[John Rogers]

The high power shooters (1000 yard folks) that I watch at our range generally will buy their barrels in batches so the metal is the same and also make sure the internals are polished at the factory. They fire several rounds to insure the new barrel shoots as well as the last one they had. The shooter who was winning most of the 1000 yard matches at Camp Pendleton was using barrels that were cut and had gain twist and over the time of several years they all were specially made for him by Ron Smith in Canada and were like a work of art. He used to wipe after every shot as I do with my muzzle loaders.


If the barrels are hammer forged which as lot of the commercial rifles have then they need some polishing or shooting to get the roughness out. How much is required that is hard to say. If you are shooting 4000 FPS velocity then about the time the barrel is smooth and roughness gone there is not much time before the barrel is burned out.