Your PVA prefit experience

Just got an Osprey prefit in .223 Wlyde, .062 freebore, .750 taperless.

I broke it in with cheap 55gr. fmj ammo and it did not particurly like it, hovered around 1.5-2" groups. About 100 rounds in I finally fed it some handloads and it perked right up. Just a load I threw together with no work up. Looks like it will hunt. This mirrors my experience with my 6mm Osprey, great accuracy in that one too.

Hornday 68 gr BTHP
25.0 grains of Varget
Nosler brass
CCI-BR4

5 round group
View attachment 8640686

20 round group
View attachment 8640687


Prefit on the Bighorn, really digging the .750 taperless. Seems like an ideal "hunting" weight contour as a suppressor host.
Sounds familiar. I started fire forming .223 Rem brass through my 223 AI barrel with hand loads of cheap FMJ bullets and was getting 2-3" @ 100 yds. This was VERY concerning!!! Then, I ran some Lapua and Norma match grade box ammo 223 Rem and groups went right down to 1/2" @100. Once I had enough fire formed brass, I started reloading with good quality Berger 80 gr and 85.5 gr bullets, and now the gun shoots 0.3 - 0.6 MOA, very consistently
 

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Sounds familiar. I started fire forming .223 Rem brass through my 223 AI barrel with hand loads of cheap FMJ bullets and was getting 2-3" @ 100 yds. This was VERY concerning!!! Then, I ran some Lapua and Norma match grade box ammo 223 Rem and groups went right down to 1/2" @100. Once I had enough fire formed brass, I started reloading with good quality Berger 80 gr and 85.5 gr bullets, and now the gun shoots 0.3 - 0.6 MOA, very consistently
Looks like a winner now!
 
"Thanks for reaching out and letting us know you're having an issue. I am happy to help, let's get to the bottom of what's going on."

That's the email you would have gotten if you had reached out to let us know.


Someone else had a problem recently where the rifle would shoot fine for groups and pressure. Then inside a handful of rounds they got sticky extraction. Turned out that the bolt was screwed up somehow and it needed to go back to the action maker. I haven't heard back on anything since then so I have no idea if that cured his problem.

Yours sounds similar that things were fine at 64 grains but now over time you're having problems at 59.

Let's try this:

Email me ALL the information you have and I will see what we can do to sort it out.

Order number
Action
Barrel blank ordered (Osprey or Rock Creek)
Bullets and powder being used
Brass being used
What symptoms you're calling "pressure signs" (there's a lot of poor or misapplied information out there as to what pressure signs are).
email sent I am having similar issues to zrod
 
Just got an Osprey prefit in .223 Wlyde, .062 freebore, .750 taperless.

I broke it in with cheap 55gr. fmj ammo and it did not particurly like it, hovered around 1.5-2" groups. About 100 rounds in I finally fed it some handloads and it perked right up. Just a load I threw together with no work up. Looks like it will hunt. This mirrors my experience with my 6mm Osprey, great accuracy in that one too.

Hornday 68 gr BTHP
25.0 grains of Varget
Nosler brass
CCI-BR4

5 round group
View attachment 8640686

20 round group
View attachment 8640687


Prefit on the Bighorn, really digging the .750 taperless. Seems like an ideal "hunting" weight contour as a suppressor host.

View attachment 8640691


Did you weigh that 20” spiral fluted barrel before mounting it? Looks like a perfect size for a suppressed set up. What can is that?
 
Chose a 6CM PVA prefit for my Tikka hunting rifle I'm building because of this thread. Should have it within the next few weeks I imagine. I'll only be shooting factory ammo through it but I'm also not looking for uber-precision. Just functional hunting rifle precision like a 20 round group under 1.5 MOA or something.
 
Did you weigh that 20” spiral fluted barrel before mounting it? Looks like a perfect size for a suppressed set up. What can is that?

I did, its actually 18" and weighs 38.5 oz on my scale. The can is a Thunderbeast Ultra 7.

I think its great hunting profile. To compare, I took off an unfluted 18" Prefered Barrel Blanks #2 Sporter in 6.5 CM that weighed in at 46.4 oz. So in the barrel swap I saved about 8 oz for the same length barrel in a smaller caliber.
 
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I did, its actually 18" and weighs 38.5 oz on my scale. The can is a Thunderbeast Ultra 7.

