https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2019/02/matt-sandy/the-best-ar-15-barrels-and-makers/?fbclid=IwAR3MvRfLul9J4pqqOkNLXQA23s2ICGPMfc45rvbfb8hwh2q35PK1Kd6RsG8

Pretty much no surprises there...

The only surprise is that OP with all his posts still doesn't know how to hotlink.

Haha

Missed quite a few, but not a bad start.

Glad to see WOA mentioned.

Yes, article missed few, there are a lot of very good barrels available, many more than 10 years ago.
It all depends upon how much you're willing to spend to achieve the accuracy you seek.

Just got an email today from WOA they are now offering several barrels cut from Bartlien blanks.

Nice!  Don’t they use Shilen blanks as well?

Wilson, Shilen, and Krieger.

whoa, that's awesome news

WOA will cut a barrel on any blank you provide but they stated in their email they found the Bartlein blanks to be the highest quality they’ve ever seen.

Krieger

That wasn’t an article, it was a compiled a Google search.

Ding ding. Though I don't think they even googled it. Looks like they went to the old gun safe and said, "hmmm what's in there, that's certainly representative of the broader market and isn't the least bit too small of a sample of what's available to write an article on." TTAG had some serious fail sauce there. Doesn't even touch on some of the best pipes ever to grace an AR (eg Black Hole Weaponry among 50 others) yet includes Lilja who used to be great at bolt action barrels and then wasn't for a long time and apparently has gone into the AR-15 barrel market.

The barrels listed are quality barrels. There are certainly other good barrels out there, but you rarely hear of a dud coming from those manufacturers. WOA barrels are highly regarded in service rifle, even if they are Wilson Arms, Krieger or Bartlein blanks. JP’s are considered to be among the best gas guns built. Bartlein and Krieger barrels....why even question those choices. They are record setting barrels.

I’m not aware of BHW barrels being on many podiums, so how are they “some of the best pipes to ever grace an AR”? I know you are a big fan of BHW barrels, but what do they do? None of the precision shooters I know run them, so I have never tried them. Can you provide a 5x5 to demonstrate their precision?

They do an absolute ton of OEM business. You'd probably never even know you had one of their barrels if you did without pointing it at your eye and even then you'd have to know what you're looking at. At one point OEM's were their primary market. Why deal with prols when you can deal with volume orders. They also changed names to Columnia River Arms un-smoothly and for a long time they didn't even do bolt action barrels. They never did anything straightforwardly the way you might expect. Thus, they're not that widely known, especially on the PRS competition circuit which is a shame.

To my knowledge I'm the only person to have ever done or be currently doing a properly controlled comparison. I have, now, something like 7 of their barrels with 4 on currently active match rifles and the rest on fun guns which I'm still very demanding of. That doesn't even count the ones that were on guns I have since sold/traded or barrels I've since pulled for round count. I've had some done up from blanks and custom chambered with reamers I own and some done entirely by BHW/CRA. I've installed them on a number of other people's guns as well and track results via their match scores. The sample size is admittedly small but the consistency of result is 100%. Not a single bad or super picky barrel. Every one of them has been very easy to find a load for and every one has been able to deliver groups of .75 or under very reliably with just a minimum of load development. Most have been able to deliver .5MOA when conscientiously loaded for. I'm usually done with load dev on their pipes within about 50 rounds. My last 2 barrels made load development something of a PITA because they were so consistently accurate, it was hard to make a choice from among several really solid loads. It's not that their barrels don't have personalities like any other barrel but that those personalities seem very forgiving and I hypothesize that it's because of the polygonal rifling. The two bad ones I've come to be aware of (owned by randos on the web) were handled vigorously and replaced quickly. One of those was replaced surprisingly quickly even though it had been on the gun for 2 years and shot the piss out of. JP didn't like what he saw so he replaced it. I've had pretty extensive dealings with JP because I'm a demanding prick and I have a tendency to go out for non-standard things and to ask them to break into new ground which they've always done for me without hesitation and with great generosity. They even broke out one of their unlisted reamers (which was a very specific setup which most makers would not do for you in a drop-in barrel) to cut a barrel for me at no extra cost and they usually get them to me a week or 2 before they initially say they will.

My current 6mm barrels that I'm doing controlled comparison testing on have been wearing slower in the throats than the Shilen I'm using as a comparison baseline (this is still in testing but the numbers look solid and statistically significant so far).

I didn't pick them as my go-to barrel maker for no reason or unscientifically. My BHW/CRA barrels are mostly on bolt actions but there are some AR's in the pile including the single most accurate one I've ever had the luck to own in 6x45mm. That AR was a scattergun with the prior 5.56x45mm barrel.

What's not to like? Haven't found that answer yet. If I do, you can bet it'll be in my next report.

That article was created specifically to get TTAG a higher page rank when someone googles "Best AR15 Barrel". Nothing wrong with that as long as the content is high quality and educational.

In my opinion it was of poor quality and there are no evaluations of any of the barrels tested. Just Useless Anecdotes. No educational benefit to readers that they cant find on the mfg website.

That's trash gun journalism. Full stop.

Pics of the targets from load development?

Have one that you could spare for testing? I’d like to include them in my precision testing of AR barrels which regrettably I haven’t been able to do a lot of lately. Moving has occupied a lot of my weekends, but I’m getting ready to pick back up on range trips.

Spot on.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-best-ar-15-barrels-and-makers/

Can't say I disagree other than I believe Lilja has been in the AR-15 market for quite some time with their M4 Navy 16", which is identical to their SEAL Recce spec barrel for NWSC Crane back in the day.  They do now offer different chamberings, profiles and barrel lengths for drop-in AR-15 and AR-10 platforms.

Their gold medal Olympic barrels are in Bleiker single shot bolt actions chambered in .22LR as that is the only caliber used in Olympic shooting.  They dominate.

I must admit to a sample size of only one on my M4 Navy 16" "Recce".  With carefully developed handloads (Lapua Match cases, Berger 52gr. FB Target pills, FGMM primers and H4895) it will group consistently sub 1/2 MOA at bench at 100 if I don't screw up behind the trigger.  High 4s sometimes a little better.