you plan ahead and shop around you can get a lot of barrel for $200-$300 and often you can santch up a fantastic deal on a $500 barrel for under $180. If you do not shop around year round and plan ahead and you need it right now expect to pay full retail+ some. I have 8 barrels right now that all retail for $375+ and I did not pay more than $150 for any of them a few of them I picked up at industry trade shows or large competitions for $89 or less. Some are lighter profile or heavier than I would like. Some are moly-4150 or better some are SS I had no choice. Some a tad faster or slower than I would have ordered but when you are getting a match grade barrel from a Tier 1 supplier for under $150 you count yourself lucky smile and buy 2 or more! LOL If you plan ahead and are alwasy looking for barrels, stocks, stock blanks, bottom metal, shrouds, trigger's, sears etc....Deals will come your way. When you have have collected enough gems you call up your gunsmith and
I like Howa 1500's and Weatherby Vanguards but have no clue on their clearances and tolerance stacking. A lot of older guys than me on this forum and others claim they seldom have to do any machine work to them. No matter what I could not sleep at night if I did not check the receiver face, any secondary shoulder, make sure the threads had been cut by the OEM in the center of the action and make sure the locking lugs had sufficient engagement. It is better to check it and know than to just install a new barrel and hope for the best. Some guys convert them to non-metric thread mostly to make re-barreling easier and to make sure the hole is actually centered in the action.
The Gunsmith or Machinist is as important or more so than the barrel itself. This is especially true if you need the rifle to remain consistent during a rapid string.
Since you are looking at some barrel burner cartridges like the 6.5-300 "Pay once cry once!" with regard to action machining so that each re-barrel job is fairly simple and consistent in the future! If I was going to regularly short a barrel burner I would get 2-3 nice barrels and have my smith fit them all at one time if I did not do it myself. This way in the future all I would need to do is put it in a barrel vice and take an action wrench to it use a go and no gauge gauge set and I could swap them out as needed.This way when I need my rifle I have it with me.
If you plan on playing with barrel burners 4140 steel or better and some form of surface hardening internally is a must! 416R is a terrible steel to use for a rifle barrel sure it machines nicely but that does not matter after you have 500 rounds down it in a barrel burner and it is now a 2 MOA rifle in need of a new barrel especially if you put some $500+ barrel on it. 416R is complete junk steel because of the "R" when they resulfurize it to make it machine well it completely ruins the steel! The gun industry likes it because it is easy to work with and it extends the life of tooling and they have the nerve to charge you a premium for it. A lot of 416R steels do not want you to use them in sub freezing temperatures due to increased chance of stress cracks in the cold. I hear they have fixed this. It is like putting a knife blade on a knife made from 420 and wondering why it does not hold an edge well and why it is hard to put a keen edge on compared to USA or European made 440C.
"So I just got off the phone with Mike @ Kreiger. He told me that the reason they noted that is because 416 SS loses fatigue resistance at Zero degrees and lower. He cited an example of a smaller contour, like a #4 in .300 Wby mag, as being something you shouldn't do. He also noted that with the larger tapers, it is less of a problem because they are so rigid. Chromoly does not suffer this probelm at all."
http://www.kriegerbarrels.com/Calibers__Prices-c1246-wp3390.htm
That paragraph quoting Mike from Kreiger and the link above came from this page
http://forum.snipershide.com/threads/stainless-barrel-in-cold-weather.23274/
Better than 20 years ago though this was all over the place and common knowledge but it seems to have gotten lost since OEM's love this stuff! 416R is the scourge of the rifle world and really 17-4 and 17-7 would be better options.
I will only use 4140 if I plan on using some form of surface hardening with it and I prefer 4150 for all of my barrels. Also 416R is not more stainless or corrosion resistant then 4150 that is a fallacy! In fact corrosion resistance would be better served by adding in nickel. When you add in nickle you increase the resistance to heat and improve initial machine-ability but nickle makes it less resistant to high temp abrasion. High Nickel Steels where used on the German Mauser's 98's and was the secret to early jet engines durability. Nickle is insanely expensive compared to sulfur! No one really uses 416R outside of the gun world! It is very poor 400 grade SS. 17-4 and 17-7 have more carbon, chromium and far less sulfur. The limit for them in .030% max for sulfur but 416R can have up to 12% sulfur.
Plenty of people in the past have offered better grades of SS for rifle actions and barrels but it never gains any traction in the industry and if customers are not demanding something and are not willing to pay a premium for it then it fades away. LW does not use 416R and I can remember all the gunsmiths being cry-babies about it being harder on tooling, needing a higher speed to machine well and needing more and better lubricants/coolants during machining. Remember Black Star they used LW blanks plus their own electronic bore tapering process and again Smiths complained. If it does not machine like butter on a Southbend Lathe from the early 1900's it must be junk! LOL
So in steels and in general purpose lubricants sulfur is not a good thing unless cheap is your thing! Now in humans organic sulfur is needed for life they act as pillars or scaffolding for proteins to be formed! No sulfur no protein!
No point in 416 over 416R since it has no more corrosion resistance than 416R and does not machine as well as 416R. No it would be better to look at better steels and leave 416 in the dust where it belongs! Sadly like all consumer segments from electronics to cars to rifles manufacturers count on 99% of consumer being ignorant and not doing anything remotely like homework! Once one company see's that consumers will accept something that is substandard as a "norm" they all jump on the wagon! Then even if someones trys to educate the consumer the consumer will generally think they are crazy or a liar since you are the only one not parroting the same info!
When was the last time anyone asked what their appliance was made from or the composition of the steel in their car's wheel bearings? Consumers are not meant to make an informed decision that is the enemy of industry and sales! LOL
Also you can not buy what is not for sale can you?
