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BSF Bolt Action Barrel Blanks?

slickyboyboo

Private
Full Member
Minuteman
Jul 21, 2011
66
3
What are everyone's thoughts on the bolt action blanks offered by BSF Barrels? It seems their AR barrels shoot very well, and are getting great reviews.
 
Are you seeing them somewhere other than the bsf website? A $600 blank doesn’t seem too good to be true. These aren’t made like a proof barrel.
 
One of the owners sent me some pics of how his 18" 6.5 CM barrel shot. He was shooting ~3/4" 5 shot group at 200 yds, that is well under 1/2 MOA.
 
I have a bsf barrel. It's an 18.5 , 5R, and it shoots fantastic. I was actually looking into a .224 Val barrel by them but they had a very lengthy email exchange with me (which I appreciated), and said they are not going to make them anymore. They said they had too many issues with that round. The issues were related to using several different grain weights of bullet in the round. The guy said that I should go with another round. My local guys said "well don't shoot those other weight bullets iF I remember correctly, the issues they had were with heavier rounds, and the 75 gr stuff was fine...


Anywho, the guy emailed back and forth quite a bit with me for several days. That's not the kind of thing that happens with companies who don't take care of their customers in my experience. I'm not sure what to make of the .224 Val comments, but I appreciate the sales guys knowing their products, and I appreciate the effort he made, and the barrel that I have is really nice, and shoots really well, better than I can shoot it actually. I would definitely buy another.
 
Bsf carbon barrels are used by weatherby and also on the new Springfield waypoint rifle. I'd think for the price weatherby charges, they better be using a quality barrel. All their high end steel is Lilja.

It damn sure looks and feels like a high quality barrel. Everything about it is really nice. I haven't heated it up all the way yet, but when I do I will report on it. I don't expect anything but tack driving though....
 
I put one on an AR last spring for a light weight Coyote rifle.
It’s in Valkyrie and does what I need for what I built it for. It’s light and easy to pack around.
It’s a 1-7 and doesn’t like anything over 75 grains. It shoots the factory 60s very well, More time at the reloading bench may prove different, but I’m not wasting time and money to get a short distance hunting rig to shoot under 1/2”
Some loads will go 1/2” but not “All day long” like some like to say, I’m only using a NX8 1-8 for a scope.
I bought it for its weight not as a tac driver. It shoots good enough to clip a coyote at 400yds from a field shooting position.
It does seem to be shooting better the more rounds I get through it, but it won’t make you giggle like a Shilen, rock creek, Benchmark etc.
I would chose another brand if I wanted pure accuracy and tiny groups and wasn’t worried about weight.
 
I put one on an AR last spring for a light weight Coyote rifle.
It’s in Valkyrie and does what I need for what I built it for. It’s light and easy to pack around.
It’s a 1-7 and doesn’t like anything over 75 grains. It shoots the factory 60s very well, More time at the reloading bench may prove different, but I’m not wasting time and money to get a short distance hunting rig to shoot under 1/2”
Some loads will go 1/2” but not “All day long” like some like to say, I’m only using a NX8 1-8 for a scope.
I bought it for its weight not as a tac driver. It shoots good enough to clip a coyote at 400yds from a field shooting position.
It does seem to be shooting better the more rounds I get through it, but it won’t make you giggle like a Shilen, rock creek, Benchmark etc.
I would chose another brand if I wanted pure accuracy and tiny groups and wasn’t worried about weight.

That's why they stopped making the .224 Val is what the rep said. It would do the 75gr stuff ok but "they had issues with that round" ...
 
because no one bought them or because they dont shoot

I'm telling you directly from bsf. I had lengthy convos with them about it. I find it hard to believe that JP also just happened to drop the round unless it was for the same reason. The guy at bsf flat out told me "abandon that round", maybe when they rework it with a " 2.0" version it will be great but as it stands, "it's a bad round" .
 
I wouldn’t call it a bad round, I have a Shilen barreled Valkyrie that will smoke a tiny hole for groups and it does well to 1000 yds with 90 and 95 SMKs. It also nearly matches my 142 SMK 6.5 creedmoor dope to that range.
I think the cheaper barrels with out of spec reamers fucked a lot of guys.
After having a 1-7 twist and a 1-6.5 twist, I think anyone wanting one for target shooting should go 6,5 twist.
Unfortunately it’s hard to get great results from sub $400 barrels. If your building one, don’t fuck around and try to save a couple hundred bucks. My D Tech Shilen barrel was expensive but it works.
with the price of components , you could easily waste $200 in bullets, powder and primers screwing around trying to make a cheap barrel do things it’s not made for.
I’ve had a couple cheap barrels shoot better than they should, but that’s not the norm.