• *The discussion of the creation, fabrication, or modification of airgun moderators is prohibited. The discussion of any "adapters" used to convert an airgun moderator to a firearm silencer will result in immediate termination of the account.*

Barrels and more barrels

Lothar walther, CZ, TJ's, FX - Really barrel liners, BSA, and I'm sure several others, I'm not one to claim expert knowledge on all barrel variations and brands. These are just several respected brands in our hobby. The best? Please, I'm not going to start that nonsense. FX makes several, ever evolving liners that suite their purpose extremely well when tuned well. CZ and TJ are standard steel barrels that perform well with a good amount of different ammo. Lothar walther does exceptionally well with the properly paired ammo, ammo picky , but but very effective when paired properly. While all have strong reputation I find myself always being drawn to CZ. The pellet / slug versatility from a stock barrel draws me in. Now , yes FX wins many contests, I've never shot a TJ barrel platform, but heard strong reviews, otherwise He would not be in business. Lothar walthar is good, but doesn't possess the versatility or projectile friendliness. The polygonal LW and CZ are still unknown to me at this point, but I seriously doubt they suck.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RM.510bigbore
Todd and or his father who own TJ’s was not and is still not anywhere near focused on Airgun liners nor is company based on anything barrel. TJ’s is a Gunsmithing shop primarily focused on powder burners. They are one of few who re-line ( new rifling) worn out powder burners as a part of their business.
 
I’ve owned guns and built barrels to fit guns from all the manufacturers you listed. If I was ordering gun X tomorrow and could pick what barrel came on it, I would pick a CZ. Especially if it was going to stay a pellet gun. Not that a FX liner can’t shoot right with it, but the CZ is just more consistent over the course of a year. My TJ’s will do double duty. Shockingly great with a pellet and great with a bullet once you get things figured out. They are just high maintenance with the bullets that work best in them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RM.510bigbore
While I've used a couple of CZ's and several FX, my main experience has been with LW. The CZ's have been good and have a good reputation. The TJ's I've dealt with have had to be lapped to be remotely useable. Some Fx's have been good for me, some not useable. The LW's have been pretty good across all I've used and are the easiest for me to obtain, so that's what I use mostly .
The Shin Sung, Eun Jin and Sam Yang barrels have been stellar if they were not reduced in diameter anywhere. The bore consistency was probably best on them, overall, but not easy to get.
The 3 Steyr barrels I've used were super consistent and absolutely beautiful inside and accurate with everything that went through them but haven't seen any available for sale plus they were only 16".
My $0.02
Bob
 
The best barrel ever put on a pcp was the old RAW airgun s. They had Benchmark barrels on them...Benchmark is a top notch modern lapped.barrels. They set many records in 22 benchrest.... When I called about a barrel and talk to benchmark barrels.they confirmed they sold barrels before to a airgun company...I think if airgun had better barrels from the best American custom manufacturers accuracy with slugs and cleaning will improve. My Lother Wather .510 Barrel was horrible.... Sideways reamer marks in rifeling.... Took hours of hand lapping..too make useable... I want airgun s to have Benchmark-Krieger-Brux-Hart-Lija- barrels.....real proven performance... Easy cleaning....At $3500 price tagsfor current top tier airgun s a custom quality barrel should be included.....lapped from the factory... Most custom barrel manufacturers lap there barrels after reaming and again after rifeling... Beautiful mirror finishes...
 
Accurate - or - precise , barrels or liners .... what distance you talking about?
The most accurate for 20 meters may not preform well at 50, or become the most useless tube at 100.
Everybody talking this and that, but I have not seen a comparison of multiple barrels at a fixed or multiple fixed distances.
Also, cleaning the barrels must be user friendly as well, sooner or later you need to clean/polish it and how easy or hard is it. If I need to effort myself 30 minutes just to remove it that is also a no bueno.
I have only FX liners but two in .25x700, two in .25x600 and two in .22x600. I have compared these @ 50 and 100 meters shooting a variation of both pellets and slugs.
To judge the accuracy+precision, anybody shall test at the most longest distance the airgun is capable of projecting ... And go with comments from there.
Otherwise we just talking about a tube how pretty is.
Just my thoughts ;) .
 
  • Like
Reactions: rangur1
Accurate - or - precise , barrels or liners .... what distance you talking about?
The most accurate for 20 meters may not preform well at 50, or become the most useless tube at 100.
Everybody talking this and that, but I have not seen a comparison of multiple barrels at a fixed or multiple fixed distances.
Also, cleaning the barrels must be user friendly as well, sooner or later you need to clean/polish it and how easy or hard is it. If I need to effort myself 30 minutes just to remove it that is also a no bueno.
I have only FX liners but two in .25x700, two in .25x600 and two in .22x600. I have compared these @ 50 and 100 meters shooting a variation of both pellets and slugs.
To judge the accuracy+precision, anybody shall test at the most longest distance the airgun is capable of projecting ... And go with comments from there.
Otherwise we just talking about a tube how pretty is.
Just my thoughts ;) .
I’m obviously talking the magical 100 yard benchmark. The standard. No fancy sh$& here. - with respect 😊👍
 
  • Like
Reactions: bigHUN
There is no do-everything barrel. It depends on what caliber, what kind of projectile you plan to use, and what power level you will be shooting at. In .177 caliber, there are many fine barrels used for 10M shooting such as FWB, Steyr, LW, Anschutz and others, but these are shooting at below 12 FPE. Push them at 30 FPE using slugs?? I doubt they would work. Projectile size, weight, shape etc also comes into play. Get where I'm going? Furthermore, barrels from ALL manufacturers vary in quality and dimensional tolerance. I know one gunmaker that buys lets say 100 barrels from one reputable maker and rejects 40 of them. Good luck finding the right marriage.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bigHUN
There is no do-everything barrel. It depends on what caliber, what kind of projectile you plan to use, and what power level you will be shooting at. In .177 caliber, there are many fine barrels used for 10M shooting such as FWB, Steyr, LW, Anschutz and others, but these are shooting at below 12 FPE. Push them at 30 FPE using slugs?? I doubt they would work. Projectile size, weight, shape etc also comes into play. Get where I'm going? Furthermore, barrels from ALL manufacturers vary in quality and dimensional tolerance. I know one gunmaker that buys lets say 100 barrels from one reputable maker and rejects 40 of them. Good luck finding the right marriage.
Oh, most definitely. I should have refined it to HPA for respective calibers, but then I’d not have learned about the steyr or anschutz barrels at low power.