Rifles

rifles

Custom Rifles

Precision & Custom Rifles offer rifle actions in either right or left hand bolt and loading ports to suit left or right hand feed. We also supply custom barrelled actions or complete Kershaw classic hunting rifles with calibres to suit the individual’s taste.

The Hunter rifles are made to the same exacting standards as all Kershaw rifles but with the features hunters demand. All rifles feature a fully adjustable trigger set to your specifications. Choose from a variety of stock designs in either composite, laminated or Turkish walnut. Other options include blind magazine, hinged floor plate or detachable box magazine, muzzle brakes and fluted barrels, all resulting in the most accurate hunting rifle in your safe.

The Varmint rifles were designed for extreme accuracy in an environment where the need for repeated use is essential. Kershaw’s Varmint rifles are typically built on one of our single shot actions with a heavy, target barrel. Some calibre’s are available in a repeater. Stocks are either a wood laminate or composite. The wood laminate stock was designed to shoot from a rest as well as being comfortable to carry and shoot from a bipod. The composite stocks are lighter weight and typically carried in the field.

Manufacturer Reliability

Kershaw actions are used by the finest rifle manufacturers in the world to build extremely accurate rifles. The same technology used in the manufacture of the actions has been incorporated into the Kershaw line of rifles. The heart of the rifle is a Kershaw action mated to a match grade stainless steel barrel. The same level of quality, manufacturing expertise and inspection requirements used in the manufacture of the actions is applied to rifle building. Kershaw breaks in the barrel and test fires all rifles for accuracy and reliability prior to shipping. This ensures that the rifle you receive will exceed your expectations right out of the box.

Kershaw bolts are machined from heat-treated 4340 Chrom-Moly, guaranteeing they will not fail under even the hardest use.

Kershaw stocks are bedded using stainless steel pillars, providing stress free exact alignment of the barrelled action, ensuring long-term accuracy.

Tactical rifles incorporate a MIL-STD-1913 scope mount bolted to the receiver with six oversized (8-40 or 4mm) screws and two steel press fit pins.

Field rifle bolt handles are engineered closer to the stock, providing more clearance for low mounted scopes (shown with the extended length tactical bolt knob).

The Hunter rifles are made to the same exacting standards as all Kershaw rifles but with the features hunters demand. All rifles feature a fully adjustable Arnold Jewell trigger unit, set to your specification (2ozs to 3lbs). Choose from a variety of stock designs and colour from McMillan fibreglass, Kershaw composite, laminate or Turkish walnut.

Kershaw rifles stocks are bedded using stainless steel pillars, providing stress free exact alignment of the barrelled action, ensuring long-term accuracy. Other options include blind fitting magazine, hinged floor plate or detachable magazine.
The varmint rifles are designed for extreme accuracy in an environment where the need for repeated use is essential.

Kershaw varmint rifles are typically built on one of their single shot actions with a heavy target barrel. Some calibres are available in repeater.

The choice of barrel manufacturers is unlimited, Krieger, Walther, Sassen and Lija. The barrel will be made to your specification, barrel contour 3 to 8 fluted and twist rate to suit your bullet weight.

Chambering, the choice is yours – a choice of calibres, including Ackley Imps and many wildcats.

Kershaw Rifles have a wide variety of match-grade chamber reamers and can supply barrels with minimum CIP specification chambers or with custom dimensions to suit individual requirements.

This Kershaw rifle (below) is .243 Ack Imp 40deg, with nk .270

During the fire forming process from .243 standard Winchester cases to .243 Ack Imp 40deg. The results were just unbelievable 5 shot group at 100m and clover-leaf performance and these results have been consistent.

All Kershaw rifles are built to order and take around 4 months to build. Prices supplied on application to your exacting specification.

Custom Barrels

I work to a maximum tolerance of 0.0001″ in setting up the barrel for chambering, threading and crowning. Everything is checked and rechecked with a Swiss Interapid 0.0001″ test indicator. In setting up the barrel for chambering, the appropriate point is selected to be able to dial in the run-out to 0.0001″ at the finished throat of the cartridge.

All prices on application.

Lothar Walther

The firm of LOTHAR WALTHER Precision Tool Manufacture GmbH, 89551 Königsbronn, Germany hereby warrants that its gun barrels and gun barrel blanks have been manufactured in accordance with the relevant guidelines on the Firearms Act and have left our premises in perfect conditions.

After assembly, each barrel, in conjunction with the statutory regulations in Germany, the regulations laid down for testing gun barrels (CIP standard), must be presented to a Firearms Office for testing and the initial firing, which must be carried out there. In countries which do not have similar regulations or which do not belong to the CIP, the testing and initial firing must be carried out in accordance with the principles of the German and CIP regulations. A copy of these are available on request.

Following the above mentioned testing, only newly manufactured ammunition may be used and no guarantee can be accepted for hand-loaded, reloaded or remanufactured ammunition. This includes surplus ammunition or any ammunition that contains defects, known or unknown. Furthermore, the barrel must be kept clean at all times.