I think its great hunting profile. To compare, I took off an unfluted 18" Prefered Barrel Blanks #2 Sporter in 6.5 CM that weighed in at 46.4 oz. So in the barrel swap I saved about 8 oz for the same length barrel in a smaller caliber.

I thought that looked a little short for a 20”, I’m not sure where I got the idea it was that long. That barrel hammers. I have a 20” 300WSM of the same profile and flutes showing up this week for my short action Origin. I have high hopes for it. What stock is that? I have Peak 44 Bastion for mine, although I’ll likely put it in my weighted KRG-b for breaking and load development. Why bench a 8# gun when you can make it a 12# gun for testing.
 
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I thought that looked a little short for a 20”, I’m not sure where I got the idea it was that long. That barrel hammers. I have a 20” 300WSM of the same profile and flutes showing up this week for my short action Origin. I have high hopes for it. What stock is that? I have Peak 44 Bastion for mine, although I’ll likely put it in my weighted KRG-b for breaking and load development. Why bench a 8# gun when you can make it a 12# gun for testing.

Its a Stocky's VG2, I really like the ergos on it, its been a great stock. I actually have a Peak Bastion on my Tikka, great stock as well.
 
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Adding to an old thread.
Got a PVA 6mm barrel. Sent it to be chambered in 6GT. So far I’ve shot 45 rounds through it.
This is the best 5 group it’s shot so far, and the best group I’ve ever shot period!!!View attachment 8648502
I was able to get basically the same grouping with 107 SMK FGMM ammo, but nothing else would group that well from a factory ammo perspective with my PVA heavy contour BBL (which PVA is looking at for me - granted, I haven't heard anything back from them). Edit: heard back from them today and they had to re-ream the throat… all good and being returned. I somehow doubt you’d see that kind of service for anybody else so quickly.

That said, the CF Bull 6 Creed they spun up for me shoots most factory ammo pretty well, and some factory ammo REALLY well, and also shoots my 107SMK bullets through the same hole...
 
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I was able to get basically the same grouping with 107 SMK FGMM ammo, but nothing else would group that well from a factory ammo perspective with my PVA heavy contour BBL (which PVA is looking at for me - granted, I haven't heard anything back from them). Edit: heard back from them today and they had to re-ream the throat… all good and being returned. I somehow doubt you’d see that kind of service for anybody else so quickly.

That said, the CF Bull 6 Creed they spun up for me shoots most factory ammo pretty well, and some factory ammo REALLY well, and also shoots my 107SMK bullets through the same hole...
That’s great to hear. CS is so important nowadays, good to hear that they are on it.

I forgot to put in my post, that 5 shot group was 0.142” and is Factory Hornady 109 😳
I can’t wait to handload this!!!!
 
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Chose a 6CM PVA prefit for my Tikka hunting rifle I'm building because of this thread. Should have it within the next few weeks I imagine. I'll only be shooting factory ammo through it but I'm also not looking for uber-precision. Just functional hunting rifle precision like a 20 round group under 1.5 MOA or something.
We appreciate you’re confidence in ordering from us, based on forum review alone. We will always stand behind every barrel we ship.
 
We appreciate you’re confidence in ordering from us, based on forum review alone. We will always stand behind every barrel we ship.
I'm just glad I was able to send it in for install. I need to get my own barrel swap equipment but I will admit I'm glad the first one I do myself won't be taking off a factory Tikka barrel. I've heard it can sometimes be quite a process.
 
I've gotten so many barrels either done through PVA or from PVA. Generally, they are great. The customer service aspect is the important part of it...

They've:

- Rebarreled a Sako TRG-22 for me
- Rebarreled a Tikka T3XA1 for me
- Cambered two Proof CF BBLs for me
- Sold me two PVA CF barrels (for ARC CDGs)
- Chambered at least two Bartlein BBLs for me
- Troubleshot an AREA 419 manufacturers defect with their universal adapter system (they had a bad run of universal adapters for TBAC CBs series suppressors - rare, but it happens)

Their have been occasional issues, but they have 100% stood by me as a customer. It's a great team. They are busy, which is good news, as I hope they are around for a long time.
 
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I've talked about our Production Shop a little, most of the stuff we do for Hide Members is the Custom Shop. We finished a run of 6.5 Creedmoor prefits for Solus/Origin barrels several months back and we just got stock release on the blanks that we had left from the contract run. We buy more blanks for a contract than what is required to make sure if something happens in production we have spares... these are those spares.

