Buy a new barrell? Buy a new upper? A barrell assembly? Send it to someone to have them put on a new one?

My current barrell is a used HBAR with a muzzlebreak. It's fine for plinking right now but I'd like to upgrade to a newer barrell w/o a break at some point. All the other barrell assembly parts are new or nearly new.

Thanks

CRC

With a barrel wrench, action block and vise, you can easily swap barrels on your upper receiver.  

In your case, I'd buy a stripped barrel (with a sight tower, if you currently use one) and use your existing handguard cap/delta ring/gas tube.  

Without the above mentioned tools, I'd take it to a smith for the work.  My local smith charges $35 to swap out the parts on an upper.  

Swapping barrels is easy - barrel wrench, torque wrench and a set of retaining ring pliers (for the delta rings). The action block is nice to have - I just have my wife site on the upper to hold it steady while I'm torquing the barrel - I suppose if my wife was larger or not as strong I'd get the action block [:)].

I generally recommend Bushmaster's barrels that run about $200. A complete upper can cost $450 and up.

I have swapped a lot of barrels and I never used a torque wrench (usually I just tighten the barrel nut loosen it (repeat 2 more times) and then I tighten it well past 30ftlbs probably to 60 or so (basically a good hard tug with 2 arms) and then I always find that I need to loosen it to get to a notch that lines up with the gas tube whole in the upper

because at that point it will be obvious to you that there is no way you can tighten it to line up.

[b]You deffinitely need:

1 Barrel Wrench
1 Vise
1 Bushy upper reciever delrin clamp (they work so much better than barrel jaws)
1 snap wring pliers
[/b]

 You're kidding, right?  Please, PLEASE, tell me you're kidding about loosening the barrel nut.

Thanks guys!

I'll start doing my research. I don't have to change my barrell right this second but the break bothers me and the barrell has seen a fair amount of use before me.

CRC