Any alterations made to the barrel after manufacture shall void our manufacturer’s warranty. We should emphasize that any gun is a dangerous weapon and should consequently be handled with care. The user and those nearby must take the appropriate measures to ensure that others can never be put at risk. This naturally includes protection for eyes and ears. Guns should never be pointed, aimed or fired at people. Representations made by persons other than the manufacturer do not constitute a part of this guarantee.

Since some gun barrels are designed for a particular purpose, the use of these barrels for a purpose different than the originally intended could cause an unsafe situation. Before using any gun barrels for a different purpose, the manufacturer must be consulted as to its safe use.

Should a defect occur nevertheless, the barrel must be returned to the manufacturer, postage prepaid. The liability of the manufacturer is limited only to the replacement or repair of the barrel and is at its discretion.
To view contours click on this link http://www.lothar-walther.com/331.php

Stockists

Kreiger Barrel

We rifle by the single-point cut rifling process. Although our machines are state of- the-art; the process itself is the oldest and slowest method of rifling a barrel. The cutter removes .0001 inch or 100 millionth of an inch at each pass; thus taking several hundred passes to rifle a barrel. This method produces perfect concentricity between bore and groove, a very uniform twist rate, and induces no stress into the steel. This is why we can gain all the benefit of treating the steel beforehand. There is no additional stress put into the steel by the machining or rifling method that later has to be relieved.

Along the same lines we do absolutely no straightening of our barrels as this would only put stress right back into the steel.

Our barrels are lapped after reaming to remove the tool marks and then lapped again after rifling. It has been said that if a barrel is cut rifled correctly, it doesn’t have to be finish lapped, and to some extent this is true. It should not have to be lapped to obtain uniformity of dimensions. This should come from the tooling and procedures used. But there is a slight improvement in the finish, and the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel so fouling is greatly reduced; and they clean much easier. It takes longer to finish lap, but it makes a better barrel. We are lapping to finishes under 16 micro inch in the direction of the bullet travel. In contrast the government requires only a 32 micro-inch finish on its M-14 National Match barrels.

Our barrels are held to a tolerance of zero to + .0005 over the nominal bore and groove dimensions, but the dimensions are uniform within .0001 throughout the barrel and never bigger at the muzzle than at the breech. There may, however, be a slight flare at each end of the barrel from the tools entering and exiting. This is why you should always remove at least an inch from the muzzle when fitting any barrel.

Target, Varmint & Sporting Barrels

On our website you will find lists of bore diameters, groove diameters, twists, and contours we consider standards. We can make virtually any bore and groove dimensions, number of grooves, twist, and contour you may require. Please note special requirements can add delivery time to your order. Contouring is included in the barrel price. We can duplicate any factory contour, or furnish you with one of our contours. Please no stainless steel contours lighter or smaller than those listed.

Steel

There is nothing so important to the making of a good barrel that is normally so out of the barrel maker’s control as is the steel he uses. It became obvious to us early on that we had to give the steel mill our own specifications for our steel, accept the higher cost, and then have each heat tested as it came in to assure compliance to our requirements.

We started by having exhaustive metallurgical tests run on samples of both good and bad steel to determine literally right down to the molecular level what made good barrel steel. Having determined this, we met with representatives of the steel mill, the metallurgist, and the heat treated to discuss the results of our findings and to implement the changes that we needed.

Barrel Fluting

Fluting is now available for Target, AR-15 Varmatch, Palma, and Sporter Barrels. Fluting increases rigidity and reduces barrel vibration and whip. Also, by exposing more exterior surface area, it aids in cooling your Target or Varmint Barrel. The flutes will start approximately 5 inches in front of the receiver and end approximately 2 inches from muzzle for mounting sight base or barrel band. A skip in one flute can be incorporated at 7.200 inches from receiver to mount scope base.

Fluting is available in chrome moly or stainless steel, .22 through .388 calibres. The maximum length of barrel blank that can be fluted is 37 inches, and the longest length of flutes is approximately 34 inches. Additionally the largest outside diameter barrel that can be fluted is 1.350 inches.

Break-in & Cleaning

With any premium barrel that has been finish lapped — such as your Krieger Barrel –, the lay or direction of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, so fouling is minimal. This is true of any properly finish-lapped barrel regardless of how it is rifled. If it is not finish-lapped, there will be reamer marks left in the bore that are directly across the direction of the bullet travel. This occurs even in a button-rifled barrel as the button cannot completely iron out these reamer marks.

Because the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, very little is done to the bore during break-in, but the throat is another story. When your barrel is chambered, by necessity there are reamer marks left in the throat that are across the lands, i.e. across the direction of the bullet travel. In a new barrel they are very distinct; much like the teeth on a very fine file. When the bullet is forced into the throat, copper dust is released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this gas and is carried down the barrel. As the gas expands and cools, the copper comes out of suspension and is deposited in the bore. This makes it appear as if the source of the fouling is the bore when it is actually for the most part the new throat. If this copper is allowed to stay in the bore, and subsequent bullets and deposits are fired over it; copper which adheres well to itself, will build up quickly and may be difficult to remove later. So when we break in a barrel, our goal is to get the throat polished without allowing copper to build up in the bore. This is the reasoning for the “fire-one-shot-and-clean” procedure.

