BARTLEIN BARRELS CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE

I’ve had nothing but great interactions and experiences with Bartlein. They have always been really quick to reply and very helpful. They also make some Amazing barrels.
 
justin davis said:
I’ve had nothing but great interactions and experiences with Bartlein. They have always been really quick to reply and very helpful. They also make some Amazing barrels.
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Same for me as well.

For years Hart and Krieger were my "go to" barrels of choice I've used and have a few others that have been very good but Hart and Krieger were my go to barrels. Bartlein, from everything I've heard/read sounded like they made extremely good barrels as well and I was reading more and more posts from Frank Green W/Bartlein barrel company and he always seemed to give great information regarding a variety of different things shooting world related, not just about barrels. I was curious about something so I reached out to Frank on a random question a few years ago and me being me that one question turned into many and Frank was always more than willing to discuss things with me and I'd never so much as bought a single thing from Bartlein.

Some of the things I've discussed with Frank have been the use of DE's +P throat design of which I have numerous rifles with it. Shawn and Bob are close personal friends and do nearly all my builds. Would I +P everything, probably not but that doesn't mean I won't continue to have Shawn and Bob +P certain builds in the future and I've hot rodded enough stuff over the years to know pretty much anytime you do anything to increase the performance on something I assume all risk. Regardless of if that risk is small or large, it's on me.

I still consider Hart and Krieger two of my "go to" barrels of choice but 100% because of Frank Green I gave his barrels a try and now have three Bartlein barrels and I've added them to my short list of go to barrels.
 
I can imagine the call with customer service was interesting.

I spun up a 10 twist 2b and it shot awful. I called and spoke with one of the techs and was told that I would need at least a 9 twist to spin a 215 berger. I spun up 3 300's the same week....all 10tw and shot great....except this one. So I just said, "interesting" and hung up. I grabbed another 2b and spun it up and what do you know, shoots a 225eldm like a champ to way farther than most will believe.
 
Frank Green said:
Also lets look at 6.5PRC.... ammo makers have burned up barrels in as little as 400 rounds..... the longest ones last about 900 rounds. That's standard S.S. So lets say an average of 650 rounds for barrel life. Dave here in the shop one of his rifles is in 6.5PRC for PRS. With the BB material at about 900+ rounds he had one bullet failure. He asked me to look at the barrel and for my thoughts. I said the lands at the throat don't look bad but the carbon fouling is bad. Clean it real good (Dave does know how to clean). I looked at it again. I said nope.... either clean it again or give it a light finish lap. So he did the latter. Took about 90% of the carbon fouling out. Barrel shot with no issues with no bullet failures but at just shy of 1200 rounds he pulled the barrel. He knows he is on borrowed time. So based on the average for a standard SS barrel you could say Dave's barrel went a good 1/3 to double the life longer. I'll be conservative and say a 1/3 longer.

Some of these chambers/rounds being used there is no free lunch.

Some guys think because it's suppose to last longer that that translates into "I don't have to clean it as much!". No you still have to clean it.

Later, Frank
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Last i looked the 6.5 prc was within about 1 grain h20 capacity of a 6.5x284. Is that the same barrel life you've seen with 6.5x284s and if not what would you attribute that to?
 
Frank Green said:
To the owner of the barrel and to reply to this as it has been bothering me.

What the owner told us either by writing or on the phone etc... about round count, or it being dirty etc... we never in any replies that I know of called him word for word a "LIAR". What we see and what he tells us possibly doesn't make sense etc...and we can disagree with what we see but never used the word LIAR.

If he has an email and shows it to me where Brady called him and used the word LIAR I'll beat Brady with a nightstick. I even talked to Brady this morning and asked him when you talked on the phone if you did besides email did you ever use that word? Brady told me no. Again if Brady did.... I'll beat him myself.

Put that all aside....

By the time I was fully involved we had already said we where not going to warranty the barrel. Then at the end I did offer on for 50% off but we cannot be on the hook for stuff like this. The final call was my decision. I tried to help I tried to meet half way regardless if we disagree or agree on things. My offer was turned down.

I'll leave the offer of 50% open to the owner of the barrel and won't change my mind/go back on it. The ball is in his court.

Later, Frank

PS.... Back to +P chambers.... standard ss barrels or the 400modBB steel etc... we've seen issues with the +P chambers. I'm done with the +P chambers. The designer of the +P chambers with out any hard testing data to support anything that I'm aware of and until that happens.....If there is a problem with the barrel.... maybe he should in the future cover any warranty issues for customers. I don't see that happening though.
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No one used the word "liar". My point was that I felt this was strongly implied based on the kind of verbiage I received below and the entire tone of the exchange...

”you cooked it to death even at your claimed rate of fire"
 
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Frank Green said:
Here is some other data and this relates to 277SF and 80k psi pressure....

The steel case head/two piece case design and running the rounds at 80k psi.... the 400modBB material has stood up better vs standard s.s. or c.m. barrels to the chambers getting rings in them where that steel/brass shoulder junction is. I've got pictures with measurements where that ring starts to show at like a 110 rounds. By 500+ rounds that ring is about a .001" deep and by 700+ rounds the ring had grown to almost .002" and extraction issues where starting to happen.

