I'm looking for a high quality chf cl barrel. I am currently under the understanding that most of them are probably already of high quality, however I'm just looking with this next barrel to get the absolute best barrel I can afford. I've been primarily interested in the noveske and centurion barrels. I understand that are both very high quality, however which would y'all say is a better barrel. While I know I'm not likely to ever shoot out one of these barrels, I'm very interested in the durability increase that I'd assume comes from the extra thick chrome lining on the noveske barrels. I've read some people say they believe that both barrels are potentially from the same machinery at FN uses to produce M249 barrels, which I take to mean they're essentially the same.barrel. On the other hand, I've heard others claim.that noveske barrels are made in house, and I'm willing to bet that the same claims are out there about centurion.

1. Is one barrel actually better than the other? I could see a reality where the two brands get different "grades" of barrel even if they are made on the same tooling, and if they are indeed made in house in the case of noveske, then I'd assume a greater variance in quality between the two, for better or for worse.is there a real difference in accuracy or durability?

2. Im looking at the pictures posted on their respective websites (the skinny afghan in the case of noveske, and the lightweight hammer forged in the case of centurion) and they seem to have slightly different profiles. Noveske seems to taper down consistently throughout the barrel while centurion has a thicker portion on the muzzle end. The noveske barrel also seems to be marginally lighter. I'd assume this makes the centurion (somewhat) more nose heavy. I understand these are also both still lightweight barrels, but I was wondering if anyone felt this difference in barrel profile was notable.

3. This question is regardless of brands, but how much would you expect your groups to open up after strings of fire with the lightweight profiles of both brands vs the midweight/normal profiles after the barrels heat up. I'm basically trying to see if the weight savings are worth the decrease in precision as the barrels warm up.

I'm basically just trying to learn all that I can in terms of the upper end of quality of chf cl barrels. I don't wanna buy the noveske if there is no notable quality increase, but if there are advantages to going with their barrels in terms of weight distribution, durability, or accuracy, then that's what I want to get- even if a centurion is probably more than "good enough" for me.

Thanks.

Spikes still has the M249 lined CHF barrels too.  I haven't seen any accuracy or wear issues.  not sure what you are wanting to do with your build but they should all perform well. not sure about the centurion barrel.  Im not familiar with them.

Post a link to Noveske stating that their CHF barrels are made "in house".  I'll wait.

You need to educate yourself on barrel profiles, their actual stripped weights and the related accuracy/precision of the various profiles.  You can start here:

A Visual Library of AR-15 Barrel Profiles


Accuracy Evaluations of Nine Different Noveske Barreled Rifles


Colt M4A1 SOCOM Barrel Accuracy:  Another Look


Bravo Company 14.5” ELW Accuracy: A Quick Look


Hodge Defense 14.5” Barrel Accuracy: A Quick Look


Black River Tactical 16” Cold Hammer Forged Optimum Barrel Accuracy Evaluation


TRIARC 16” Track 2.0 Barrel Accuracy Evaluation


Criterion 16” CORE Barrel Accuracy Evaluation


Colt 6520 Accuracy Evaluation


Colt 6721 Accuracy



Colt 6520 Accuracy Evaluation

...

Fn (psa/spikes and a few others) are my favorite. Some are about 1 inch capable with good ammo

Have a Remington socom that may be chf.

Daniel defense are also excellent

Get what you like and can afford and get to the range.

Got a fn 14.5 p&w I used in excellent condition less than 300 rounds down the pipe i can sell.

If you can find it a Centurion Arms barrel is where it's at. Double chrome lined CHF should last 20k rounds

Centurion CHF barrels

Centurion's CHF bbls are also double the thickness of regular chrome lined. Also uses the same proprietary highgrade Chrome Moly Venadium steel dubbed as "machine gun steel". Centurion is made with a tapered bore during the CHF process, I'm not sure if Noveske does that.



Monty from Centurion has stated that they haven't used FN for the last few years. I've spent a LOT of time looking into who supplies them now and I've given up. I really don't care at this point because their bbls are top notch.

My two Centurion midweight CHF bbls(16" and 14.5") bbls are absolutely tack drivers. Even though they don't use FN blanks anymore, they are built with the same specs. Paired with their tabbed/pinned gas blocks, they are a reliable and bombproof setup. I shoot unsuppressed and they are also perfectly gassed.

