Looking at Brownell's (on sale) vs straight from Satern.  Huge price difference (Brownells is nearly half the price).  Wondering if there is some difference between the two.... Like maybe the made-for-Brownells barrels are of a lesser quality somehow.

Thanks.

I have a Satern 16inch mid length, 6.5 Grendel, it's a fantastic barrel.

When in doubt call Satern, for the straight scoop.

I would like to know as well.  AA has a 16'' midlength 6.5 barrel and bolt for almost the same price FYI.  I wonder if you could tell a difference in accuracy between the two.

The Barrel Brownell's sells were supposedly from Libery which is a sister company to Satern.  Satern uses 416R cut rifled barrels wheras the Liberty barrels which are rebranded A R Stoner or Brownell's are button rifled.  Satern/Liberty are using a Grende II chamber and not a SAAMI 6.5 Grendel chamber.  The basic difference is the ease in machining the Grendel II chamber and the long free bore which accepts longer heavier bullets (140 grain +) which few 6.5 Grendel shooters use.  I just checked Brownell's web site and they now state the source of their barrels is Satern.  When these barrels were first released Brownell would not disclose their source other than another Iowa Company.  Since Satern is the only company using a Grendel II chamber Brownell's decided to acknowledge their source.

I have two friends who own Brownell's barrels from the first batch which are SAAMI 6.5 Grendel chamber and are good shooters.  Both barrels have short chambers and spike pressures on factory Hornady ammo.  Both predominantly reload so they never bothered sending them back because both shoot really good groups.  There were a lot of these short chamber barrels sold by Midway and Saturn/Liberty probably used an incorrect reamer but their fix was the 6.5 Grendel II chamber.

I have a friend who just bought a Brownell's 18" barrel this week so I'll get to see how his Grendel II chamber shoots.  The only real issue I've seen with the Brownell's barrel is Satern/Liberty uses a larger than needed gas port on the 18" barrels and they are over gassed.   If I were using this barrel for a build I'd use an adjustable gas block.

VASCAR covered it well.

The 6.5 Grendel Satern barrels I have shot with the SAAMI chamber blow away almost every precision bolt gun I've shot.  We're talking 8 round groups into .25 MOA, no BS.

More importantly, shooting them at 700yds on IPSC flagger targets is boringly easy to ring the flag over and over again.

The Liberty barrels are button rifled.

The biggest consideration is the MLGS gas port, which is too larger at .094" on an 18" pipe.  That's simply way too big, should be .076".

I have a fluted Satern 18" MLGS right now with a PRI adjustable block on it to try to tame it down.  It pushes a full weight BCG and rifle buffer back like a raped ape, even with the gas dialed almost all the way down.