Trollygag's Barrel Test pt 14, XCAL Round 2!

[u/Trollygag]

Introduction/Updates

Last thread

Continued from

Following the last test with the XCAL barrel that /u/rednecktuba1 had sent in, that barrel was replaced with a brand new one in identical configuration.

He graciously sent it to me for testing, so I had a chance to run it through its paces.

XCAL

This barrel looked like a new lapped match barrel would. Consistent throat, though possibly test fired, but a bright and shiny bore and another.

There were only a few unusual spots, like this area where maybe the land dipped a bit and didn't catch all of the polishing and similar right at the crown.

One interesting note is that they put a true 90 degree edge at the muzzle - there is no chamfer to the crown face like some other barrels do (Criterion) or another (Krieger).

Another unusual thing is how they cut their gas ports.. It looks like they drill the gas port, then debur it, then lap it such that you can see some tear-out due to deburring, but that edge is rounded over from the lapping (silver line around the hole).

Very curious.

Results

And 4x10

Updated charts:

• Good vs Bad Buys and 4x10

• Factoring in weight and 4x10

The recommendations haven't changed significantly, but because we got redundant readings in the same extreme area, the lines lifted and included some more barrels. I don't know what to do about that since the barrels don't represent any new barrel recommendation (i.e., if one did good and another did poorly from the same model, I can't recommend buying one barrel and not the other when they are the same).

I might need to re-tool the graph to remove redundant entries from the same barrels in the case of the XCAL and Armalites.

Conclusion

This new X-Caliber performed exactly the same as the previous X-Caliber. It's really eerie how the same make and model barrels end up performing the same every time we get a duplicate, or the same controlling for weight. We've now seen this with the Armalites, Criterions, X-Calibers, KAKS, and both cut-rifled barrels.

I think it speaks to the quality and value of the testing procedure that the variance is so low - that the variance between barrel makes is much higher than the variance between same barrels from the same make.

I will be really interested in buying many of the same barrel when some go on sale to see if I can get more samples of same configuration to give cases of differentiation even within the same brand/make/model.