ULUL Stainless/Portless 6x45 16" AR15 Barrel Group Buy NOW CLOSED

[robtattoo]

Can you measure the necks on your fired rounds?

I chased a satern 6x45 chamber with a brand new reamer on my handi stub(which is going to shoot lights out based on early results), and I’m getting .269” on fired neck OD. I’m assuming we cleaned up the entire length of the neck as we had to cut the back of barrel off.

It confirms for me that the “barrel” from satern is good.

I’m curious to see what you have for chamber neck dimension. My reamer print shows .270” for chamber dimension of neck.

My neck diameter is about the same as Jesse's .258 for fresh, sized brass & between .2745 - .2750 in once fired brass (although, now I think about it, I didn't clean those necks before measuring)
Would soot make up 0.005"?

 

[KyleR1985]

My neck diameter is about the same as Jesse's .258 for fresh, sized brass & between .2745 - .2750 in once fired brass (although, now I think about it, I didn't clean those necks before measuring)
Would soot make up 0.005"?

The ones I just measured that went through the handi were .269” not cleaned.

 

[ezwy]

Has anyone shot their barrels? I haven't grouped mine; just sighted it in. I heard from one member who was having a hard time getting his to group - would like any other feedback you all have.

Also, anyone measure freebore?

I find they can be a little finicky. I had put a suppressor on it while hunting and shot it a couple times to re zero. Wasn’t real confident with point of impact so I pulled it out today (and put a different suppressor on it) and shot to sight in and verify accuracy. It seems to like this suppressor better.
2.28 COAL 87 gr v max with 24.2 grains of TAC. Pretty good quick 5 round group.

Will stick with this load til the bottle is gone.

 

[robtattoo]

I find they can be a little finicky. I had put a suppressor on it while hunting and shot it a couple times to re zero. Wasn’t real confident with point of impact so I pulled it out today (and put a different suppressor on it) and shot to sight in and verify accuracy. It seems to like this suppressor better.
2.28 COAL 87 gr v max with 24.2 grains of TAC. Pretty good quick 5 round group.

Will stick with this load til the bottle is gone.

Any idea of your velocity? 24.5 was barely getting me 2450fps......

 

[robtattoo]

Well, I had an old gent I contacted thru a local forum come & help me out with a chamber casting this evening. Sorry, I didn't think to take photos.
I blocked off the barrel extension with clay, leaving easy access to the chamber (he agreed that it was a worthwhile idea) & let him take care of the barrel heating & casting. Left it 15 minutes to set, punched out the cast & left it another 45 minutes to get to the correct dimensions & i gave him the SAAMI specs to compare to.

Good new/bad news:

The chamber is exactly to spec. PHUQ!

That means there's something really screwy going on with my brass. He re-measured 30 different fired cases & I wasn't wrong. Lots of body stretch, lots of neck expansion. Headspace measured perfectly at 3 thousandths.
I've been using commercial Remington .223 brass (which Andrew thinks is probably the problem) I've never used Rem for anything before, but he reckons it's very soft & generally stretches more than the hornady that he prefers.

I really don't know.

I do have a bunch of LC 5.56 that I'm going to try & I just ordered a couple of hundred, 80gr Sierra Blitz (which have good reports) & some CCI 450 primers.

I'm going to try again...... I've never known a barrel be this picky, but it may just be that.

I did send an apology email to Satern, too.

Maybe I just need to reeeeally dial back my shot string timing, not something I've ever had to do before.

 

[ezwy]

Any idea of your velocity? 24.5 was barely getting me 2450fps......

According to my athlon about 2640. Starline once fired brass.

 

[KyleR1985]

Well, I had an old gent I contacted thru a local forum come & help me out with a chamber casting this evening. Sorry, I didn't think to take photos.
I blocked off the barrel extension with clay, leaving easy access to the chamber (he agreed that it was a worthwhile idea) & let him take care of the barrel heating & casting. Left it 15 minutes to set, punched out the cast & left it another 45 minutes to get to the correct dimensions & i gave him the SAAMI specs to compare to.

Good new/bad news:

The chamber is exactly to spec. PHUQ!

That means there's something really screwy going on with my brass. He re-measured 30 different fired cases & I wasn't wrong. Lots of body stretch, lots of neck expansion. Headspace measured perfectly at 3 thousandths.
I've been using commercial Remington .223 brass (which Andrew thinks is probably the problem) I've never used Rem for anything before, but he reckons it's very soft & generally stretches more than the hornady that he prefers.

I really don't know.

I do have a bunch of LC 5.56 that I'm going to try & I just ordered a couple of hundred, 80gr Sierra Blitz (which have good reports) & some CCI 450 primers.

I'm going to try again...... I've never known a barrel be this picky, but it may just be that.

I did send an apology email to Satern, too.

