Short throated Satern barrels

[Bobke]

[grayfox]

No experience there. But IMO, sell those 2 and buy a barrel you don't have to fiddle with. Criterion, Lilja, JP, Larue, Ballistic Advantage... even the Group buy green mtn's, or a factory faxon... lots of good barrels to choose from without having to correct mistakes from the git-go.
Life's too short to mess with fixing someone else's boo-boo.

edit: I just went through a barrel with problems, and then a lower with problems, same build... dumped 'em both for stated reasons. The lower, the mfr is going to make it right for me, the barrel.... well, chalked up to experience.

[Bobke]

[37L1]

Do a Google check of Satern short throated barrels. It was a mistake and they sucked at doing right by their customers.

I'll never own another one of their products.

[LR1955]

Don’t think they’re anyone’s mistakes-I think Satern adheres to an original chamber spec that is tight...really tight. I have AA, JP, Lilja and Bartlein barrel’s, and they all shoot-maybe with the exception of the older AA barrel. The Saterns are both cut rifled, 24” is a fast barrel, and haven’t chrono’d the 20” yet, but both very accurate, just not a very forgiving chamber, as it sits. I have no issue with cost of reamer, nor the time to do it right myself, just want to come away from the experience smarter, and not screwing up two very good barrels. May be the AA barrel is the subject of first pass, once I have reamer in hand from Manson. And hoping someone can lend their own experience to this project from having been down this path.

Bobke:

Original spec barrels were not tight at all. Alexander wanted the chambers cut so a variety of Grendel cartridges could be shot while maintaining a consistent level of accuracy and reliability. Not necessarily top end accuracy but very consistently good across a spectrum of ogives and cartridge OAL's. More like a service grade chamber as opposed to a match grade. How he designed the throat was the key. It is not a straight taper but rather somewhat stepped so a huge variety of bullets (ogives) would work without having to tamper with seating depth. The result was a very reliable chamber design that was robust enough to take differences in brass dimensions and bullet lengths / ogives while still functioning and shooting well.

The problem with a bunch of Satern barrels was they didn't adhere to the original chamber and were short throated. A bunch of guys had some bad times trying to get Satern to respond. That was a couple of years ago.

You should not have to buy a reamer to do what Satern should have done before they sold you the barrel. My bet is the chamber is not of the original specs outlined by Alexander. I also think your finishing reaming will end up just fine, too.

LR55

[Bobke]

[VASCAR2]

One problem is Satern has released cut rifled SAAMI spec 6.5 Grendel chambers and Satern Liberty button rifled barrels with SAAMI 6.5 Grendel chamber and more recently Grendel II tapered throat chamber. If your not sure which chamber you’ve got it might be wise to do the chamber cast with Cerrosafe.

A Grendel II chamber should be stamped 6.5 Grendel II. A SAAMI spec chambered barrel should be marked 6.5 Grendel. I read where Satern would chamber their cut rifled barrels for SAAMI Spec 6.5 Grendel or Grendel II depending on customer’s choice.

https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/barrel-tools/barrel-chamfering-accessories/cerrosafe-chamber-casting-alloy-prod384.aspx

[Bobke]

Just looked at receipt from 6/2017 and shows SAAMI spec.

[mdewitt71]

I have a 18" Satern barrel marked Grendel II and it shoots lights out for sure (under MOA out to 500 If I do my part),
no issue with short throat with factory or hand loads.

[Bobke]

Would a G2 finish reamer clean up a SAAMI spec chamber, or would I be better off with one that just lightly cleans up restriction in throat, given I have a properly headspaced bolt? Did explain issue to Clyde at Manson, and did send off 4 dummy rounds yesterday, and will see what his advice is, but was looking for someone here who made the adjustment and what the results yielded. Appreciate the continuing responses.

[LR1955]

LR-appreciate your thorough reply. Short of a chamber cast, not sure how I determine chamber dimensions, though fired cases give only cursory data. Would you think that a minor cut to eliminate the restriction in throat, if done by hand and slowly with a piloted reamer, would mitigate issue? Don’t want to go fight with Satern over it, as they don’t appear to be cooperative, and like to be able to handle things of this nature myself, if a consensus says a bit of throat work solves restriction, without affecting accuracy. 20” barrel is from latter 2017 production and would have thought they’d have addressed chamber, but it’s the tighter of the two. Both barrels quite accurate as they sit-.5-.75 with proper loads at 100.

Bobke:

I have used finishing reamers and they have worked. All I did was put some cutting oil on the reamer, inserted it into the chamber and with light pressure turned it ten or so times. Remove and look to see if any metal is on the cutter -- indicating you did cut some. Wipe off, wipe out chamber, try to chamber a dummy round. Keep doing it until the dummy round chambers. My reamers were somewhat self centering so I wasn't worried about something getting cut off center. Also, you aren't putting a whole lot of pressure on them when turning so it isn't like you are taking off a bunch of metal in a second or two. It will take you probably half an hour before you are confident the round will chamber easily. My bet is you will be successful.

LR55

[Bobke]