I have a 20" Armalite A4 upper with a HBAR profile the entire length, and would like to lighten it up.  New barrels are expensive and scarce on the ground, so I'm thinking about having it lightened.

I don't really care a lot about the appearance issues - the blinginess of dimpling vs fluting, for instance.  I want to get the weight down without messing up the stress relief or other major effects on accuracy, and don't want to spend a ton of money.

What are the pros and cons of these techniques?

The barrel in question:

Well, unless you do it yourself it's not going to be much cheaper if any than finding a gov profile barrell floating around. Granted finding one without the taper pin holes etc would add to your cost of a new barrel as if you aren't going to do it yourself.


Last time I priced it out on Adco anyway, but that was a while ago.


My vote is, if you are going to get it lightened, go full on and have it reprofiled, you can shave a ton of weight off that.

Find a local machine shop an have them turn it down . A little trim under the handguards knocked almost a pound off this varmint barrel.

Reprofile it is, assuming I can't find a decent finished barrel in stock somewhere.  I'm OK with a lot of upper work, but not so confident about pinning a FSB, so reprofiling is definitely cheaper for now.

I've got another barrel job in the queue for a P&W, so maybe the market will loosen up by the time that one's done.  If not, it's off to Adco!