Grey Birch 10/22 barrel

Anyone tried one of these? Ken at 55six is bringing them in from Canada, they look good but I can find very little online in terms of independent user reviews. Apparently there should be a couple of dozen of these in NZ now, so odds should be reasonable someone on the forum has or knows of one.

I'm looking for a lightweight, short bull barrel in .22lr, and tossing up between one of these and the more expensive Volquartsen/Kidd options. Because the first thing I'm going to do with the new barrel - apart from borescoping and slugging it - is chuck it in the lathe and void the warranty by machining it to fit my 77/22, it would be nice to know more about the odds re. accuracy before I start.

I bought one of the first ones from Ken, picked up the 12.5". I love it. Used it to build a BRN22 with aim of having a handy, lightweight, semi for running subs.

Carbon is laid correctly, and works very well. It's about the same weight or a little lighter than my factory 18" Ruger barrel. I've done a fair bit of ammo testing with it. CCI standard groups at about 0.5" for 5 shots at 50m. CCI Subsonic, and CCI Suppressor were both grouping at or under 0.5" at 50m also.

I've got a couple of mates with the 16" versions, they're having similar experiences.

Hope that helps you!
Cheers,


Attachment 152532

Build details:
- BRN22 Receiver
- Grey Birch 12.5" CF wrapped barrel
- Ruger factory bolt
- Kidd charging handle and tuneable recoil system
- Kidd single-stage trigger
- Magpul Hunter X22
- DPT muzzle forward can
- Usually wears an Aimpoint H1

That definitely helps, thank you. Effective looking rifle you've got there too.

I'm looking at the 12.5" version as well, and if I go ahead and it shoots like you describe I'd have no complaints.

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:
https://i.imgur.com/Sex5PTUh.png

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:
https://i.imgur.com/GTAtxJ2h.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LjY1ivih.jpg

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:
https://i.imgur.com/C0OjpEYh.jpg

Rifle with barrel installed:
https://i.imgur.com/CLuHOOUh.jpg

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

Feel free to PM me re my experience with GB 22LR barrel. Very unsatisfactory. No criticism of Ken.

Appreciate the information - will go the Kidd route if i stick with my 10/22 then

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HandH

Feel free to PM me re my experience with GB 22LR barrel. Very unsatisfactory. No criticism of Ken.

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Is there a reason you feel uncomfortable post your experience? I mean, this is a forum that is meant for this kind of thing and the public is definitely interested in Grey Birch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ultimitsu

Is there a reason you feel uncomfortable post your experience? I mean, this is a forum that is meant for this kind of thing and the public is definitely interested in Grey Birch.

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Okay...here goes. I'm reluctant to post publicly as due to COVID restrictions there hasn't been resolution. So I can only report my experience to date. @PaulNZ 's experience prompted me to make a comment as it is new evidence that that there are more than isolated or random issues with this batch of Grey Birch carbon wrapped 10/22 barrels.
-I started by ordering a blemished 12.5" barrel (April/May). Looked almost identical to the one in the report above - crown off centre, chunks of rifling missing from leade area. Thought of getting it recrowned (thread protector was too tight to get off without risking damage) and trying it out but decided that it didn't make sense to use expensive ammo and range time for something that looked so unpromising.
-Returned it and against my better judgement paid the extra for a 16" 'unblemished' barrel, so total spend $529
-Tested the new barrel (it was a surprisingly loose fit in a couple of Ruger receivers). Here's where it gets subjective - I have recently been playing with maybe half a dozen 10/22s,with a combination of factory and aftermarket components eg Green Mountain barrel, Custom Shop Comp. This GB barrel shot worse than any of my plain jane factory sporter 10/22s, tested alongside on the same day. And I totally accept that my shooting results are highly subjective.
-I borescoped it using my Lyman scope. Once again a subjective impression as I didn't take photos. Of the maybe 30 barrels I've borescoped recently this was simply the worst finished internally. Very shallow rifling with transverse and longitudinal tooling marks. Hard to describe, just looked really unusual. I decided it wasn't worth expending more ammo on trying to 'shoot it in' based on the borescope appearance and my initial accuracy test. I didn't go so far as to slug it.
-Sent it back with a covering letter beginning August. Because the issues were subjective and I'm non-confrontational by nature I left it to the retailer to make a decision and suggested that if he thought my criticism was unreasonable he might find a use for the barrel and make a donation to COLFO with the proceeds.
-The new information is that PaulNZ's very thorough report on one of this batch of barrels suggests that my experience is not isolated or random.
-COVID restrictions have contributed to the retailer not having resolved the issue. Without hearing of the experience of the OP in this thread I likely would have just waited for more time to elapse post lockdown eg to have allowed the retailer to range test the barrel. I have every confidence that in time this will be resolved by our local retailer who I believe is also a victim of Grey Birch's very poor quality control, or indeed systemic production problems. To my knowledge they are no longer marketing these barrels and there was very little review or feedback info on the internet when last I searched. Caveat emptor - my very subjective and inexpert personal experience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HandH

...thread protector was too tight to get off without risking damage...

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As I told @HandH via PM, I'd forgotten that the thread protector was an issue on my barrel as well. I took mine off with vise grips (carefully!) and scraps of leather to avoid scarring it up. Going off memory here, but I think it was pretty clear that the OD was turned while it was installed on the barrel and perhaps the cutting forces over-tightened it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HandH

...decided that it didn't make sense to use expensive ammo and range time for something that looked so unpromising...

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Which shows that your judgement was better than mine :thumbsup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HandH

- Very shallow rifling with transverse and longitudinal tooling marks. Hard to describe, just looked really unusual.

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I found the additional photo below - not very clear, but does it resemble what you saw? This was after I cut a new flat crown for testing. I remember some transverse marking at the muzzle end, perhaps slight chatter of the rifling button (?) during manufacture.

https://i.imgur.com/OUgNZYmh.jpg

Hard to say from the photo, circumferential chatter marks in a buttoned barrel are cosmetically unpleasant and tend to pick up copper (in a centrefire), but don't necessarily affect accuracy (one of my most accurate rifles ever was a Savage 308 bull barrel that had highly visible but uniform chatter marks).
The Grey Mountain had both longitudinal striations and chatter marks, with the lands very 'shallow' and the edge of the lands poorly defined in places.
I shot it first before scoping it because its a truism that 'borescopes can steal one's joy unnecessarily', paramount is how it shoots and secondarily how easily it cleans, borescope appearance is a very distant third in importance. I consciously try not to be a 'borescope geek', but sometimes it can add information re cleaning or occasionally explain some issue that isn't apparent to the naked eye. @Ultimitsu hope we're answering some of the questions..

Yes you have answered them, thanks and very good to know.

These Grey Birch barrels look so damn sexy, I have been fighting the urge of getting one because there was zero review on the net, which to me was a bit of a suspicious for a product that has been around for more than a year. You guys' experience confirmed why. Most people are too polite to say anything when getting a rather poor quality product from a reasonable retailer.

Kidd is the USA is only 200~280 USD, roughly 300~400 NZD. It is crazy that they get such high quality products for so little money. I just dont see how Grey Birch can compete anywhere where Kidd is priced reasonably.

The Kidd bull barrel I’ve ordered is cheaper than the Grey Birch carbon. Yes, not a lightweight but the quality and accuracy should be more predictable..