Their lightweight CHF bbl is thicker than a pencil bbl. They are actually .680 in front of the gas block journal and is beefier around the chamber area. I can't speak on these lightweight bbls but I can tell you that the groups from my midweight bbls really don't open up much compared to the rifles I have that have M4 and government profiles after heating them up.

Eta. I see both midweights are out of stock but I would reach out to Monty and Corrie and ask when they will be back in(if you're looking at that profile). What I've noticed is that they have them back in stock every couple months. But make sure to sign up for the in stock alerts because usually when they are back in stock they sell out quickly. They do have all three lightweight lengths in stock though.

The Centurion “lightweight” barrel is not a light-weight barrel.  For decades the de facto standard for what constitutes a 16” light-weight AR-15 barrel, is the barrel found on the Colt 6520/6720.  That stripped barrel weights 1 pound, 6 ounces.





A Colt 16” government profile barrel (6920) weighs 1 pound 12 ounces.  The Centurion “light-weight” barrel that I owned weighed 1 pound, 10.5 ounces; so more than a quarter of a pound heavier than an actual light-weight barrel.

Colt 6920 barrel . . .






16 Centurion “lightweight”  barrel . . .





I never did any formal accuracy testing with my Centurion barrel.  The 10- group pictured below was obtained while rough-zeroing an Aimpoint at 25 yards.  The group has an extreme spread of 1.37 MOA.






….

My chf 13.7" Noveske Infidel with mid length gas has proven to be considerably more accurate than my chf 16" BCM with a mid length government profile FN barrel.

I agree, I was just calling it as they refer it as. Also pointing out as you already know, Noveske's 16” N4 bbl they refer to as "light" is the same weight as an M4 or gov profile(28oz). It's just funny these manufacturers call it lightweight when it's only an ounce of two lighter than a regular M4 or gov profile.

That's your problem right there.

Bravo Company 14.5” ELW Accuracy: A Quick Look


Shooting off-the-bench at a distance of 100 yards (using a high magnification scope), this barrel produced a 10-shot group that has an extreme spread of 0.946” with a mean radius of 0.33”.














….

Noveske 14.5” CHF Barrel Accuracy





The 14.5” N4 barrel was tested in the same manner as described above. Three 10-shot groups fired from 100 yards using match grade hand-loads had extreme spreads of:

1.029”
1.360”
1.275”

for a 10-shot group average of 1.22”. As above, I over-layed the three 10-shot groups on each other using RSI Shooting lab to form a 30-shot composite group. The mean radius for that composite group was 0.37”.

……

The 16" government profile BCM upper was for my first AR. It's a great rifle that has never had a single problem. With an Aimpoint H1 and 3x magnifier, I've never been able to get anything tighter than 2"+ 10 round groups at 100 yds. I consider it perfectly fine, seeing that I only ever shoot m193 and m885.

The Noveske Infidel has gotten the same ammo shooting 1"+ 10 round groups. If I could get my hands on better ammo, it would be nice to see how my different rifles could really perform, but we can't have ammo shipped to us in NY.

My ELW 14.5" BCM upper is on my wife's AR. I've yet to put a magnifier on it and see how it groups, but your post about that specific barrel has gotten me curious.

I just put together a 14.5" Geissele Super Duty, which needs to be zeroed. Once zeroed, I'll have to do a comparison between all 4 rifles to see how they stack against each other.

From your comment above, I take it that you're not a fan of government profile barrels. It was my first, which was put together about 11 years ago. I remember reading about better barrel whip harmonics, compared to other profiles. Do you have any thoughts on that, or other thoughts in general about different profiles. All I know, is that the government profile makes the rifle nose heavy, so I've since avoided them.

Many thanks for the wealth of information that you share with us!

I have a Centurion 13.9 Lightweight barrel and their midweight 14.5 barrel.  

They are outstanding shooters, with match ammo I have shot many sub-moa 5rd groups.  

I've not done anything like what Molon does but I did test 14 different types of ammo from match to general range ammo and have found that with a vast majority of loads, the barrels will shoot around 1-3 inches, with all "match" ammo shooting less than 1.5 inches.  

I have been extremely happy with their barrels and I have even taken the 13.9 out to 880 yards with 77gr consistently.  It was a no-wind day so...

