I've noticed a lot of guys have a fetish about these.  Personally I think that a good ChromeMoly 4140/4150 is better.  If you brake in a barrel correctly and maintain it right you should have any problems. It's also been my experience that chrome plating isn't even throughout the barrel worsening accuracy.
Any one else have any thoughts????

Better how?  Cheaper? Probably.  More accurate?  Possibly - as long as it's a high quality unlined barrel, and your shooting skills are already 1/4MOA to notice a possible difference.

From my perspective, a chrome lined barrel ensures a decent level of quality control went into the barrel, since really cheap barrel makers don't chrome line because of the extra cost, and a cheap unlined barrel is likely to be less accurate than any chrome lined barrel.

In the mid range, chrome lined and unlined barrels will cost about the same, and there may be a slight improvement in accuracy with a mid grade unlined barrel over a chrome lined barrel of similar cost.

For really top-end accuracy, you are correct that unless very carefully (and expensively) done, the chrome deposition will be uneven, and gives an edge in accuracy to a unlined match barrel.  It's certainly possible to make a chrome lined barrel every bit as accurate as an air gauged unlined match barrel, but it would be more expensive than the unlined match barrel at that point, and a match shooter's needs don't require the chrome lining and wouldn't justify the cost of a 'match quality' chrome lining job.

The FN SPR has a match grade 1/8 MOA chrome lined barrel, so it can be done.

In fact the SPR barrel is an M240 machinegun barrel.  Many people here get sub MOA accuracy from their chrome lined barrels.  How much accuracy do you need?

"This ain't benchrest."

-- Chuck

You want to be accrute? get a damn bolt gun. An AR15 is a combat rifle and needs to be chromed period.

Do you think I care about 1/2" at 300 yards? All I want is the other guy to die..before he gets me, and if I am in the jungle and the POS unlined barrel starts to rust, what hell am I going to do? Go chrome or go home.

The only reason I own guns is to make sure that some ass hole never has the chance to make me or my family a slave. Not to go f--king duck hunting.

That's interesting.  Got a link with info on this?

Just Email FN they will confirm the SPR barrel is made from the M240 barrel blanks.

Boom, that is the quote of the day.  Can I steal it for my sig line?  I'm serious.

Yea, this is a classic. good one!

Up until Saturday night, I would have agreed with you.  

Saturday night I cleaned three ARs two not chrome and one chrome.  

After tugging and pulling on the first two, the chrome was a breeze!

That made up my mind.

"SPR had an actual M240 barrel"

[b]Ar-15 SPR or FN Special Police Rifle?[/b]

The M240 blank I can believe but an actual 240 barrel is .762NATO chambered and would never work in an AR-15.

That is interesting all the info I found pointed to Douglas Chrome Moly and Krieger SS barrels.

The M240B is accurate- I can see the blanks being a posibility- I only fired one that wasn't zeored to me once and I was hitting 600M targets using Kentucky Windage with a 3 round burst.  Someone asked me what I thought-  "A beltfed sniper rifle" was my reply.

I was really impressed with the M240B

[b]But to address accuracy issues:

FN Special police Rifles have Chromed bores and shoot 1/3MOA in many cases- so chrome doesn't mean innaccurate but it seems to be synonymous with this on the US ar-15 market-- I'ld like someone to make a guaranteed accurate barrel with chrome lining. IE Chrome lined 14.5 with 1MOA guarantee[/b]

First off, you would [b]BREAK[/b] in a barrel, not BRAKE it in.


I'm sure you are right.  They probably just chrome barrels for the hell of it.  No use at all.

I'm lazy and just like to shoot - not clean.  I've got a Bushmaster Varminter that I'm still in the break-in mode (show me the evidence that I have to, I'm not convinced, but break-in it shall be for this very accurate gun) and a Colt MT6400C that I just shoot and shoot.  All I do is a quick clean after shooting - couldn't be easier.  So guess which one I shoot all the time?

"Non-lined is more accurate" is what you'll hear from the guys who are too cheap to have their barrels lined.  In a purely theoretical sense, unlined has a higher potential, but only the best match-grade barrels from Krieger, Douglas, et. al. will approach that.

In order from most-accurate to least-accurate would be:
Unlined match grade barrel (Krieger/Douglas/Lija/...)
Lined barrel from quality maker (Bushmaster/Colt/Armalite/...)
Unlined barrel from 2nd tier makers

And 90%+ of shooters couldn't tell the difference between the three.

Is this in the context of never firing full auto?

My "brake" in on my 11.5" Bushy barrel with 3 30 round bursts.  Before things got cool enough to touch I was able to shoot 5 rounds into 2" at 100 yards.  Is that accurate enough for Q3131A and a real long mushy trigger pull?

On a semi-only range queen I'd say don't waste the money on chrome lining.  On anything else it's just one more bit of cheap insurance.  It also lasts almost twice as long under hard use.

In responding to this I feel like one of those machines where someone puts in a quarter, presses play and the same old song comes out.

Thanks for clarifying.