this has been a very contentious discussion over the holidays in some circles and i'm surprised it hasn't really been discussed much here. i wont get into the contentious part of it, but it occurred to me that it might not be a topic yet because people may not know about it.
a brief history:
i'm sure someone will tell me about some prefit i forgot about that existed back when Moses came off the mountain, but basically, the concept was sort of popularized by savage of buying barrels that are already chambered and having an unskilled user install them. later, "remage" and others worked on this savage barrel nut style to give effectively the same capability. however these aren't truly "prefit" according to me because the user has to set the headspace. accuracy international has always had this capability as well, but at $5000-9000 per rifle, they were never really popular.
but really, for the past several decades, if you want a benchrest quality, match winning rifle, you paid your $300+ for a blank from a barrel maker like bartlein, broughton, krieger, brux, etc. and then you paid $300-400 and sent your action to a gunsmith and waited 6 months for him to measure your individual action's threads and face to bolt dimension and cut and chamber the barrel, plus whatever frills you wanted like muzzle threading, fluting, cerakote, etc. for competitive shooters that would go through 2-3 bbl per year, we would usually order the next barrel as soon as we received one.
however, my friends at Impact changed the game a little by ensuring every action that leaves their shop has exactly the same dimensions, which enabled gunsmiths to start making and stocking barrels for those actions ahead of time. The shooter doesn't need to headspace anything. No gauges required. just an action wrench and barrel vice to spin the old one off and spin the new one on. in my case, i have two impacts, and a bunch of barrels and i can put any barrel on either action. so if i want to swap from say, 6dasher to 6.5cm, i just swap barrels. (i don't even remove the scope when i do it). it's pretty handy. I don't do it to change calibers much. I mostly do it to put on a new bbl when the old one is shot out. but I imagine many non-competition shooters would like to shoot 10 different cartridges and want it for the switch barrel feature.
Other action mfg have followed. For example, Defiance has two new actions that were discussed in another thread recently that both have dimensions consistent enough to maintain headspace from action to action (Rukus and Tenacity) where their previous actions (Deviant, Rebel, etc) did not.
Most of the popular higher end actions now support this, though notably others like surgeon don't.
so now that there's a market for it, the barrel makers are getting in on the chambering, and making "prefit" barrels in a variety of popular calibers. this is a big win for consumers (though many small gunsmiths may go out of business). my expectation is that large bbl makers will use their size and financial resources to start mass producing them.
i'm not endorsing them specifically, but an example is https://proofresearch.com/barrels/ which is famous for their carbon fiber barrels, but they also make regular stainless ones. from 22lr, 223, 6CM, 6dasher, 6.5x47L and 6.5CM, up to 338lm, off the shelf. MSRP $545. maybe a lot less from distributors. they also offer prefits for ruger, savage, cz and more, plus ARs.
they're going to sell a LOT of barrels this year. (watch the histograms for "what the pros use") and it wouldn't surprise me if next year, you can buy the same from the really big names and we start seeing prices come way down, perhaps even close to AR15 levels.
anyway, if you're thinking about buying a precision rifle this year, make sure it takes prefits.
a brief history:
i'm sure someone will tell me about some prefit i forgot about that existed back when Moses came off the mountain, but basically, the concept was sort of popularized by savage of buying barrels that are already chambered and having an unskilled user install them. later, "remage" and others worked on this savage barrel nut style to give effectively the same capability. however these aren't truly "prefit" according to me because the user has to set the headspace. accuracy international has always had this capability as well, but at $5000-9000 per rifle, they were never really popular.
but really, for the past several decades, if you want a benchrest quality, match winning rifle, you paid your $300+ for a blank from a barrel maker like bartlein, broughton, krieger, brux, etc. and then you paid $300-400 and sent your action to a gunsmith and waited 6 months for him to measure your individual action's threads and face to bolt dimension and cut and chamber the barrel, plus whatever frills you wanted like muzzle threading, fluting, cerakote, etc. for competitive shooters that would go through 2-3 bbl per year, we would usually order the next barrel as soon as we received one.
however, my friends at Impact changed the game a little by ensuring every action that leaves their shop has exactly the same dimensions, which enabled gunsmiths to start making and stocking barrels for those actions ahead of time. The shooter doesn't need to headspace anything. No gauges required. just an action wrench and barrel vice to spin the old one off and spin the new one on. in my case, i have two impacts, and a bunch of barrels and i can put any barrel on either action. so if i want to swap from say, 6dasher to 6.5cm, i just swap barrels. (i don't even remove the scope when i do it). it's pretty handy. I don't do it to change calibers much. I mostly do it to put on a new bbl when the old one is shot out. but I imagine many non-competition shooters would like to shoot 10 different cartridges and want it for the switch barrel feature.
Other action mfg have followed. For example, Defiance has two new actions that were discussed in another thread recently that both have dimensions consistent enough to maintain headspace from action to action (Rukus and Tenacity) where their previous actions (Deviant, Rebel, etc) did not.
Most of the popular higher end actions now support this, though notably others like surgeon don't.
so now that there's a market for it, the barrel makers are getting in on the chambering, and making "prefit" barrels in a variety of popular calibers. this is a big win for consumers (though many small gunsmiths may go out of business). my expectation is that large bbl makers will use their size and financial resources to start mass producing them.
i'm not endorsing them specifically, but an example is https://proofresearch.com/barrels/ which is famous for their carbon fiber barrels, but they also make regular stainless ones. from 22lr, 223, 6CM, 6dasher, 6.5x47L and 6.5CM, up to 338lm, off the shelf. MSRP $545. maybe a lot less from distributors. they also offer prefits for ruger, savage, cz and more, plus ARs.
they're going to sell a LOT of barrels this year. (watch the histograms for "what the pros use") and it wouldn't surprise me if next year, you can buy the same from the really big names and we start seeing prices come way down, perhaps even close to AR15 levels.
anyway, if you're thinking about buying a precision rifle this year, make sure it takes prefits.
