2025 Talladega D-Day Matches

Hopefully they'll find a defect & replace it with a good one!

Then all you'd have to do was learn to trust it!

Its rather odd that Lothar Walther says the barrels come 0.01" short chambered and require reaming for headspace.  The throat was lapped beautifully, no reamer marks whatsoever.  Why would you do this if the intent is to run a reamer back into the chamber after installation to get correct headspace; it would destroy the lapped throat?  

Needless to say, I did not put a reamer in that chamber, but I did have to machine about 0.005" off the back of the barrel as the bolt with my shortest bolthead (#1) would not close on the GO gage.  As we all know, the .303 headspaces on the rim, not the case shoulder.  

CBI also says their barrels come 0.01" short chambered but by my measurements it was about 0.055" too long (length of chamber to 0.375" dia. shoulder datum, and length of throat for bullet to contact rifling).  I wonder if they mistakenly added 0.064" minimum headspace to the length of the reamer thinking of a cartridge that headspaces on the shoulder, then ran the reamer in about 0.01" short of that.  I'm just speculating of course, no way of knowing for sure. 

We all know how much shooter skill plays a role in how well a rifle will shoot.  Why should they believe me?   And to be fair to them, I did all that I could to prove it to myself that the barrel was not up to par, including having a friend shoot the rifle off the bench who happens to be a Distinguished Rifleman that made it to the Top 20 shoot off in the Presidents 100 Service Rifle Match at the US Nationals.  

And, this was not my first barrel return from CBI.  I did write a very positive customer review on the CBI No. 4 barrel, might be the only one on their website.  They are probably thinking I hope we don't hear back from that guy again!

Hopefully CBI will be putting out another production run of these barrels, and despite some poor luck on my part, I will buy more of them.