Maybe I just need to reeeeally dial back my shot string timing, not something I've ever had to do before.

What did the neck dimension of the chamber casting measure?

.270” is what it should be. I don’t see how you’re getting .275” fired neck measurements if your chamber neck is in spec.

@ezwy can you measure neck on fired rounds from your barrel?

 

[KyleR1985]

If anyone wants 95tmk’s shoot me a PM

Probably placing another order with Sierra if anyone is interested

 

[ezwy]

Probably placing another order with Sierra if anyone is interested

What are your speeds and COAL with the 95s? Have you shot any critters yet with them?

 

[KyleR1985]

What are your speeds and COAL with the 95s? Have you shot any critters yet with them?

I don’t have much 6x45 data with them yet. Only 6ARC and 6dasher. Two deer with them last year with arc gas gun impact velocity 2400-2500 both bang flops.

Handi stub (using satern barrel with fresh chamber) 19”:

LC brass, cci41, 2.515”, 23.7gr H335: 2550fps(sub moa 3 shot group)

LC brass, cci41, 2.5”, 24gr 8208xbr : 2630fps didn’t group this was just checking velo and pressure

The handi is going to be a 200 and in type gun. So I don’t care about velocity. Honestly, the 6x45 ULUL will be the same for me. But I will push limits for research purposes. I just have to find the time.

I’m all in on the 95tmk as a do it all bullet for my 6mm hunting needs. I have a stash of 87vmax if either 6x45 doesn’t like the 95’s. 108’s hammer in the dasher as well.

 

[robtattoo]

What did the neck dimension of the chamber casting measure?

.270” is what it should be. I don’t see how you’re getting .275” fired neck measurements if your chamber neck is in spec.

@ezwy can you measure neck on fired rounds from your barrel?

Exactly .270. All the chamber measurements matched up with the SAAMI reamer prints to within 0.001

All I can think, with the brass, it's that it's springing open on extraction.

I really, truly have no idea what's going on at this point. All I know for 100% certain, is that the chamber is spot on & I have oddly low velocities compared to book loads.

 

[KyleR1985]

Exactly .270. All the chamber measurements matched up with the SAAMI reamer prints to within 0.001

All I can think, with the brass, it's that it's springing open on extraction.

I really, truly have no idea what's going on at this point. All I know for 100% certain, is that the chamber is spot on & I have oddly low velocities compared to book loads.

That seems really odd. Hopefully the brass change settles it for you. But the result will still eat at me…

 

[ezwy]

Exactly .270. All the chamber measurements matched up with the SAAMI reamer prints to within 0.001

All I can think, with the brass, it's that it's springing open on extraction.

I really, truly have no idea what's going on at this point. All I know for 100% certain, is that the chamber is spot on & I have oddly low velocities compared to book loads.

Might want to check your bolt spec. We went through issues with an x caliber barrel. Sent it back, everything checked out. sent the bolt out of our solo in and x caliber said the bolt was out of spec. (rounds loaded to sami would not chamber and had lands marks) got a rubber city armory bolt from them spec'ed to that barrel and problems went away.....

 

[robtattoo]

Might want to check your bolt spec. We went through issues with an x caliber barrel. Sent it back, everything checked out. sent the bolt out of our solo in and x caliber said the bolt was out of spec. (rounds loaded to sami would not chamber and had lands marks) got a rubber city armory bolt from them spec'ed to that barrel and problems went away.....

Damn.
That's one of those things that I knew, but forgot I even went through the same thing when I built it as a Ham'r.

I'll order up another head.

 

[Jesseb]

I have a fired case here that measures .2735 with accurate micrometer and it drops right into the chamber. Maybe your chamber casting shrunk when cooled?? I know mine is over .270 and it won’t shoot anything even remotely accurate. From what I have seen scouring the net for distance to lands, mine measures a lot longer than anything else I can find indicating longer than Saami freebore. I have been all over the board trying everything I can think of. I am using LC brass and have tried different dies. Last outing was with Redding fls bushing die with .002” neck tension and .004” shoulder bump using Redding competition shell holder(which I have been using the whole time) I will try the 87 vmax load from above but I already tried a load pretty close to it and got 2-2.5” groups. I was only getting 2500fps which does nothing for me. At that point I am better off with my Shaw 223 barrel with 77 tmk @ 2750fps that was shooting between .75 and 1.25” 5 shot groups consistently. And that was with no need to wait for the barrel to cool between shots. I figured they wouldn’t own up to anything on these. At this point I have spent more on wasted components than the barrel cost so I think it is trash bound. Hopefully we can get Shaw to make these moving forward. It will be interesting to see if Satern will help anyone out. I probably won’t waste my time.

 

[KyleR1985]

This is the reamer I have.

It doesn’t say “SAAMI spec”. Also, strangely, in the SAAMI pdf available in their website now, the 6x45 is no longer included. I’ll have to go back through screenshots and see if I can find it.

