So I got in to a little bit of a YouTube comment "battle" with a guy today about this topic...

The video was from a fellow SR-15 owner who has over 14k rounds through his mod 1 rifle (running great obviously and no end in sight). Someone in the comments stated something to the effect of "it's too bad KAC won't let customers buy replacement barrels".  I replied stating that I believe KAC will "re-barrel" an upper if you send it to them and I can understand them not wanting people to install their own barrels (proprietary gas system, bolt, barrel etc). The reason I believe they will is that just a couple days ago I saw a very recent post on this forum by the commercial sales manager AT KAC, and he stated they WOULD re-barrel a customers rifle, if asked to.  I even quoted the post in the comments and the original commenter vehemently disagreed and went on a rant about hoping KAC loses business etc etc...bla bla bla. Mostly likely a "KAC dissenter" trolling YouTube, hating on a product he doesn't even own.

Still... it got me thinking... WOULD KAC re-barrel a rifle for a customer or not?  The counter argument is that, rather than re-barreling it, they will simply try to get you to buy a whole new upper.  So can anyone answer this question definitively?  There's no chance I'll need a barrel any time soon as my SR-15 barely has 2k through it. The guy with over 14k likely has lots of life left in his too. But for the sake of argument I'm just curious what the actual answer is to this.

Best bet is to ask here.

My assumption is that they will rebarrel a current generation upper, currently the Mod2, but not older generations.

Eta:  I really can't understand why such a big deal is made of this.  Once your barrel is shot out, either buy a new complete KAC upper or buy a new standard barrel and bolt.

Yes, KAC will re-barrel an upper. Currently, they are only able to do this on MOD 2 rifles.

How do I know? Well, I was involved in an incident about two years ago, and one of my rifles got pretty beat up. Ayan at Boltcarrier took the gun in for service, and KAC offered to sell me a barrel-just so long as it went through Ayan. As it turned out only my handguard was damaged, so I didn't need it, but yes, KAC has got your back.

The Ballistic Radio SR15 did slightly over 20k and still shot MOA.

Most of that was doing mag dumps.

Personally, I'd buy a new upper when I eventually wear out the barrel.

I know the E3 is strong, but I'd like a fresh bolt after tens of thousands of rounds.

They chimed in on my comment saying they WILL re-barrel rifles. So that's good(In civil times...). You have to have shot it out however. What I wanted was a SPARE barrel, or 10. They will NOT sell you that. If they ever do so, then I'd buy.

If you can afford to shoot an entire barrel out, you can afford a new upper.
I agree.

I'd still rather to only pay for a new barrel than a new upper.

If you're genuinely worried about rebarreling your SR-15, occasionally there are E3 setups being sold in the EE.

I've purchased several of them from Geno, ragincajun1919, and a few others.  Rebarreling a Mod1 or legacy upper is pretty easy.  I've done several barrel and URX2/3/3.1 swaps because they all use the same barrel nut.

There is a complete legacy barrel (CHF/CL) with KAC gas block and BCG for $600 in the EE right now.  If you think you're going to burn your barrel out, that would be an excellent investment for the future.

First, thank you for watching my video (I am actually sub'ed to your channel)
From my understanding of your comment and the other guy's comment, I think there is a slight confusion about how KAC will not SELL the barrel and they can REBARREL the gun?
KAC will not sell you the barrel, and they can only rebarrel the current generation of rifles, not the older Mod1 or Mod0.

For anyone interested, here are the videos I shared, and below is what I posted on YouTube and on the KAC subsection:
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Just want to share with you guys the status of my beloved SR15 Mod1, which is now at 14,700rds.
I did replace the carbine buffer with a Colt H3 buffer to get the perfect 4:30-5:00 ejection patter, and I swapped out the gas rings around the 9,000-12,000 mark not b/c it needs it, but more like I was bored.

SR15 Mod1: 14,700rds and counting
14,700 rounds of all brass, mostly 5.56 spec ammo... I did plenty of shooting, and very little care to the gun. After the initial preparation, the gun had no maintenance and no oil of any kind until reaching the 3500rds mark, 7000rds mark(3500rds no maintenance), and the 12500rds mark(5500rds no maintenance). Only then did I do a semi-detail cleaning.