There are 15 barrels total, all are 6.5mm Creeds and they're all setup for Origin/Solus headspace. The contours are limited in the drop down menu and the pricing includes muzzle threads (5/8-24) cut to our standard Class 3A spec.

Blanks used are Vortakt Series 400 which are 416R stainless, lapped, stress relieved and button rifled. In our internal testing these seemed comparable to Criterions we've seen. They are not custom made Ospreys

We saw factory ammo hover around 3/4 MOA and hand loads were a little tighter.

The blowout pricing is a "get 'em while they're here, when they're gone they're gone" situation.

LINK
 
What’s the interest rate on those barrels?
Performance responses have been very positive, a number of people interested in them as soon as we finish more.

The AR barrels in general have 2 more machining steps involved in getting them out the door so they take longer; this is why we batch them in production and don't really take on custom orders. We underestimated the initial interest on 6mm ARCs on the first batch which is why they're out of stock for a while lately.
 
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I love that you guys offer an adjustable bolt carrier group as opposed to using an adjustable gas block.

If nothing else, because cleaning that’s probably a lot easier than taking apart your adjustable gas block.

Not to mention the fact that a 1:7 might be more advantageous…

Thanks for all the info…. I will be waiting for those to drop.
 
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My best 5 shot group at 100 yards with a PVA prefit. 6.5cm with about 1400 rounds on it. It’s always been a tack driver and still is. 2400 rounds now and checked zero before my match this Saturday and shot a group not much bigger. Have a 6BRA barrel coming tomorrow from him and have no doubt what it will be capable of!
View attachment 8650940
5 shots? Damn dude... want a job test shooting barrels for us?
 
Is that the steel barrel we just returned?

Yep, but the only thing I could get to shoot extremely well in that barrel were 107 SMK. It would not shoot any other factory ammo really well like that… and specifically that’s 107SMK in the lower node.

Any other bullet it would shoot OK (1 inch or slightly larger), but it would not group like that. When I say I tried other factory ammunition, I tried every other available factory ammunition, and none of them would group like that.

It’s just kind of weird, and it’s not something I’ve experienced before. Usually, you’ll find at least two or three specific bullets and factory ammo that will have really good SDs… and sometimes crappy SDs, but they’ll still group surprisingly well.

1743254981724.png


You can see some of the other ammo's stats in the BBL prior to chamber clean up here:

 
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Performance responses have been very positive, a number of people interested in them as soon as we finish more.

The AR barrels in general have 2 more machining steps involved in getting them out the door so they take longer; this is why we batch them in production and don't really take on custom orders. We underestimated the initial interest on 6mm ARCs on the first batch which is why they're out of stock for a while lately.
Glad to hear there was good demand for the 6 arc AR barrels. Do you have a rough estimate for when the next batch will be available for shipping?
 
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Oh, man, look at this work of art! 20” Osprey 300 WSM .75” straight contour with 7 flutes. Weights 2.38#!! Should make a very nice elk rifle for carrying around in the mountains with my short action Origin and Peak 44 Bastion stock. Now if I can figure out how to get the seamless thread protector off without messing up the cerekote……….I’m thinking leather and padded vise jaws…..


Thanks Josh and Ben for making this barrel so light, yet still a great suppressor host for my Nomad Ti XC, can’t wait to get it to the range!


IMG_5455.jpeg
 
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I wanted to brach out from too many guns chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, so I decided to rebarrel my slow but accurate 20” Tikka CTR. I ordered an Osprey prefit from PVA. 26” MTU contour in 6 Creedmoor with a 7 twist. Communication and turnaround time from PVA were great. I had Fritz at Black Canyon Customs remove the factory Tikka barrel and spin on the Osprey. He is awesome to work with and worth the drive from Denver.

My very first 4 groups of factory Hornady 108’s all measured .33”-41”. They were all 5 rounds groups with only 1 called flyer that I excluded. I also shot two 5 round groups with factory Berger 105’s that measured .68” and .76” Needless to say, I’m very happy and will definitely buy from PVA again. They are good to go based on my limited experience.
 
I wanted to brach out from too many guns chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, so I decided to rebarrel my slow but accurate 20” Tikka CTR. I ordered an Osprey prefit from PVA. 26” MTU contour in 6 Creedmoor with a 7 twist. Communication and turnaround time from PVA were great. I had Fritz at Black Canyon Customs remove the factory Tikka barrel and spin on the Osprey. He is awesome to work with and worth the drive from Denver.

