Thread: Grey Birch 10/22 barrel

I wasn't sure it was worth posting up how my experience with the Grey Birch barrel worked out, those who saw my WTB thread some months back will know it wasn't as I hoped. But I've had a couple of members send me PM's to ask about my experience so perhaps it's time to put it up. For someone considering a purchase it's useful to hear the bad as well as the good.

To start, I'd like to say this isn't intended as beat-up on Grey Birch. This is my honest assessment of the single barrel that I got sent; it doesn't mean that people who had different experiences from mine are wrong. Also, Ken at 55Six dealt fairly and made things right when the barrel didn't work out - I have nothing bad to say and I'd buy from him again.

Anyway, this is what I found with the barrel:

Out of the box it looked good at first glance - nice and light, carbon wrap looked great. A couple of sharp edges that could have done with deburring, but that's being picky. In my first post I mentioned that I was intending to fit this barrel to my 77/22 rather than the 10/22 it was designed for - this requires machining the barrel tenon a bit longer, cutting a second extractor slot, and modifying the v-block cut. But then the problems started becoming apparent.

Chamber: I knew before I ordered that these barrels came with a relatively loose 'sporter' chamber. This is a design feature and not a fault, but I did think it an unusual choice by the manufacturer - almost all high-end 10/22 barrels would be 'Bentz' chambered or similar. I overlooked this on the basis of the accuracy assurances by the manufacturer and also because I could easily shorten the chamber on the lathe if needed. I also bought one of the 'blemished barrels' for a substantial discount, which were supposed to have a tool mark in the chamber which was cosmetic only and wouldn't affect performance at all. I checked this directly with Grey Birch at the time of purchase. What I found when I received the barrel was not a tool mark in the chamber, but 3 out of the 8 rifling lands damaged 1/2" ahead of the chamber by the reamer pilot. The chamber itself had been cut eccentric to the bore (you could see the variable lengths of rifling engraving when slugging the chamber) and the damage caused by the pilot raised burrs big enough to shave lead off the bullets I was slugging with. I raised this with Grey Birch, they reiterated that accuracy would be unaffected.

Reamer pilot damage:


Bore: Bore finish was not what I'd consider perfect, but pretty good. Bore dimensions were a problem though - it slugged tight from the start of the chamber to the start of the carbon wrap and then the bullets almost literally fell through the rest of the barrel. I'm talking just under the weight of the short rod I was using. I can make a good guess as to why - Grey Birch are using a button rifled blank and when the turn the barrel down thin forward of the shank in order to carbon wrap it, the bore expands due to stress relief. This was not a good sign for accuracy. I should have abandoned the barrel there, but Grey Birch were sure accuracy would still be <0.5" for 5 shots at 50yds so against my better judgement I continued.

Crown: The crown was horrible, clearly not centred on the bore. I recut a sharp, clean flat crown on the lathe.

Original crown from one side, then the other:


Barrel tenon diameter: This one is not a flaw, just another slightly unusual design decision. The tenon diameter measured bang-on Ruger original spec of 17.395mm diameter. Sounds good, except it's well known that the factory receiver bores generally run oversize and most aftermarket manufacturers oversize their barrels to compensate - Kidd run 17.525mm for instance. This wasn't an issue for me because when I lengthened the barrel tenon I could leave the newly cut section oversize, but it's an unnecessary potential problem on a 10/22.

Muzzle thread: The barrel came threaded 1/2"-28. I clocked it up in the lathe with a DPT suppressor installed and got over 1mm (!) of runout at the suppressor exit relative to the bore. That's enough for baffle strike from the first shot. I confirmed the issue was definitely with the barrel thread and not the suppressor. It was about this time that Grey Birch stopped replying to my emails. I recut the shoulder that the suppressors butts against and there was enough slop in the thread fit to get runout down to 0.2mm, which was good enough.

Accuracy: To summarise - proven accurate rifle (with it's .17hmr barrel). Tried with 2x different scopes (Leupold VX2 2-7x33 and VX3i 4.5-14x40) not that they'd ever given problems before. Tested with RWS Target Rifle, SK Standard+, Eley Subsonic HP, CCI Standard Velocity and a little SK HVHP. Solid rest setup, no wind, seasoned the barrel with each ammo change before shooting groups, stripped and reassembled the rifle making sure it was properly seated in the bedding, tried with suppressor on and off, wasn't parallax. 5 shot groups at 50m ranged from 20.5mm to 34.0mm c-to-c, with the best ammo (RWS) averaging 22.3mm. Claimed performance is <0.5" average for 5-shot groups at 50yds. I took the barrel off and sent it back.

So that's my story - I'm happy to answer any questions and you can draw your own conclusions. Grey Birch were great to deal with to start; informative and helpful. Nearer the end I was offering to pay the cost difference for an 'unblemished' barrel if they would just test and confirm that particular barrel met their accuracy claims before sending it to me. Silence in return.

The barrel in the lathe:


Rifle with barrel installed:


I'm currently waiting for a different barrel from the US. Well overdue unfortunately, but fingers crossed I'll get there in the end.