Also lets look at 6.5PRC.... ammo makers have burned up barrels in as little as 400 rounds..... the longest ones last about 900 rounds. That's standard S.S. So lets say an average of 650 rounds for barrel life. Dave here in the shop one of his rifles is in 6.5PRC for PRS. With the BB material at about 900+ rounds he had one bullet failure. He asked me to look at the barrel and for my thoughts. I said the lands at the throat don't look bad but the carbon fouling is bad. Clean it real good (Dave does know how to clean). I looked at it again. I said nope.... either clean it again or give it a light finish lap. So he did the latter. Took about 90% of the carbon fouling out. Barrel shot with no issues with no bullet failures but at just shy of 1200 rounds he pulled the barrel. He knows he is on borrowed time. So based on the average for a standard SS barrel you could say Dave's barrel went a good 1/3 to double the life longer. I'll be conservative and say a 1/3 longer.

Some of these chambers/rounds being used there is no free lunch.

Some guys think because it's suppose to last longer that that translates into "I don't have to clean it as much!". No you still have to clean it.

Later, Frank
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What is your recommended cleaning method?
And do you recommend breaking in a standard stainless bartlien?? Of so what do you recommend?
 
Megalodon said:
Everyone’s kinda dancing around it, but I’ll just come out and say it. OP you’re acting like a damn baby.
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Oh get over yourself. There was every opportunity given for this to be handled properly and when it wasn't, I shared my experience in this format. Guess what? At least now I've got my old barrel headed home for some needed measurements. You know what they say about opinions...
 
This barrel was put to use operating at the very extremes, with the first thing done to it being the removal of 50% of its throat with the objective of being able to run so much pressure that - had that not been done - it may have experienced failure. Then its life was set to be used shooting a super hot load of a barrel burning powder out of a case with a large powder capacity.

It should be clear that what you are doing is experimental, pioneering new data with chambers that I have yet to hear an eek of any hard testing on. You are in the pay-to-play realm and to ask for a barrel or action maker to pay for early failure is to ask them to pay your R&D costs.

If your other barrel(s) lasted longer, were they shooting the same exact load, or did you change something? Otherwise it isn’t comparable.

As to ‘claimed rate of fire’ being insulting, it’s an accurate statement to use and I don’t see it as an insult. That’s exactly what it is. Unless you actually timed your rate of fire, it’s just a claim, and not necessarily an inaccurate one, it’s just unsubstantiated beyond mental timekeeping if a timer wasn’t used.
 
UpSideDown said:
This barrel was put to use operating at the very extremes, with the first thing done to it being the removal of 50% of its throat with the objective of being able to run so much pressure that - had that not been done - it may have experienced failure. Then its life was set to be used shooting a super hot load of a barrel burning powder out of a case with a large powder capacity.

It should be clear that what you are doing is experimental, pioneering new data with chambers that I have yet to hear an eek of any hard testing on. You are in the pay-to-play realm and to ask for a barrel or action maker to pay for early failure is to ask them to pay your R&D costs.

If your other barrel(s) lasted longer, were they shooting the same exact load, or did you change something? Otherwise it isn’t comparable.

As to ‘claimed rate of fire’ being insulting, it’s an accurate statement to use and I don’t see it as an insult. That’s exactly what it is. Unless you actually timed your rate of fire, it’s just a claim, and not necessarily an inaccurate one, it’s just unsubstantiated beyond mental timekeeping if a timer wasn’t used.
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There's nothing about this that was new or "experimental". The +P design from Defensive Edge that we are talking about has been around for a long time now. They continue to chamber lots of rifles with this option. Recently, Unknown Munitions has started offering the same design as an optional service in their gun builds or as a separate addition to an existing chamber.

If the +P was so detrimental to throat life, no gun builder would get near it with a ten foot pole. I continue to maintain that this was NOT caused by the +P throat although that seems to be the easy scape goat for many. I'll say it again...if the +P was the weak point and to blame for this, one could expect that section of throat to go away and then the erosion to slow down significantly afterwards. This DID NOT HAPPEN. It only sped up significantly with a freebore length of roughly 1.75" when I pulled it... this is well beyond the +P area of the throat. Metallurgy
 
Tumbleweed said:
No one used the word "liar". My point was that I felt this was strongly implied based on the kind of verbiage I received below and the entire tone of the exchange...

”you cooked it to death even at your claimed rate of fire"
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Boy, if that verbiage is enough to set you off like that then you might need to thicken that skin up a bit.
 
I’m with the OP on this one. I like Bartlein barrels and have had dozens of them (including some bad ones), but they have a history of not accepting responsibility when there’s an issue. Look at the guy a page or two back that they blamed it not stabilizing a 215 Berger because of his choice of a 10 twist and said it needed a 9 as a prime example. Berger states 10 twist and there’s not a damn sole on this planet that knows more about bullet stability than Bryan Litz.
 
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