Hi guys! Building a 6 ARC for precision rifle and came across Satern Barrels as reasonably priced.

Wondered if anyone has input to their accuracy potential. Looking for sub MOA.

I had a liberty in 6.5G I got for like $125 and for the price it was great. With good ammo it’d hold to MOA or so. But what I wouldn’t do is intentionally cheap out on a barrel and hope/expect sub-MOA performance. The barrel is the most important part of the rifle. Everything should be built around it, as opposed to it being filled in later as an afterthought.

I got the Liberty because I needed a hunting rifle that would keep hunting rounds inside a fist @ 100, which it more than did. If I were setting out to do a proper precision 6arc though I’d be looking at Craddock, Proof, Noveske, etc. My Noveske 6arc is pretty solidly MOA or less with ELDX, and my proof is closer to half that. Neither are cheap, but I’ve never regretted buying an expensive barrel either.

Now if you’re referring to their high end cut barrels, disregard because I hear great things about it.

This.  For a precision rifle, save and spend a little more for a better barrel.  The Satern Liberty is what I call a rack grade barrel.  It may shoot, or not.  I had one in 6x45.  It was, at best, a consistent 1.5 MOA barrel.

I currently have a Lilja 6.5 Grendel barrel that is a tack driver.  I've also had stainless Proof barrels in 6 ARC and 6.5 Grendel that were excellent shooters.  None were cheap but they were worth every penny.

Thanks for the advice. I certainly have experience with Lilja from my past years of benchrest. They were great.

Was also looking at Odin works. Heard some pretty good things on their end. Have them in stock, ready to ship. No real experience with them however. I really would like to get this thing up and running before winter sets in.

Looked at Proof........ very nice. not sure of availability.

Any word on the Odin barrels?

Satern cut rifled barrels are top notch.   The button formed Liberty barrels are just plain old generic barrels.  I think Satern bought Liberty a while back, but they are completely different barrels.

They’re ok.

You’re at a crossroads. If you want sub-MOA, realize that won’t be sub-$300. You’ll either do one, or the other. You may get lucky, but probably not. You’re buying that increased probability with a quality barrel. In the scheme of things, the price difference between an ‘ok’ barrel and a great barrel will be the cheapest part of this endeavor. 6arc ammo isn’t cheap. Optics aren’t cheap. None of this is cheap. It $100 is making you skimp on the most critical part of this build, you need to reevaluate some things with this build. I’d save up until I could get the equipment that can actually perform the task at hand instead of settling for equipment that cannot.

Brands I have personal experience with that I’d trust for this task: Craddock, Noveske, Rainier Ultramatch (or even their Match), Beer City Bullets, Proof, V-Seven. There are others but not in that caliber.

I wish my 6.5G Lilja liked SSTs more but it’s right up there with my best with ELDMs. It’s done more than a few groups @ 120 yards where all 5 rounds were in one hole. A couple times they weren’t even a ragged janky hole, just a pretty little circle you’d think was one shot if you didn’t know better. Absolutely superb barrels.

just looked at Ranier Ultra Match and was surprised it's only 400 bucks. 90 day satisfaction guarantee of sub MOA accuracy. Thinking I might pull the trigger on this then I saw 1:7 twist.

Everyone I talk to says must be 1:7.5   We all know twist rate is important, but why the heck does Ranier go against the grain on this issue? I mean really..... does that extra .5 matter?

By the way...... you guys are really helping me out on this. Pretty sure I would have bought a ho hum barrel and been really pissed. I'd love to order one tomorrow!

I think I'm worse than wifey picking out shoes!

Ask the people who say it has to be 7.5 why that is. My experience is that people that say things like that aren't people you should be listening to. As long as you have sufficient twist to stabilize the bullet you are shooting you are good.

Yeah twist is one of those things people treat as a cardinal rule but I’ve really found doesn’t matter all that much. Barrels either like a bullet or they don’t. The twist is either adequately stabilizing the bullet or it isn’t. I’ve had twists that ‘shouldn’t’ shoot a bullet well that shot it exceptional, and vice versa. I don’t even know what twist half my precision barrels are without looking. I know something a lot more important, what they’ll shoot well and how well they’ll shoot it.

I’ve had a few Ultramatch barrels. Right now that’s a 300BLK 16” and a .223 Wylde 18”. They’re not my first pick these days, but they do shoot. I’d consider them “mass market” precision barrels. I don’t think they’re worth the price they ask these days, but that’s me, and it is a good barrel.

