Any reviews on this barrel? It's the 18inch heavy profile stainless model. Deciding between that and a criterion

Best way I can put it, my Ballistic Advantage shot good (1 moa @ 100).  The criterion I replaced it with shoots BETTER (SUB moa @100). That being said, other people might have had better experiences with BA barrels.  About the only issue you’re going to have with Criterion is waiting for the barrels to get back into stock.

I've noticed that

I have two other criterion that are awesome in different guns

I've got the Aero marked version and it's about MOA ish with match ammo, but 2-3 moa with milspec ball as expected.  For the money it's not bad, for the best accuracy you can do better.  Just depends on how much you want to spend.

Mind you, this was 5-10mph gusts so it would shoot tighter on a calm day, hence the 'ish'.  (These were first groups after break in)  168gr Fed GMM followed by some 147gr PPU at 100.

I have four .308 barrels from BA and with quality/Match ammo they will meet BA's MOA guarantee... but to do so on demand each and every time is a claim I won't make.

With that said, they are a budget barrel when all is said and done.

What's an extra $100 in the grand scheme of things?

Odds are the BA barrel will be at/close to MOA considering the rest of the build... but going with a better overall quality barrel amplifies those odds. Ammo isn't cheap, screw chasing results and trouble shooting an iffy barrel.

An extra hundred is an extra hundred on a barrel that wont make a noticable difference to most people, as they arent capable of getting any better accuracy. I know, i know, everyone here is submoa all day snipers, etc. But in the real world, where people actually live, that aint the case for 99% of the population (every real target i see in person is usually 2-4 moa 5shot groups. 3 shots are useless). For those people, ba is perfect, and the hundred is far better spent on ammo and practice. That said, once youve reached your optimum potential, its probably time to upgrade barrels.

I've got a variety of barrels including  BA. With the exception of my bartlein I've found criterion has shot the best for me in matches and work. I've also green mountains 1/8 223 wylde to be very good. Just wanting to see the premium BA fell in all that.

Been shooting a mix of handloads and FGMM

Can't disagree with your post...

I've got a couple of the premiums.  A grendel and a creed. After they settled in, they are good barrels but it sucked.  I'm talking 100-200 rounds, multiple range trips, multiple cleanings to bare metal, and finally fire lapping bullets.  Both settled after the final finish bullets.  Before they would foul and accuracy would be random and all over the place and you could feel tight spots when running a patch through them.

The creed was the first and it got to 200 rounds before I went to the ff bullets.  I quickly recognized the issues with the grendel and didn't waste as much ammo.  Picked up both on sale for less than half of msrp.  After the cost of ammo and time, a $500 higher end barrel would have been cheaper.

Theres a reason you dont find high end barrels for 50% off.

My government profile BA barrel from them is decently accurate from 3-shot groups at 100 yards. I was getting around .5-.6 with ZQI ammo. Usually I double those numbers for 5 shot groups. I was just zeroing so I didn't do longer strings of fire, yet. With my Hybrid 46 on an ASR FH, it was 2.5-4" groups. Not greatl! I hope to try it next year when my Deadair Sandman-S is out of NFA jail to see if a different can makes a difference. I also need to see if direct thread makes a difference so I removed the FH. I'm happy with it for $124, but I don't expect it to be a solid sub MOA 5-10 shot barrel. It does what I need it to though which is to ring steel out to 500 yards with ease.

Very interesting.  Are they (BA barrels) actually an improvement over the PA-10 stock stainless?  Sounds like a bad grind

The barrels were purchased a year apart.  The creedmore is .75" barrel, sometimes throws .5" groups but rarely ever larger than .75".  The grendel is 1.25-1.5" barrel.  My father built a psa grendel 20" at the same time I built the BA and his is more accurate.  PSA might have kicked their barrel quality up a notch recently.  I've seen several surprisingly accurate PSAs in the last year.

Thanks for the info. Finishing with break in of a PSA 18” 308 currently, hope you are right about barrel quality seems too early for me to draw any conclusions except that Australian F4 ball surplus is not going to be real impressive. GMM looks more promising