I work for a barrel  company and we were thinking about making some M-16 retro barrels for all the surplus kits out there. We are just not sure there is a need.

Would love your input on not only a need, but what twist would be good anything special we should do. Thanks for any help.

I just reread my post and it sounds like I work out of a basement  . The company I work for makes about 50,000 barrels a year for OEM companies. I just thought there might be a need for something that is different than a tacti-cool AR-15.

I would love to have a 20" 1:14 twist but I don't know how much demand there would be to justify a run of those.



16" pencil barrels with .625 diameter at the sight base sell well. A practical twist would be 1:9 to allow for a useful wide range of bullet weights.  But I'm sure the purists would want something slower and the modern guys would want faster.



Whatever you do, make them look like original profile USGI barrels and there will be a demand.

Ahoy!  Where abouts in the great state of Ohio are you located?

The Great City of Cincinnati.

For practical purposes I like 1/8.

1/14 will have some demand but not a ton, I'd say 1/12 would be the most popular.

.625 fsbs will be the major deal, if they are .750 there will be almost no demand.
If the fsb is already installed it would be even better.

ETA: as Hipshot said, rifle extensions rather than M4 would be a big plus.

14..5 and 16 inch true A1 spec pencil barrels in 1x9 and 1x12 twists. I'm sure your gonna hear people wanting 20inch A1 spec pencils as well. Do us a favor.....if you make them... use rifle extensions.

Retro guys would go nuts for properly-marked 1/12 20" reproductions - marked discreetly under the handguard or some such as repros so the scam scum don't try to pass them off as originals in a few years.

20" chrome lined; .625 at the FSB, rifles in 1/8 (so you can use both 55 and 62 grain ammo). That would be what I want.

I just bought a 20" chrome lined A1 1:12 light barrel w/FSB last week.  new manufactured, approximately a repro but of course, not exactly.

How many would we need to do a group buy?  I'm interested in a correct 601 type 1:14 twist non-chromed 20" barrel.  I would buy several if the price is right!

Since these won't be "authentic" retro barrels, I'd love the right 20" pencil look, but with a 1-8 twist (could live with 1-7 or 1-9).
And the 5.56 NATO or .223 Wylde chamber.

I'd also love to see a carbine barrel of around 14.7", with the correct "step" just before the FH.  This would let us pin a birdcage and get to 16", but with the right 651 / 652 look.

Wow.  Over 3000 posts, and my very first double tap!

THIS  14.7 so you can use a standard FH just pin it..

That's a great point Olgunner, I'd be in for one of those if the price is right.

THIS too also!

And hows about a 14.7" middy with .625 FSB journal and 1/9 twist? (cause all mine twist that way) THAT would get my CC warmed up QUICK!

This thread needs a poll.

My vote is 20" .625 in 1 in 9 or 1 in 12....

I'm most interested in barrels that have an FSB already installed. There are a few good options out there but not a lot of variety if you don't want to send your barrel to get pinned.

So, what's the problem with these??? http://jtdistributing.net/store/page120.html

As you can see everyone assures you their pet want would be a hot seller. Whatever it is need to be chrome lined, .625 gas journal and 1/9. Of you make 1/14 you might sell a hundred of them. Of you do a faster twist it will have crossover appeal with guys who arent hardcore retro fanatics.

Everyone seems to want what is already available

There are no 14.7" pencil barrels on the market.

Come to think of it, other than the rare PSA upper with one, there aren't any 14.7s on the market.

Seems some of you would like to discourage competition.  In my experience competition promotes lower pricing.

Always room for competition and more barrels out there, BUT price will be the determining factor on how successful your barrel run would be.

I've got one of these. Very nice finish, matches the grey that most guys want in a retro!

I honestly had no idea the above site even existed.  They have stuff I need.  Damn it.



 

While I can see the desire for a 1x14 twist barrel, it is a really small pool of people who want this and will actually buy it. They are rare for a reason, 1x12 was found to be superior in general service and very few rifles fielded had 1x14 twist. Unless you are building a 100% correct 601, there is really no viable market for these. Now if you want to do a special run, the only way to make it profitable is to have a group buy and have commitments (paid) for a minimum number. This is the only barrel I would offer non-chromed and without a FSB. A forged FSB won’t cut it for the truly OCD and it is not worth the effort to source or produce the small number of cast FSB’s with the correct features. Sorry guys, reality is a bitch.
 
Other manufacturers make barrels having some but not all the features that people want. To get the market share you’re after you need to include ALL of them. Otherwise you will be vying with the competition for the same market share with nothing to set you apart. You can’t please everyone but these should put you ahead of the pack:

1) Front Sight Base; whatever you make they need to be .625 at the FSB and have a standard height FSB properly installed with taper pins. Buying a barrel and having to source a used FSB and then sending it out to be installed is a pain that most would happily avoid if your barrels came complete. This would require you to source the correct FSB (complete or forgings) and correct .625 triangular and round handguard caps. These are probably the biggest hurdle and why others sell their barrels without. If AR15 Sport, Daniel Defense and JT can do it, so can you.

