Author: Bob Vogt

Recently we did a survey of your favorite muzzleloader barrel manufacturers, and here is the results:

1. Green Mountain – 49

2. Rice – 41

3. Colerain – 15

4. Getz – 12

5. Ed Rayl – 6

6. Douglas – 5

7. Bill Large – 4

8. Long Hammock – 3

9. Mark DeHaas – 3

10. Robert Hoyt – 3

11. Charlie Burton at FCI Barrels – 2

12. Orion – 2

13. Moody – 2

14. Bauska – 1

15. Traditions – 1

16. Green River – 1

17. Sharon – 1

18. Zimmerman – 1

19. Jukar – 1

20. Buckeye – 1

21. Numerich – 1

22. H&H – 1

23. Whitacre – 1

24. Montana Rifle Barrel – 1

Thank you to everyone for participating and sharing your opinions. One thing I heard repeatedly was that most of these barrels shot better than they did. That is definitely true for me.

Availability and customer service are also very important and go into the decision as to where to buy. I find it interesting when a custom gun maker chooses to work exclusively with one barrel manufacturer. It’s a good endorsement for that manufacturer.

One thing I learned by asking the question is there is not a shortage of high quality barrels manufacturers on the market.

Many of the barrel manufacturers were custom makers and some of them are no longer making barrels. It’s nice to have so many options in the market and to know that there are a lot of high quality barrels.

I have copied some quotes from experienced builders and their thoughts on barrel manufacturers. Thanks to everyone that provided their feedback!

Jeff Sluder – “At the risk of giving a “non answer answer” I think a lot of that depends on how you define value. With the exception of Buckeye I’ve built rifles using barrels from all of the 5 mentioned. They all shoot good. They all need a little effort from the shooter to determine the patch/ball/powder charge the particular barrel likes the best. I don’t think there is a bad one in the bunch. A lot of it comes down to what barrel profile you want, which one makes a profile that matches it close enough and what is available at the time you need the barrel. Back when I could see, I tied a national record with a Getz barrel, my current target rifle has a Green Mountain barrel and the 2 rifles I built last winter had Colerain barrels. All are shooters. Bottom line I don’t think there would be a mistake with using any of them.”

Frank Starr – “I have used Douglas, Numerich, Green River, Green Mountain, H&H, Hoyt, Whitacre, Getz, Colerain, Rice, and Long. Have had really good ones and some not so. I used to use Getz all the time and had excellent results with them and some of them are still my best shooters. But Getz has become slow since the change. Bobby Hoyt also does really well with specialty twists and sizes. Never really saw what people raved about H&H barrels and I lived really close to their shop. I tried them several times on rifles for friends who wanted them but I was never impressed. I have had a lot of Douglas barrels that out shot many of the higher priced “Custom” ones. Green River barrels were great when you could get them. Now days I mainly use Colerain and Rice and they both do the job very well. Been building since early 70’s, Just my two cents worth!!”

Rich Pierce – “Sharon, GRRW, Getz, Rice, Hoyt, Rayl, Charlie Burton, Bill Large. I’ve had a lot of custom profile barrels made by various makers. If I want something off the shelf I’ll go with Rice first because their finish inside and out is great and they are available. For off the shelf smoothbore barrels it’s Colerain because they have a lot of profiles. Whenever I can get a Getz I do because Don was a friend and John is a friend and the barrels are great. If I can find a GRRW that would work for a build I will get it. They have a slight choke and narrow lands and load beautifully. Oh now I remember Green Mountain as well. Great barrels too. We are lucky to have more great barrels available now than ever before. I never used a Douglas because I prefer tapered or swamped barrels for all my builds and most of theirs were straight.”

J Albert Miles – “I have rifles with Douglas,Large,DeHass,Green Mtn. Colerain , and I’m sure they are more accurate than I am ! , I have 3 N.Lewis rifles , and I’m very positive they are very accurate from what I’ve read about him.”

Wayne McKay – “Rice for longrifles. Whitacre for Civil War stuff, and Colerain for anything else. I should also add Ed Rayl. He makes a fine barrel.”

YouTube offers some videos on the process of melting down the lead and pouring into the molds. It definitely looks like a fun addition to my Muzzleloading hobby, especially if it can improve the accuracy of my shooting.

I haven’t taken the leap into casting my own round balls yet, but I’m considering it. This week I had a discussion with a fellow club member on the subject and he shared a good recommendations.

So this was the recommendation: when you have a full pot of melted lead and are pouring the molds, at some point you will want to add more lead to the pot. He recommended not adding any more lead until the batch of balls are completed. All the balls are weighted to see if there were any light ones with an air bubble and then recast those or use them for the fowling shot. All the rest are within 1 grain of each other.

If on the other hand you add more lead to the pot while casting a batch of balls, he found that the weight of the balls could vary by 3 or 4 grains. The reason for this is that the lead is coming from various sources and may not be the same purity. All the lead that he uses is recycled from various sources and there must be either impurities or other metals mixed with the lead causing the differences in weight.

I would assume that if you took a single piece of lead and cut it into small chunks, you could probably add those smaller pieces to the melting pot without this problem. But if the lead is from different sources it would be best not to add more lead to the pot during a batch pour.

If you have seen similar results I would love to hear from you. Happy casting!