My very first 4 groups of factory Hornady 108’s all measured .33”-41”. They were all 5 rounds groups with only 1 called flyer that I excluded. I also shot two 5 round groups with factory Berger 105’s that measured .68” and .76” Needless to say, I’m very happy and will definitely buy from PVA again. They are good to go based on my limited experience.
Excellent!
 
Oh, man, look at this work of art! 20” Osprey 300 WSM .75” straight contour with 7 flutes. Weights 2.38#!! Should make a very nice elk rifle for carrying around in the mountains with my short action Origin and Peak 44 Bastion stock. Now if I can figure out how to get the seamless thread protector off without messing up the cerekote……….I’m thinking leather and padded vise jaws…..


Thanks Josh and Ben for making this barrel so light, yet still a great suppressor host for my Nomad Ti XC, can’t wait to get it to the range!
Just turn it harder, padded pliers if needed. I had the same concern with my Osprey barrel, but called Josh and he explained that they don't crack the thread protector after they get it back from cerakote. Oops, I see you figure this out already.
 
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Good morning, All
The shop phones are having issues. We can see the calls come in but as soon as we pick up the phone there's nothing on the other side. I've tried calling out and it seems like nothing is outgoing either. I do have a list of the numbers that called this morning so far and will be returning calls as soon as we have the system working again. I apologize for the inconvenience.


Phones are fixed, many thanks to @padom for taking care of us. I'm returning missed calls now. If you're expecting a call back and I miss you, sorry about that. Please call and we'll get you taken care of right away.
 
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It's been a while since I made a specific effort to provide a status update, so here we go:

MODUS Rifles: We have a bespoke stock for all of the rifles now and they're in production already. The stocks are carbon shell, lightweight core and they're a shade under 25oz as shown with a full thickness recoil pad. We can do adjustable cheeks on a custom order, we're not planning to keep those in the normal production queue because of the weight that most guys (understandably) don't want to be penalized for on a mountain rifle. Due to several price increases we've gotten on the action, new stocks and other production costs on the rifle we are unfortunately going to have to increase the price going forward as of May 15th.

The long action, lightweight option with carbon barrel currently weighs less than 6.5lb and several of them have been holding match rifle performance on 800+ yard targets. I'm pretty confident in saying that we've got a rifle that will compete or outclass just about any other high dollar package on the market. We've been working with Vantage Research and they're offering turn key ammo with our bulltes for the Modus rifles as well.

AR15 barrels: We just finished up a batch of AR barrels (I apologize for how long it took us)

We have 223 Wyldes in the usual 16/18/20 and we added 16" with Intermediate length gas (using the Noveske spec IM). I didn't make a ton of those so we could see how they would sell, but we do have about 2 dozen available currently.

223 Wylde
22 ARC
6mm ARC

Osprey Blanks and Prefits: We're doing pretty well here as usual, standard lead time is 8 weeks and we have some rush slots allocated after hours each week for those who find themselves in a bind (or they're just impatient ;-)

Chambers: I added or am adding a few new calibers to the website over the next few weeks as reamers arrive.

  • 7mm Backcountry (limited action options due to high pressure design)
  • 7 Sherman Max, current gen
  • 7 Sherman Mega, current gen
  • 7 SWC (Sherman improved variant of the 7x47 Lapua)
  • 22 PRC
  • 6 PRC
  • 25 PRC
  • 6.5 x 7 PRC
  • 6 x 7 PRC
  • 7 WSM (apparently brass is back in production so we're dusting this one off) - call us prior to ordering please
Solus Barreled Actions: As receivers arrive we add them to the website in limited quantities. Due to the current lead times and nature of Solus availability over the past 6 months we aren't able to offer a standard lead time unless we actually have the actions on hand. I'm working to have a better solution in the coming months but for now, that's where things stand.

We do have some extra solus bolt heads in various sizes, again due to availability, they're for sale with a prefit only.

Projectiles: We are doing final testing on some 7mm 185 class hunting and match bullets currently. They require 7tw barrels (we have Ospreys in 7tw) and the BC is looking quite impressive on both. 0.42-0.43 on the hunting bullets and about 12-15% higher on the match variants (0.50 roughly).

Based on some feedback with other Hide members I've also updated the 170's to help out some guys who had borderline stability problems. I sent prototypes off to @Conrad and another member here to do testing side by side with the latest generation. Some guys are reporting no issues, a few are having problems. We have not be able to recreate stability problems here so while I'm digging into it I'm also not sure we have a problem with the advertised product. Many thousands of them have been shot with excellent results.
 