2) Contours; keep to the original rifle and carbine specs and you will do well.

3) Chrome Lined, enough said.

4) Twist; most here would like to see a 1x12 but we are a minority of your potential customers. While 1x12 has a certain appeal, it is limited to 55 grain and lighter bullets. As others have said and can live with, something along the lines of 1x9 or 1x8 would have greater appeal to the masses. Since a few of your potential competitors offer 1x9, I think 1x8 would be the way to go. You would also gain a market share of the Tacti-Cool crowd who are looking to build lightweight KISS rifles and carbines.

5) Lengths; with all the barrel-less kits that have been and are available, 20” rifle barrels will be your bread and butter products. As for carbines, I agree that a 14.7” is probably the way to go. It allows people to use standard muzzle devices for an authentic look without having to go the extended route. The extra .200 won’t matter to the Tacti-Cool crowd as they will put the latest and greatest comp on the muzzle, remove the FSB for a gas block and shove it all under a rail anyway.

Personally, I wouldn’t bother with 16”, 11.5” or 10.5” lengths as there are plenty of those options out there. However, if you want to offer short, there are very few 12.5” versions offered and a correctly contoured 12.5” would be a handy length for those wanting to do a non-NFA XM177E2 by pinning a moderator and keeping the proportions close.

YMMV,

Wpns Man

that's where I got mine, only I got the chrome lined 1:12 just because.  I was wavering back and forth on which to get

+1

IMO, nailed it.

I have not heard a verdict on the Green Mountain 20" pencils, anybody?

Great post.

1st off, I now know that my next paycheck will be buying one of Centerfire's kits and a barrel from this site. [and handguards and a 3-prong fh]

2nd, the option of chrome lining does seem appealing and the prospect of 1-12 twist not a worry as M855 is too inaccurate for me to want to store, but it removes a degree of flexiblity, flexibility I'm not sure I'd want to give-up. And I'm not so OCD about a clone retro rifle that I wouldn't put a trapdoor buttplate and keep a bottle of auto trans fluid in there to keep a non-chrome bore clean.

How slow are you shooting 62 grns that you need a 1:8" twist to stabilize them?  The Swiss use 1:10" to stabilize their 62 grn service round.

 

THIS and


THIS

They are nice. If you mean the 1:12, 20",

They can't seem to keep them in stock and do not come with an FSB.

For a correct retro, the .625 FSB and rifle extension rather than M4 seem to be the main complaints I hear about modern barrels. IIRC, only one company offers .625 FSBs on a rifle barrel, but it has M4 extension and no chrome lining IIRC. (AR15sport). As mentioned, a correct rifle and 14.7" carbine would sell. Guys doing shorty commando or XM177 builds could easily have them cut down. In Ar15sports defense, they are apparently pretty nice barrels, and damn close to a perfect retro barrel...I would concentrate on the 14.7" ones. We may just have to learn to live with M4 extensions...

Yes this was a great post.

WpnsMan said all the right things in his post.

A few of us purist would love a 1/14 twist barrel for that very special prototype build but I am not sure the demand would be high enough to warrant a run.

Both the carbine and rifle length barrels with a twist that would allow both 55 and 62 gr bullets.  

I would buy a 1/12 twist barrel but would rather have a 1/9 or 1/8.

No feed ramps.

No that I am one, but my understanding is varminters appreciate the 1:14 twist too. They shoot like 40 grainers out of 'em. So, you got that going for it.

Also, a 1:14 should NOT be chrome lined AFAIK. And should be properly stepped ahead of the FSB journal. And of course, no M4 ramps, etc. etc. -

I really would like one, and would probably buy more than one. But acknowledge that it would require some commitment from a manuf to go the extra steps to do a 1:14 right.

Green Mountain barrels are 1:12, chrome lined, A1 profile but with an M4 extension.  Minus the m4 extension their barrels are 100% perfect to spec replicas.  And dealy accurate too.

A question for the barrel maker...

In the world of high production barrel manufacturing, is it easy (relative to everything else going on) to change the twist you're producing but leave the profile the same?  How about changing profiles and lengths (I assume much harder)?  Is it practical to produce a carbine length barrel and do a special run every so often of a not quiet as good selling twist rate?

I have no basis to state this but a 14.7" light weight barrel in any twist seems like a winner to me.  The retro people could use it (pinned for a carbine, left unpinned for SBR, or cut for an XM177 or shorter), and the high speed low drag people may bite since it's a lightweight barrel.

Thanks for the compliment. I couldn't get any rifle extensions for the last run of those. Now that things have slowed way down the extension makers may be willing to do the correct type.

Now if you could put cast/smooth FSB's on those.....................

Not a bad idea, thought most people that want 1/8 used the .750 GB. I haven't looked for FSB sources yet, up until now there hasn't been any time/capacity.