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[Redthies]

Tom Kotz has stepped up and says he will personally expedite shipping a barrel if there isn’t one at the Arctic warranty depot. I got a bit of a “sure, we’ll look after you” previously, and I’m sure they would have, but by writing Anthony, it seems to have lit a fire….

[Redthies]

Barrel is in stock. They say a 5-10 day turnaround. I guess it’s go-time…

[BigAl52]

Good luck Red. I hope the new barrel fixes your problems

[Vaquero]

Good luck Red. What Al said.

RP

[Hatchdog]

Yep, looking forward to positive results.

[Redthies]

Well, “The Saga Continues “. Turns out Tom was paying attention and the part number quoted by the Canadian guy was wrong, so he doesn’t have the correct barrel. Tom has had a correct barrel, along with mag tube and retainer sent priority courier. He said he’d feel better if Henry sent “a matched set”. I Sid he would feel even better still if he sent a matching receiver and furniture along too. He didn’t comment on that. Some people have no sense of humor.

So I won’t ship until the warranty depot has the parts in hand. I’m nervous it may be problematic like some other recent .44s, but it doesn’t group now, so I don’t have much to lose I guess.

[leverjc]

A matched set? I would think that massed produced parts should fit or at least a good tech could make them fit. Oh well if they had good QC the original barrel would have been good. Uhggg

[Redthies]

A matched set? I would think that massed produced parts should fit or at least a good tech could make them fit. Oh well if they had good QC the original barrel would have been good. Uhggg

The original barrel is fine, if 1:38 twist were proper for .44 Mag. It’s not. SAAMI spec is 1:20. By matched set, I think he means sending ALL the parts needed in one pack so there is no issue with one thing not fitting the other. Mine is the original style, and parts have been “updated” since.

[5shot]

Going to the range tomorrow.

X-repair.jpg

[5shot]

Well, the new barrel is either twice as good or half as bad as the old one. I was struggling with clearly seeing the red dot in the bright sun today so these groups would have been tighter with a scope. But at 50 yards it was shooting round sub 2" groups without the maddening flyers. With a low power scope and a little load development I think this rifle will be just fine for deepwoods deer hunting and I plan to keep it.

Top load is the 310 gr. Lee at 1440 fps, next is 260 gr. Lyman hollow point in .44 spl. brass at 1354 fps avg. and bottom is 240 XTP at 1582 fps. None of those would bounce off a whitetail inside of 100 yards and the Lee would probably shoot through two deer. The standard deviation on the 310 Lee load was 5.4 fps! With a scope and a little tinkering I think the X will prove to be a consistent 1" to 1 1/2" 50 yard performer and that is all I reasonably expect from it. I'm getting to the point of being a little too old and creaky to be climbing lofty tree stands but if I do the chance of scratching the stock won't be a concern.

New barrel.jpg