I personally find the midweight barrel a better option since I wanted some extra stiffness when mounting a suppressor.  Does the weight change anything, I have no clue but it gives me peace of mind.
Also, I don't find the extra weight to be an issue when carrying the rifle.  The rifle it is on weights over 10lbs when fully loaded with a suppressor and I regularly use it in run and gun competitions which involve traversing over 5 miles on average.  If the weight bothers you, probably need to get stronger...


I do have a Noveske stainless 16" recon barrel that I have only grouped once with 77gr match ammo and it was a sub-moa 5rd group but that's honestly expected.

If you were given the task of designing an AR-15 barrel profile with an eye towards accuracy, handling characteristics and heat tolerance, along with a length requirement of 16 inches and a weight restriction of 1 pound 12 ounces, the odds are that the last idea that you would come up with would be the ubiquitous 16” government profile barrel with M203 cutouts. The 16" government profile has more to do with accommodating an M203 grenade launcher (and legal restrictions) than the attributes listed above.

....

I know this question probably warrants its own thread, but do you ever do any testing with suppressors mounted?

I’ve been wondering how well the Centurion “Lightweight” barrels do when shooting suppressed due to the slightly thicker profile up front much like Gov barrels.

Daniel Defense also makes great chrome lined, CHF, 14.5” barrels.

Spikes Tactical CHF CL barrels are made by FN. Noveske uses PacNor barrels and are horribly over-gassed. I know from personal experience. Daniel Defense makes very good reliable CHF CL barrels and post their gas port sizes so you can determine the suppressor that will best work for your barrel. Centurion Arms does awesome barrels as well and uses a tapered chamber that allows for a slightly higher FPS. I own builds with barrels from the above 3 manufacturers. I do not recommend anything from Noveske as they are a far cry from what John made and their QC on gas ports is terrible. They don't make anything they sell. Save your money and get a CA.

Does anyone know who makes Spikes CHF non chrome lined tubes?

I personally have no idea, but it was suggested when I asked the same question that it might be Ballistic Advantage.

No, they don't.

From John Noveske:

“. . . You can't call the barrel that we make a Pac-Nor barrel, because if you call Pac-Nor and order a stainless barrel, it's gonna' be much different. It's gonna' be different in every way from the barrel I sell.

So when you say "what kind of materal do they use?", last time I checked, Pac-Nor uses 416 project 70 made by Carpenter, and I use a different material which is technically considered 416R, and it's a lot harder than any stainless we've ever tested from other manufacturers. Our stainless comes in around 32 on the Rockwell C scale, and that's harder even than the call-out for the M16 barrel.”

“ . . . I buy steel, I take it to Pac-Nor, when the guys clock out of Pac-Nor, they clock into our barrel production. They machine my blanks with our tooling, which is all made to our design, including the drills, reamers, button, so forth, so on. They stress-relieve to our recipe, and then they give the barrels back to us, and then we finish them all in our shop.”



You're posting some really stupid shit.

...

I purchased a complete 14.5" Centurion "midweight" URG not too long ago, and one of the major things that made me go with the "midweight" was that, as Molon so nicely laid out above, the "lightweight" very much isn't. IMO, the only good place for a "government" profile these days is on clone builds. I figured since I'm not actually getting a "light" barrel with either of Centurion's profiles, so may as well get the extra-thiccc "midweight" that has more metal where I want it.

Another thing to note about my Centurion barrel is it may be a touch undergassed. Before going any further though, I need to make something clear: Centurion post their gas port sizes on their website, so I bought the barrel fully aware of the port size, and I can't criticize Centurion as a result. That means I knew it had conservative port sizing when I bought it, I just didn't realize how conservative it would be in practice. As in, my URG won't cycle .223 even with a standard carbine buffer. I'm going to do some more testing later to make sure nothing is wrong, but as of now, I'm assuming Centurion expected people to be running proper hot 5.56 NATO and likely have a can on as well. If you're doing that, I bet it's awesome, just don't expect it to eat cheap steel case garbage ammo.

At this point I've decided to go with centurion, and I'm deciding between their "lightweight" and midweight options. How much more aggressive can you be with the midweight vs the lightweight for your firing schedule before you see the same reduction in precision?