It's been a while since I made a specific effort to provide a status update, so here we go:

MODUS Rifles: We have a bespoke stock for all of the rifles now and they're in production already. The stocks are carbon shell, lightweight core and they're a shade under 25oz as shown with a full thickness recoil pad. We can do adjustable cheeks on a custom order, we're not planning to keep those in the normal production queue because of the weight that most guys (understandably) don't want to be penalized for on a mountain rifle. Due to several price increases we've gotten on the action, new stocks and other production costs on the rifle we are unfortunately going to have to increase the price going forward as of May 15th.

The long action, lightweight option with carbon barrel currently weighs less than 6.5lb and several of them have been holding match rifle performance on 800+ yard targets. I'm pretty confident in saying that we've got a rifle that will compete or outclass just about any other high dollar package on the market. We've been working with Vantage Research and they're offering turn key ammo with our bulltes for the Modus rifles as well.

AR15 barrels: We just finished up a batch of AR barrels (I apologize for how long it took us)

We have 223 Wyldes in the usual 16/18/20 and we added 16" with Intermediate length gas (using the Noveske spec IM). I didn't make a ton of those so we could see how they would sell, but we do have about 2 dozen available currently.

223 Wylde
22 ARC
6mm ARC

Osprey Blanks and Prefits: We're doing pretty well here as usual, standard lead time is 8 weeks and we have some rush slots allocated after hours each week for those who find themselves in a bind (or they're just impatient ;-)

Chambers: I added or am adding a few new calibers to the website over the next few weeks as reamers arrive.

  • 7mm Backcountry (limited action options due to high pressure design)
  • 7 Sherman Max, current gen
  • 7 Sherman Mega, current gen
  • 7 SWC (Sherman improved variant of the 7x47 Lapua)
  • 22 PRC
  • 6 PRC
  • 25 PRC
  • 6.5 x 7 PRC
  • 6 x 7 PRC
  • 7 WSM (apparently brass is back in production so we're dusting this one off) - call us prior to ordering please
Solus Barreled Actions: As receivers arrive we add them to the website in limited quantities. Due to the current lead times and nature of Solus availability over the past 6 months we aren't able to offer a standard lead time unless we actually have the actions on hand. I'm working to have a better solution in the coming months but for now, that's where things stand.

We do have some extra solus bolt heads in various sizes, again due to availability, they're for sale with a prefit only.

Projectiles: We are doing final testing on some 7mm 185 class hunting and match bullets currently. They require 7tw barrels (we have Ospreys in 7tw) and the BC is looking quite impressive on both. 0.42-0.43 on the hunting bullets and about 12-15% higher on the match variants (0.50 roughly).

Based on some feedback with other Hide members I've also updated the 170's to help out some guys who had borderline stability problems. I sent prototypes off to @Conrad and another member here to do testing side by side with the latest generation. Some guys are reporting no issues, a few are having problems. We have not be able to recreate stability problems here so while I'm digging into it I'm also not sure we have a problem with the advertised product. Many thousands of them have been shot with excellent results.
On the Solus bolt heads how do you go about ordering a 223 one and a prefit. Is that something you could check headspace having both?
 
On the Solus bolt heads how do you go about ordering a 223 one and a prefit. Is that something you could check headspace having both?
If you email us we can manually add it to your order, it's not an online option currently due to the limited quantities that we have available. We need the action to put the bolt head and action together to get a specific headspace on those two pieces.
 
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6ARC AR15 ORDERED!!! Woot!

Oh, and that 6 Creedmoor CF you guys spun up for me is a TAC DRIVER... bullets in the same hole - literally. Loves 107SMK, and pretty much everything else.
I have no idea what the secret is, but PVA has 6 Creedmoor barrels perfectly dialed in. My steel prefit (Tikka) Osprey continues to impress me and make me look like a much better shooter than I am. One ragged hole with all factory ammo that I have tried.
 
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I have no idea what the secret is, but PVA has 6 Creedmoor barrels perfectly dialed in. My steel prefit (Tikka) Osprey continues to impress me and make me look like a much better shooter than I am. One ragged hole with all factory ammo that I have tried.
This is one of the reasons why we do not share reamer prints nor are we often going to make changes to prints because the internet opines that something should be done.