I'm planning to get a BRC barrel in .40-70SS for a Remington Hepburn I'm building from castings.  The only thing I need to decide at this point is if it is worth it to go with a "choked" barrel.

Are there legitimate reasons for one, and advantages/disadvantages or is it just the latest "greatest thing"/fad?

Thanks,

-Ron

Alexander Henry’s barrels were noted for their accuracy in the 19th century and he choked them. My two new barrels for my 44 1/2 are BRC choked (25-35 and 32-20) and will be ready to be tested in a few days. Looking forward to it. My gunsmith remarked on their smoothness.

Many Anschutz Rimfire barrels are choked. Think the Determining factor is weight allowed class the rifle is being built for. Heavy smallbore prone and position match barrels are almost all choked.

I believe can’t say sure they choke by leaving a larger outside Diameter on the blank when button rifled. Two most accurate Rimfire rifles I have owned are Anschutz super match and Douglas barreled CPA. Anschutz was choked the CPA not.

Can’t explain how it works though 

Boats 

I firmly believe that a straight hole at the beginning is one of the important issues 
for a good shooting rifle. I am not sure of the benefit of choking but I suspect that 
folks that do choked barrels are just those types of Craftsmen that take the time to get a straight hole make the best Barrels. The Bullet is in constant fit all the way thru the barrel, no opportunity to spring or relax on its way. Just my thought on the subject, HTH FITZ OLD TUCK.

If I was BRC would not divulge the method either. Barrels  a competitive business & one vs the other much promoted on this site, I believe to shooters advantage . 

Choke has been the method used by large manufacturers with methods not generally available to small shops. If they have figured  it out more power to BRC

Off topic a bit shotgun shooters believe strongly little bit of choke patterns more consistent than cylinder barrels. Rarely see a competitive skeet shooter using cylinder bore.

Boats

Believe rafter3c has explained how to choke a button rifled barrel, makes sense and ingenious.
How was it done on a cut barrel? Lapping, yes, but think a uniform taper is the natural result of using a square bit reamer.
This was used by Pope and many others. The wood backing wears slightly and uniformly from breech to muzzle.
My experience is this works fine for muzzle loaders but too much choke for breech loaders. About .001-002" choke.
Need to find a backing material that wears less, maybe HDPE. Rifling cutter needs some spring for uniform grove depth.
That said, hand making a barrel is two weeks work for a $400 barrel, so not practical, but fascinating.
Chuck

I do agree Boats as I do know how Barry Darr choked his barrels and also unknown to most they were also buttoned rifled. His own process is one that he had to figure out. Why would he want to pass it onto anyone else in the same competitive barrel making business.  And I am surely not going to do so either. 
Snake oil it is not and now one is being forced to buy one.

I know one that’s not going to be forced into a purchase and that is me. Too damn many folks out there that make barrels everyday and the good ones only make one kind of barrel; their best. The barrel making business has always been competitive and those that spend the time perfecting their skills survive. When the records start falling from this ‘unknown’ process will I consider getting in line for a purchase.

FAQs | Bartlein Barrels
We cut rifle virtually any twist into a barrel (subject to tooling etc…). ... in connection with choke bore (lapping choke bore of the barrel), ...

AJ wrote on Nov 20^th, 2021 at 12:02am:


That's what I was thinking.  While I'm sure it would "work" I am not sure if one could do it accurately and consistently.

-Ron

the CZ 22 rimfires have under size bores from the factory  and are the most accurate rifles in that price point by a long way  so maybe tight is good   art

AJ wrote on Nov 20^th, 2021 at 12:02am:


FWIW, likely not possible and nobody that makes match grade buttoned barrels does it or likely tried it.
What you’d probably get is not properly formed lands/grooves. The very process of properly getting a button through a blank requires setup and lots of pressure.
That said the very best tapered bore, buttoned match barrels get that way by taper lapping, usually with 1-2 tenths of uniform taper throughout the entire barrel if it is a rimfire blank.
Choking is a variation on that theme, I’ve had 6 PPC barrels that only had the last 6” or so tapered so the whole approach has proven results for jacketed and lead slugs. In the RFBR  world, anywhere on the planet, you’d be hard pressed to find a custom buttoned barrel ( the vast majority of custom RFBR barrels) that was not taper lapped.

I really don’t have any idea if heating the muzzle end of a barrel before running the button through would produce a quality tapered bore in the last few inches of the barrel.  But just to add to the conversation, my rough calculations indicate the heat necessary to expand the bore by .0005” would only be about 200-300 degrees for a 40 caliber barrel.

Back to the OP, I think you are asking a question that has yet not introduced enough data/input due to the barrels not being on the market long enough for a quantifiable statement. My suggestion would be to question the firm on their standards and go from there. I’ve only seen one of their barrels being used at matches and that in itself gave me no reason to make a judgement of their product. Being a geezer with a long list of product failures throughout my life my views are that of a skeptic so I wish you good luck in your choice.

rafter3c wrote on Nov 20^th, 2021 at 11:59pm:


Clyde Hart  of Hart barrel together with Mike Walker of Remington developed  button rifling as it is known today.