SR-15 Mod1 | Post- 14,700rds Accuracy Test | 300 yards
Testing the accuracy of my SR15 Mod1 after 14,700 rounds of brass ammo, almost all in 5.56 spec with some being 223 spec ammo.
Normally it consistently prints 1.25MOA 10rd group at 100 yards using the same setup.
At 300 yards, it is about 1.5MOA to 1.75MOA if I do my part.

Some of you guys know that I had another SR15 Mod1 that was 'shot-out' around the 12,500rd-13,000rd mark. (4k steel ammo almost all mag dump, 8k-9k brass ammo w/ some mag dump)
For my current (2nd) SR15 Mod1 main shooter rifle, I will only be shooting brass cased copper jacketed ammo.

I will do another update at the 20,000rd mark

That defeats the purpose of a easy to maintain rifle if a new upper is needed every time.

And a new bolt defeats the purpose of the E3 bolt.

If you have that many rounds through the barrel that you're worried about a barrel replacement, I would just replace the whole upper and BCG.
The barrel probably isn't the only thing wearing down at that point.

Are we really upset that they wont sell you a proprietary barrel separately? if they started selling barrels and bolts outside of full guns what reason would people really have to buy a complete rifle? aside from that look how many people buy a spikes lower and then throw a radical upper on it and a random lpk and call it a spikes rifle.Then they go on to post about having all these problems and the ones who aren't educated enough to know is not a spikes rifle will suddenly believe it was spikes who caused the problem.I'm sure a large part of the reason they wont sell the barrels separate is to protect their interests and limit their customer service issues more than anything else.Its not like they wont replace your barrel IF you ever shoot it out and they are pretty well documented to shoot very well even at the 20k round mark.  I mean if you shoot 6k dollars worth of ammo out of the rifle re barreling it should be of very little concern to you.


but yes they will replace it when its shot out

Considering some of the abortions I have seen put together, improperly. If I were a high end maker I would have reservations about selling components separately on the risk of idiots assembling them incorrectly and then attacking the brand when their clusterfuck of a rifle doesn't work.


I'm thinking of that guy who couldn't line up a gas block on a Larue and spent an entire youtube video shitting on Larue rifles because he himself was too stupid to install a gas block properly, or diagnose his own fuckup.

For the newbs, "that guy" was Nutnfancy.

Is an unabashed honk of the HK proprietary parts filled turd really crying about proprietary parts in another rifle?

How?

The E3 bolt longevity means you have a rifle you can shoot until the accuracy tapers off.  The E3 bolt also means that your bolt won't be breaking 2-5 times during that time period, giving you a paperweight.

For a range toy?  Who cares.  For a duty rifle, I'd like to know that after 5-10k rounds, my bolt will still be in one piece.

Yeah, I hate that line of reasoning. Can you afford to? Yes. Why would you want to waste the money, though? People seem so eager to waste money, and then later bitch about not having money.

Because it isn't HK. No other reason.

Yeah thats what I figured, just was hoping to get him to admit it.

I was an HK fan too at one point.  Then I grew up.

It's a little concerning for the LPR that will only see 4-6k rounds before needing rebarreling. Otherwise I don't think it's an issue for the CL versions.

That's really dependent on firing schedule and what your definition of shot out is.When the groups start to open a bit? or when the throat erosion is passed a safe point?.Round count will be based on ammo used,firing schedule,and care of the barrel not just a number.The lpr is a precision gun not a high round count carbine that  is made for carbine courses.

I'm referring to a precision application. DMR matches and such. Last barrel (CLE Douglas) went to 4K when I pulled it and put it on a 3-gun rifle. At 6.5k it won't hold 2 MOA. Current barrel (krieger with same contour as LPR mod 1) has enough throat erosion to change accuracy and velocity. It has 2.5K on it. I got my velocity back by upping the load a bit, but it's not quite as accurate as before since I'm using a jump sensitive bullet. I expect to pull it around 4K as well.

I'm not doing mag dumps with these although my ammo is probably run at higher pressures. The longer bearing surface of the 77TMK doesn't help barrel life either. My current barrel shot .5s when new, now closer to .6-.7. Once it's unable to consistently hold .75MOA I'll pull it.

The concern with the LPR (mine is currently a backup with very low round count)is that once I hit 4K (that's 2 seasons) then I'd have to replace with a different barrel. In all fairness, if I ever shot out the LPR barrel (and being a backup not anytime soon) I would probably buy a blank and have a smith spin up a new barrel using the old extension.