Quoted:
So what was determined to be the cause and what was the resolution (if any)? There must be some reason why they were doing that.
Rob
Century contracted several different companies to make the barrels for their Tantal rifles back when they first started spitting them out.
They had planned on having a nice, high-quality barrel that was chrome lined, but after finding out how much extra it would cost to chrome line the barrels, they decided they couldn't sell them for $450 and they decided to just stick the barrels on the guns un-chromed.
Since the barrels were set up to be chromed, and weren't, the inside diameter of the barrel was left too big resulting in many of the "it's a 5.56 barrel" claims.
No, it's not a 5.56 barrel. It's a 5.45 barrel that was never chrome lined. This information is straight from a Century distributor.
And yes, I had one. It failed the bullet test, but It didn't shoot awful - it made "oval" shaped holes in the paper, but I replaced it last year with a new Green Mountain chrome-lined barrel and the groups have not only improved, but there has been NO keyholing between 25 and 250M.