Larry Jennings of the CBA who held many records before his untimely passing swore by Hart barrels.I think One barrel had been set back three times and had roughly 30,000 rounds before it became unusable.
This is with very high pressure running a 200 plus grain bullet at 2100 fps in a 30g powder capacity case.

Equipment is listed of the top 50 shot benchrest cast bullet single shot shooters in last twenty five years. 
Note how many of them used RKS gain twist choked barrels.


(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

ScrapMetal wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2021 at 3:49am:

Even if a choked barrel does not help, the barrel maker you chose considers it a premium. After going through all the time, expertise and expense of a scratch build, the cost of the choked feature seems insignificant. Best of luck, which ever direction you take.

What would happen if you started a barrel blank with an OD of say 1.625 turned the last 6" to 1.25 then drilled ,reamed and rifled then turned the remaining OD to 1.25.  Would you end with a choked barrel ?

I have also wondered if maching a barrel to part octagon . enlarge the bore in the round front section.

Dales

  I know how to do it too, but I will not share my method either.

JLouis wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2021 at 6:28pm:

So how many choked barrels have you made that are winning matches?


It's such a secret because people are running to you to supply barrels??

And for those that really really want to know; (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Yes, he just left the building the same way this thread has run it’s course.

Joe as I mentioned earlier it is how Barry Darr went about it and that I will not share.

Cbashooter I do not make barrels..

if you trust your equipment and load you will shoot better  clears your mind and you focus on shooting   art

JLouis wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2021 at 10:39am:


That's not very helpful John. I think your sincerity system is out of order.

I'm just not buying it, John.

Not for sale Joe.

Reaming a choke in a bore is not rocket science even though John thinks it is.
He's having fun holding the bag of candy away from the other kids. 

Not the most adult thing to do.  I got a kick out of Dellets post when he said John dropped a turd in the punch bowl. Good entertainment. 

Your bag of candy is imaginary, John.  You play with it. 

How in the world did you come up with that picture of me?

Oh Hell No Joe. 
There won't be anybody who even knows that I had actually existed on this Earth. 
Except those who might have and would now be overly elated that I am now gone and for finally for good.

JLouis wrote on Nov 24^th, 2021 at 5:17pm:


Nice try, the guy has hair.

A friend, Mark, who owned a well-patronized barber shop back in the '90s suddenly had some upstart competition almost directly across the street.  Back then men's haircuts ranged between $15 and $20, including in Mark's shop.  Then a sign appeared in the competing shop's window, "Men's Haircuts: $5".  But Mark was only temporarily flummoxed.  Soon enough he had his own sign out: "We repair $5 haircuts."  Guess who won that battle.

Bill Lawrence

My Son was a licensed Barber in Idaho. And depending on if a customer wanted a custom haircut it could go well beyond $20.00's. He had a very different cliental than just the regular folks who would come to him. They were pretty much going to back to the Hollywood Haircuts and such and in the Rockabilly group of young men in the area.

I was escorted through the Shiloh Sharps plant in Big Timber, MT a few years back, and the adjacent Boulder Foundry as well.

Bob showed me the barrelmaking station, where they press a button through the barrels to make the rifling.  This method also “proofs” the barrel, as the pressure will split the barrel if any flaws or seams exist in the metal stock.  He had a couple of these failure around for illustration; better there a burst than when somebody is shooting it.

He handed me a smoothbore barrel, drilled and reamed and ready to rifle, and pointed out the choke that they put into them.  With the lands and grooves missing, it was easy to see how the shadow lines converged (like long isosceles triangles) from breech to muzzle.  The full length of the barrel; not just a “jug” or constriction at the end, like a shotgun choke or (as I read somewhere) the choke Pedersoli puts in the ends of their BPC barrels.

I asked Bob how they did that, and he said if he told me, he’d have to kill me.

So I sympathize with jLouis.  I can only imagine the midnight ceremony, the sinister, hooded figures surrounding him, the weird, eldrich music in the background, the blood droplets on the holy card, the burning of the card held in his hands, with the oath, “May my soul burn forever as this card burns, if I ever divulge this barrelmaking secret.  But, of course, I am free to tell everybody that I do know the secret, and say ‘neener, neener; nyah, nyah,’ when they ask me what it is.” 

I have three Shiloh Sharps and one Pedersoli Sharps that a previous owner cut a couple inches (and presumably the choke) off the end of the barrel.  They all shoot very well, but the Pedersoli tends to put the first shot high and left, out of a clean barrel, while this tendency is much less noticeable in the Shilohs. I’ve also had a lot less trouble working up paper-patched loads for the Shilohs; still working on the Pedersoli.

So if you can put a choke or a gain twist into a barrel, and it doesn’t hurt the accuracy or ease of loading, why not?  It at least sounds logical, even if it might only gain you a point every ten (or a hundred) matches.