I’m still getting my feet wet with 6arc, but I do have a good bit of rounds down range with it yet and with some nice setups. These days I score my barrels lightly used. I think I snagged my Proof stainless 6arc with double digit round count for $400 shipped with block & tube. It’s been quite the shooter.

If you don't adequately spin a bullet to achieve a stability factor (SG) or 1.5 or better, you are going to compromise the ballistics that have been engineered into it.

Bullets that have an SG less than 1, will tumble end over end upon exiting the muzzle. Above 1, they will experience coning motions that damp out in the first hundred yards of travel, however they experience significantly increased drag and shed their velocity much quicker than bullets shot with an SG of 1.5.

Bullets shot with a stability factor of less than 1.5 can have very good accuracy, but the ballistics are compromised. As an experiment years ago, I shot a long range match with Berger .30 cal 175gr VLDs out of a 1/13 twist Palma rifle. They shot fine and produced a decent score, but if I was going to do it today I'd use a 1/10 twist to generate a SG of 1.5 or better.

That being said, there is no real downside to spinning high quality match bullets faster than they need to be spun. I'm incredulous that a 7 twist will compromise the ballistics of a  6 ARC when compared to a 7.5 twist and would simply reject that advice.

If you go to the Berger website you can use their twist rate calculator to select bullets and twist rates to see if they are adequately stabilized to optimize the bullet ballistic performance.

I have a Liberty barrel that is good at 200 and 300, but doesn't hold well enough at 600.

Ok guys. I think I decided; Noveske 18" stainless with +1 rifle length gas tube.(included)

  LoPro block included

And a headspaced Noveske bolt. included.

           
$615.

Give me a yay or nay and I'll order tomorrow!

I have a Noveske in 6.5G and 6arc. Both shoot very well. They’re not my tightest shooting in either caliber (that’s not a knock, I just have some very nice gear), but they’re solid and I’m happy with them. Also and more to the point, it’ll shoot circles around the Satern. I was pretty happy with my Satern, but that’s because it was $125, not because of its absolute performance. Between the two? Noveske and it’s not even close.

I will say you can get a Proof stainless for around that much. Not the CF, the stainless. People have mixed opinions on the CF, but all my stainless Proofs have been amazing barrels. I just checked and while availability is spotty I see them for mid-5’s. That’s minus bolt and gas block, but even then it’d come out about the same.

Just food for thought. I consider the Proof to be the superior barrel, but neither is bad and both should more than suit most any realistic expectation.

I did look at Proof. Around the same price as Noveske, but no bolt, gas tube or block.  It sounds like I'm being picky but I REALLY don't want to make a mistake.

Just for example, my 6 BR has a Stolle Panda action and currently a Krieger barrel. Both of my 1911's I shoot in a PPC league are Les Baer's. All top notch stuff, but really not that expensive. I coulda spent a buttload more and gained nothing,

I'm fairly new to AR building. The only other one I built from ground up is a 5.56 with a Wilson Combat 16" match barrel. I either got lucky or my reloading experience paid off.  It shoots 5 shot groups at 100 on the .3's. No kidding.

All things above kinda spoil a guy.  Maybe I'm just asking for too much?  In my head I'm telling myself "just buy one, dumbass".

They’re both great. I just had my Noveske and Proof Grendels out and the Noveske actually out-grouped it. I wouldn’t expect that most of the time, but they are close enough that that’ll happen.

There’s not much to fuck up on with a gas block and tube. It’s the correct length and diameter or it isn’t. It’s worth noting that Proof literally developed (co-developed) the cartridge, so it’s fair to say they know a thing or two about it. Mine is gassed gentler than my Noveske, the Proof throws brass right out the side into a pretty little pile. My Noveske is a little more forward and erratic.

But that’s not to knock Noveske. Saying it’s inferior to proof isn’t saying much. Until you get into custom barrels using Bartlein blanks or something, that’s about as stiff a competition as you can get.

For reference, my Noveske Grendel put out a .6X MOA 5-shot group with AAC ammo that day. So they’re great barrels.

Round count?

From the start.  It isn't bad, and shoots great from the short line.  It wasn't like the better barrels that shoots well for a couple or few thousand and then gets relegated to practice or dumped.  

I ended up setting it up as a practice iron sight rifle to use with reduced targets.

It sounds more like a parallax or an odd stability issue. If it shoots good at one distance and the deviation of velocity is low, it should shoot good til it hits dirt.

Well, the Noveske is on the way. Just need to pick up an upper receiver and then the optic. That's gonna be a fun choice.

An 18” 6arc has some legs, I’d hate to put much else on it than something that at least went up to the teens and had external turrets, etc. Mine has an Athlon ETR 4.5-30.