So I heard Frank White is retired and his son now runs the business . Any feedback on the son's work? What about wait times? He lists 12 week wait on non stocked barrels, but am hearing some people are at 5+ months and counting after CLE received their blanks.

Bought a complete upper from them about 7-8 months ago.  Shooting factory ammo (mostly IMI 77gr) I'm generally getting MOA or slightly better 5 shot groups at 100 yards.  And I'm not a spectacular bench rest shooter.  Others could do better.  I think wait time was around 4-6 weeks.  Certainly wasn't 5 months.

If you are looking for something that's going to give you outstanding out of the box accuracy I think it's pretty tough to beat CLE or WOA, although there are certainly a couple of other alternatives, as well.  If you are looking to just buy a barrel you unfortunately missed WOA sale by a couple of days.

Your upper was built to order, not in stock off the CLE shelf?

I am looking at a full custom barrel (beyond chambering and profiling), not that it should matter in regards to who finishes the blank but after a 18 month wait for the blank, another 5 + month wait (when advertised as 12 weeks) is a bit crazy, especially with a relatively unknown finisher (Frank White's son). I may just go with WOA at this point since Hollinger's work is known and proven. Sucks when things get switched up. There is no question or doubt about Mr. Frank White's work, but his son unfortunately isn't him. Too often I've seen legendary companies become not so legendary when ownership changes hands, either being sold or passed down to family.

Sorry, should have clarified.  Upper was not "in stock" when I ordered it, but it was one of their "stock" offerings, so not custom.  18" Krieger barrel, 1/7 twist, wylde chamber.

When you say custom do you mean based on a blank from some company other than the 4 mfg.'s they offer?  Unique caliber?  Unique barrel profile or twist rate?  Sorry, I'm a little confused.

But again, I wouldn't worry about the underlying accuracy, at least based on a sample of 1.

Copy that, excellent!

The blank is a .223 Bartlein, custom spec'd gain twist rate, custom spec'd land height and groove depth etc.

The finished barrel will be BAT Machine oversized barrel extension fit to upper, CLE chamber, custom profile, fluting, non standard muzzle threading and nitrided after "break in" etc. The upper will then be built and tuned by one of the best imo.

This will be a very expensive barrel/upper, by far my most expensive and after an 18 month wait on the blank (that's like waiting on two kids to be born lol), I need to be sure the barrel is finished right. If Frank White was on the job, I wouldn't even give it a thought; not sure about the son and even less sure if the wait is going to be 2x longer than the advertised 12 weeks with no communication (what I hear from some people at 5+ months of waiting on CLE).

Dang it Frank why did you have to retire! Lol

I had one done this year and it shot better than the one I did 7-8 years ago.   Old was a Douglas SPR new was a Bartlien
   Pretty sure the son spent more than a few days training and that we will be in good hands  Chances are many of us have been shooting barrels that Frank didn’t touch for years.  

  Anyway plus 1 from me
I forget my exact quote but it was on time/ early because it came before my calendar reminder when off.  I think maybe 8-10 weeks when I bought it.

Nice! Joe Carlos sold me two of his gain twist, non standard bore & groove Bartlein barrels. I didn't wait 18 months, but I have to say that those guns shoot amazingly well. Shot a few cleans at 600 yards with 90 Sierras & 80.5 Bergers. Hoping to shoot a few more cleans at 600 next season.

If I was going to put money on it, I think Joe uses CLE to chamber his barrels. That being said If you want to save some time and money on your next barrel, get one of the Bison 6.5 twist barrels. One of my shooting buddys here shot at 198-11X at 600 yards. I think they are our new go-to barrels since three of us have purchased six of them. The WOA barrels have a little better interior finish, but the Bison barrels shoot just fine.

I just heard from another guy that is at over a year wait and counting for finishing since CLE has had his blank in hand, with no comms from CLE. I see they still do have time to post to facebook though

I called them twice recently, a nice lady answered the phone both times within a few rings...

+1 for the Bison Armory 6.5 twist barrels. We shoot with Ben from Bison. He set my kid up with a left hand service rifle upper and she is really drilling targets with it. Started as a Marksman and now is a Master flirting with HM scores at 15 yo. Ben’s barrels can shoot.

My only dealing with CLE was maybe 5+ years ago with a SAM-R build.  When I check a couple years ago re: 6.5CM, they responded, but wanted me to consider a different caliber because they were experienced in it.  They were pushing 5.56 wildcat (I think it was Valkyrie, or something) & I really wanted 6.5CM, so I went elsewhere.

Not recent, but I thought it was odd that several emails pushing something I clearly stated I wasn’t interested in & the “hurry up & put a deposit to get in line” email wasn’t at all what I experienced with my SAM-R build, where some older gentleman called me, we spoke for 15-20’ about the goal of the build & within 2 months I had my upper.

Maybe my first interaction was the aberration.

The gentleman I spoke with had the barrel sent to CLE for finishing by his gunsmith (one of the best in the service rifle business and well known) who will then build and tune the upper. His gunsmith has not received any response after multiple emails and I don't think the customer wants to overstep his gunsmith by calling, which is understandable imo. It is also likely that CLE has no idea who the end user of the barrel will be (being that the gunsmith orders the work, pays CLE, and hopefully receives the finished barrel back to build) and may be hesitant to answer order status questions to a third party. In other words, the barrel is likely under the gunsmiths name/account. Bottom line though..just be upfront about production time, better yet under promise and over deliver by quoting longer than it will actually take..and don't post bs on facebook, instagram etc., but ignore emails from customers/gunsmiths who have been waiting 8+ months beyond CLE'S own advertised lead times. If their work is at the same level as Mr. Frank's and they are upfront, then a long wait is not an issue for many.