I bought three Centurion pencil barrels for builds. This is their actual "lightweight" profile.

They shoot sub 2 MOA. They don't shoot sub MOA. They shoot PMC XTAC 55 grain the same as 77 grain Black Hills 5.56 ammo.

Everything is about 1.3-1.8 MOA all the time unless it is some super crap ammo. Somehow it shoots bad ammo better than most and good ammo worse than most.

I have a lightweight Daniel Defense hammer forged barrel which is about the weight of a Criterion lightweight (which is more of an optimum profile than true lightweight). Daniel Defense uses full length 0.750" gas block sections and does not offer short  micro gas block lengths / 0.625" profile gas block sections. My DD hammer forged 5.56 chrome lined 1/7 twist puts 77 grain Black Hills into .7-.9 MOA groups. It puts the PMC 55 grain XTAC into about 1.5 - 1.9 MOA groups.

Those are all 16" lengths and I would highly suggest a 16" lightweight over a 14.5" be used vecause you WILL want to swap muzzle devices at some point. 14.5" is not worth the headache and I much prefer an11.5" SBR or a 16" non NFA length depending in the use case.

As for how long until your near MOA accuracy degrades to 2-2.5 MOA accuracy... who cares? You will only be able to take advantage of super fine accuracy for around 5 or so rounds no matter what, virtually guaranteed. After that, coyotes and pigs are running, bad guys are running and shooting back, etc. You won't be attempting 300 yard head shots on anything and a lightweight will be more than effective enough for rapid body shots under any realistic scenario.

Get the slimmer profile.

I have not had this experience.  My 14.5 with an A5H3 w/SpingCo Green will cycle everything except steel-cased tula which will cycle about 90% of the time but will not lock back.  This was tested in about 14* weather.  
My 13.9 cycled everything and locked back with an A5H2 w/SpringCo Green.  The 14.5 seems to be perfectly gassed with my RC2 with no gas to the face but that might just be the charging handle keeping it out.

I have a Virgin PSA FN one that I keep going back and forth about selling. I don't trust my drilling to add a FSB, and I don't want to pay $50 plus for someone to do it. I know I'll regret it if I sell it so it just sits in my shop drawer.

Interesting... as I said, still unsure if my issues are due to undergassing, or something else. Planning on doing a bit more testing, then reaching out to Centurion if I can't find any definitive answers on my own. It's a complete Centurion URG, so hopefully it got test fired a few times by them before being sent my way...

How old is your barrel by the way? Wondering if perhaps port sizing got changed at some point.

My 13.9 is from 2021 I think.  The 14.5 is 2022.

Who makes the CHF barrels now for Centurion?  I saw someone say earlier in the thread that it isn't FN anymore.

Thanks for checking that! I feel like I remember hearing about Centurion changing port sizes at some point, although I could be mixing them up with someone else, Daniel Defense perhaps? May need to do digging on this.

Found another possible cause of my issue though. I had Centurion Cerakote my URG, and it looks like they got the inside of the upper reciever in the process. While the action does seem smooth when racking the charging handle, that's admittedly a subjective call. I did notice that in comparison to my well-worn BCM, it's not nearly as smooth when charged, but that very well could just be due the BCM having a ton of rounds down the pipe vs. the Centurion being brand new.

I may try manually cycling the bolt a bunch to see if maybe that "breaks it in" and wears off any Cerakote that might be causing problems.

Update: had another range trip, and my 14.5" "Midweight" midlength Centurion URG now seems to cycles totally fine, to include running weaker loads (PMC .223 in this particular case) and locking back on empty with them. I did manually cycle the bolt a bit before this trip in an attempt to "break it in" and wear down any potential excess Cerakote inside the receiver, but TBH it wasn't really all that many cycles. Not totally confident still what the problem was (though leaning towards the Cerakote), but bottom line, it appears to work now and be very reasonably gassed. Additionally, recently ordered my first suppressors, so will be curious to see how the smaller spec'd gas port on the Centurion handles the can vs. my more, ahem, generously ported BCM CHF middy.

Also, small side note regarding complete Centurion URGs: I was unaware of this feature when I ordered it, but my URG with the CMR handguard actually has an antirotation pin installed between the rail and the receiver, which I think is a really nice touch, and something I'm a little surprised Centurion doesn't advertise more prominently.