"Bullberry Woes" (long)

[wyt_tail]

Last December a friend of mine decided to have a custom barrel built for his Encore. He chose a .243AI and called Bullberry to order it. He wanted a 1 in 8" twist barrel to shoot bullets up to 105gr. but Fred at Bullberry said that he only made a 6mm barrel in 1 in 10" twiist but said that if he wasn't fully satisfied with this barrel, he would refund his money!

Well 6 Months later the barrel arrives! My buddy has loaded some fireform loads for it but finds out after he starts shooting that the barrel marked .243 Improved is really a .243 Win!!! He calls Fred and Fred says that he is sorry for the mistake and adds that he is only human. Now I believe that this is true and I am sure it was a mistake.

He instructs my buddy to send the barrel back with 3 fired cases to check and after checking, he will rechamber the barrel to a .243AI. Now, I am thinking and mention it to my freind that this is impossible without a barrel set back. I give my friend the dimensions of both the parent .243 Win case and the .243AI. I tell him that if this is done without a setback, it will have a step in the shoulder and the headspace will be incorrect!

After a few weeks, the barrel comes back rechambered. The only problem now is that Fred forgot to re-install the extractor!!!! He calls Fred and fred promises to get him one out in the mail asap!!

About a week and a half later the extractor arrives and my freind installs it and heads out to the range. At the range he finds out that his new chamber has a step in the shoulder!!!!

He calls Fred back and tells him of his problems. Fred says to send it back as he forgot to check the chamber after he re-chambered the barrel! He then says that he didn't run the reamer down far enough and will correct it after my buddy sends the barrel back! My freind says to Fred that he would much rather that Fred just make him a new barrel as he was the one who messed it up in the first place!!!! Fred says that he will send a few cases back to him to inspect and if the look good to my buddy will just send the rechambered barrel back to him.

From what I had read and heard so much about Bullberry being one of the best Encore barrels out there, I would never send them my bussiness. There is no way to re-chamber a parent case to an AI configuration without setting the barrel back and in an Encore that is just about impossible as the barrel lug would have to be removed. Granted you can run a reamer farther up the chamber but it will not be a true AI configuration.

Anyone else have these porblems with Bullberry?