Barrels will vary slightly in how many rounds they take to break in because of things like slightly different machine-ability of the steel, or steel chemistry, or the condition of the chambering reamer, etc. . . For example a chrome moly barrel may take longer to break in than stainless steel because it is more abrasion resistant even though it is the same hardness. Also chrome moly has a little more of an affinity for copper than stainless steel so it will usually show a little more “color” if you are using a chemical cleaner. (Chrome moly and stainless steel are different materials with some things in common and others different.) Rim Fire barrels can take an extremely long time to break in — sometimes requiring several hundred rounds or more. But cleaning can be lengthened to every 25-50 rounds. The break-in procedure and the clearing procedure are really the same except for the frequency. Remember the goal is to get or keep the barrel clean while polishing out the throat.

Finally, the best way to break-in the barrel is to observe when the barrel is broken in; i.e. when the fouling is reduced. This is better than some set number of cycles of “shoot and clean” as many owners report practically no fouling after the first few shots, and more break-in would be pointless. Conversely, if more is required, a set number would not address that either. Besides, cleaning is not a completely benign procedure so it should be done carefully and no more than necessary.

Cleaning

This section on cleaning is not intended to be a detailed instruction, but rather to point out a few “do’s and don’ts”. Instructions furnished with bore cleaners, equipment, etc. should be followed unless they would conflict with these “do’s and don’ts.”

You should use a good quality straight cleaning rod with a freely rotating handle and a rod guide that fits both your receiver raceway and the rod snugly. How straight and how snug? The object is to make sure the rod cannot touch the bore. With service rifle barrels a good rod and guide set-up is especially important as all the cleaning must be done from the muzzle and even slight damage to the barrel crown is extremely detrimental to accuracy.

There are two basic types of bore cleaners — chemical and abrasive. The chemical cleaners are usually a blend of various ingredients including oils and ammonia that attack the copper. The abrasive cleaners generally contain no chemicals and are an oil, wax, or grease base with an extremely fine abrasive such as chalk, clay, or gypsum. They clean by mechanically removing the fouling. Both are good, and we feel that neither will damage the bore when used properly.

So what is the proper way to use them? First, not all chemical cleaners are compatible with each other. Some, when used together at a certain temperature, can cause severe pitting of the barrel — even stainless steel barrels. It is fine to use two different cleaners as long as you completely remove the first cleaner from the barrel before cleaning with the second. And, of course, never mix them in the same bottle.

Follow instructions on the bottle as far as soak time, etc. . . Always clean from the breech whenever possible, pushing the patch or swab up to the muzzle and then back without completely exiting the muzzle. If you exit the muzzle, the rod is going to touch the bore and be dragged back in across the crown followed by the patch or brush. Try to avoid dragging things in and out of the muzzle. It will eventually cause uneven wear of the crown. Accuracy will suffer and this can lead you to believe the barrel is shot out, when in fact, it still may have a lot of serviceable life left. A barrel with a worn or damaged crown can be re-crowned and accuracy will usually return.

The chemical cleaners may be the best way to clean service rifle barrels that must be cleaned from the muzzle — i.e. M1 Garand, M14, etc. . .– because this method avoids all the scrubbing necessary with the abrasive cleaners and the danger of damaging the crown. But again, as long as the rod doesn’t touch the crown, abrasive cleaners should be fine.
Abrasive cleaners work very well. They do not damage the bore, they clean all types of fouling (copper powder, lead, plastic), and they have the added advantage of polishing the throat both in “break in” and later on when the throat begins to roughen again from the rounds fired. One national champion we know polishes the throats on his rifles every several hundred rounds or so with diamond paste to extend their accuracy life.

Again, as with the chemical cleaners, a good rod and rod guide is necessary. A jag with a patch wrapped around it works well. Apply the cleaner and begin scrubbing in short, rather fast strokes of about two to four inches in length. Concentrate most of the strokes in the throat area decreasing the number as you go toward the muzzle. Make a few full-length passes while avoiding exiting the muzzle completely, but do partially exit for about six strokes. You can avoid accidentally exiting by mounting the rifle in a vice or holder of some sort and blocking the rod at the muzzle with the wall or something to keep it from completely exiting.

This sheet is intended to touch on the critical areas of break-in and cleaning and is not intended as a complete, step-by-step guide or recommendation of any product.

The following is a guide to “break-in” based on our experience. This is not a hard and fast rule, only a guide. Some barrel, chamber, bullet, primer, powder, pressure, velocity etc. combinations may require more cycles some less!
It is a good idea to just observe what the barrel is telling you with its fouling pattern. But once it is broken in, there is no need to continue breaking it in.

Initially you should perform the shoot-one-shot-and-clean cycle for five cycles. If fouling hasn’t reduced, fire five more cycles and so on until fouling begins to drop off. At that point shoot three shots before cleaning and observe. If fouling is reduced, fire five shots before cleaning. It is interesting to shoot groups during the three and five shot cycles.