Either way, loaded ammo is around .265” neck. My fired brass through this reamer’d chamber is .269”.


It may be that the SAAMI spec calls for a larger neck. I don’t know why it would though. My guess is that it doesn’t. What makes me think that is that it would be stupid for PTG to deviate from that spec for what isn’t some super special high performance cartridge.

It would explain low velocity and bad performance.

For what it’s worth, the handi stub with the new chamber from my reamer, IS a Satern barrel. And early returns are that it’s a shooter. I don’t think it’s a barrel issue I think it’s a chamber issue. Unfortunately, if it is a chamber issue, it’s unrecoverable.

 

[Thegman]

Damn.
That's one of those things that I knew, but forgot I even went through the same thing when I built it as a Ham'r.

I'll order up another head.

Since the 6x45 is pretty much handloads exclusively, headspace with the individual bolt is a little bit of moot point. Just size cases so they are just past a slight crush fit. I do that anyway for my bolt rifles as well (or for bolt rifles leave them as a slight crush fit). As long as the brass doesn't need to fit in multiple chambers, it's really not an issue. The issue that can't be addressed as easily is the chamber diameter, other than with neck sizing only, but even that can't help with an oversized neck like @Jesseb seems to have.

 

[Thegman]

Might want to check your bolt spec. We went through issues with an x caliber barrel. Sent it back, everything checked out. sent the bolt out of our solo in and x caliber said the bolt was out of spec. (rounds loaded to sami would not chamber and had lands marks) got a rubber city armory bolt from them spec'ed to that barrel and problems went away.....

AR bolts absolutely vary a little, but this explanation from X-Caliber doesn't quite make sense. If the Solo bolt left too little headspace to chamber a fully sized case, which is possible, the case shoulder would still prevent it from running a bullet into the lands(??). That's almost solely a function of bullet seating depth.

 

[KyleR1985]

My notes from last year when I purchased Satern 6x45 barrel off their website. I made a dummy round with 95tmk. Note the OAL (2.56”, 1.979” cbto)This is what made me want to to build the single shot 6x45. I felt like at that OAL I could get this thing to shoot 2600fps no issue in 16” barrel with that much case capacity.

We built the handi rifle stub, and I fired exactly one round. The case jammed. I won’t bore you with the details, but we had to redo the stub job. It prompted me to buy a reamer, as we had to cut the back end of barrel off to do this. I bought the PTG reamer in this spec.

These are the measurements Bert took when he rebuilt the gun. Note the much shorter OAL and CBTO after the fresh chamber job.

That’s a .040” difference!

I just spoke with Stu at Satern, and he said the Saami spec for neck diameter is .272+-.005”. That struck me as off generally, but it is definitely different from the PTG reamer I have. He noted in that call that they use a PTG reamer.

They’re aware of the issue. There seems to be the standard hesitance and skepticism of a barrel issue you’d expect from a professional barrel making outfit. That said, we have several data points that show dimensional differences between the reamer Satern used, and the reamer I used.

The longer freebore and bigger neck dimension of the chamber may or not be the issue. But they confront another data point - my handi stub did what’s in the last picture…

 

[Thegman]

My notes from last year when I purchased Satern 6x45 barrel off their website. I made a dummy round with 95tmk. Note the OAL (2.56”, 1.979” cbto)This is what made me want to to build the single shot 6x45. I felt like at that OAL I could get this thing to shoot 2600fps no issue in 16” barrel with that much case capacity.

We built the handi rifle stub, and I fired exactly one round. The case jammed. I won’t bore you with the details, but we had to redo the stub job. It prompted me to buy a reamer, as we had to cut the back end of barrel off to do this. I bought the PTG reamer in this spec.

These are the measurements Bert took when he rebuilt the gun. Note the much shorter OAL and CBTO after the fresh chamber job.

That’s a .040” difference!

I just spoke with Stu at Satern, and he said the Saami spec for neck diameter is .272+-.005”. That struck me as off generally, but it is definitely different from the PTG reamer I have. He noted in that call that they use a PTG reamer.

They’re aware of the issue. There seems to be the standard hesitance and skepticism of a barrel issue you’d expect from a professional barrel making outfit. That said, we have several data points that show dimensional differences between the reamer Satern used, and the reamer I used.

The longer freebore and bigger neck dimension of the chamber may or not be the issue. But they confront another data point - my handi stub did what’s in the last picture…




View attachment 954065View attachment 954066View attachment 954067


View attachment 954081

FWIW, PT&G's current drawing of their 6x45 reamer is yours, not something with larger dimensions. Don't know if they made something different for Satern or if there was some other issue with the chambering process if that's the issue.

https://www.pacifictoolandgauge.com/6-x-45mm-6x223-Remington-SAAMI-Chamber-Reamer_p_114481.html