Interesting, but not surprising..

I believe Mr. Frank White retired in 2020, that's who you likely dealt with on the SAM-R build. CLE is basically an unknown at this point since Mr. Frank was the one who built their previously excellent reputation and is now no longer in the picture. Unfortunately the son is not the father and he will have to build his own track record.

CLE's employees didn't retire when Frank did. I would be surprised if Frank White didn't still show up "at work" from time to time.

100% this...

If the employees are the same the product will be the same.

I ordered a full custom Bartlein .223 in ~2018 (with a BAT oversized barrel extension like the poster above) and also a pair of 300 BLK barrels with in house barrel extensions in ~ late 2019 (from a Bartlein blank I sent them) I requested to have the port sit between lands and grooves and not cross them on all barrels. They were also hesitant about a short barrel  300 BLK because they had only done slower twist 16" carbine gas port barrels at that time and could not reccomend a 300 BLK port size for pistol gas. The 300 BLK gas ports I selected were 0.100" so I could ensure function and tune with an adjustable gas block. While the .223 barrel port was dead between the lands, the 300 BLK barrels were both overlapping a land slightly... they would not have been if the port was as small as the .223 barrel. Frank White did not drill the ports. They also had changed barrel extension suppliers and BAT was not making oversized extensions at the time, so I used their in-house extensions. Still shot sub MOA on the 300 BLK barrels.

I felt like the employee working on those 300 BLK barrels did not have quite the attention to detail or skill as the first barrel, but would still use them for custom barrels. It did not matter to the function of the finished product in the end and they were honest about the lack of experience with my barrel caliber / length.

You have to remember, if they screw up a blank that you requested a particular profile, gas port, or whatever, using a stocked blank, they can have anyone do work on it and just use the next identical blank if they forget something or screw something up. If you provide a rare one-off blank, like a gain twist barrel, they only get one chance. They will wait until the best employee has the time to do any work on your "special" barrel, and can't just try again if they accidentally thread it 1/2×28 instead of 5/8×24 or whatever.  If that best employee took a week long vacation and someone quit while they were gone, a normal 12 week lead time can easily become a 16-24 week lead time.

Management change issues are usually manifested in longer delays due to mishandling supply chain items and poor customer service. Those usually happen when a new owner buys a company, not when someone already there takes over. Employees that do the actual work at larger shops are usually what determines if the finished product is up to par, unless the new management changes the supplier of blanks or other components just to save money.

When it comes to custom barrels, I find it best to think of them like NFA purchases... just forget about them until you hear they are ready... then it is like Christmas when they are ready instead of having an agonizing wait.

I dug through my emails—Frank was who I dealt with & spoke to.

I'm gonna ad that I went by CLE a couple of years ago when I had a question or two about buying one of their barrels.  I looked up their address because I knew that I was going on vacation to Panama City Beach, FL and thought that I recalled that they were somewhere in Florida.  To my amazement, they were only located about 45 minutes or so from where we were going on vacation.  Using Google maps, I went to their business.  If I recall correctly, there were about three white cinder block buildings at the address.  Not really having a sign or anything saying "front door or enter here", I decided to just walk into the nearest building to where I had parked.  The one that I happened to walk into was the machine shop area where there was maybe a couple of guys obviously running various machines to machine barrels.  Realizing that I had walked into the wrong build and asking where the entrance was, I was informed it was next building over.  Going next door, I saw Frank and a woman (wife, secretary, etc.) both on the phone.  I thank Frank hang up first, so I preceded to ask him the couple of questions that I had with purchasing a barrel from them.  I then noticed that one of the guys from the first building brought a couple of barrels over to the building that I was talking to Frank in.  I'm not sure exactly what they were going to do with the barrels, but it looked like the barrels were to be shipped out and I can maybe assume Frank hasn't been doing "all of the machine work" there for at least a couple of years.  I'm just saying that since Frank has retired, there may not have been any changes made in quality.  I guess it will be determined over time however.

Just received one of the 16" ar15 barrels CLE was having a sale on.  Fast shipping.  I used it to replace a old crome lined stag barrel that I didn't like.

Took the new barreled upper out today and it grouped well after a few break in shots.  

The rifle now shoots very well on steel half silhouettes out to 400 yards using Hornady 75's.

I have a 2012 stamped CLE barrel on a different AR and they both shoot equally awesome.

3.5 months or so for a Douglas mk12.

Frank is missed.  I know that Paul and Frank's son and daughter in law are doing their best.  It is hard to get ahold of them.

I ordered one of their ready to ship Douglas 16" SS uppers 2 weeks ago.  Ordered on Saturday and it showed up at my door that Thursday.  I haven't got to shoot it yet but it sure looks like a quality upper.

Frank’s son is Conrad. He worked for his father prior to going into the army. After his tour in the sandbox he was up for orders. Due to his prior experience in service rifles, both shooting and building them he went to the AMU.  When Frank decided to retire Conrad decided to get out of the service and take over the business.

I hope this helps

Dan