CUSTOM BARREL BLANKS FROM K&P Barrel Company

Description

LRI is the store front for Ken Johnson’s K&P Barrel Company located here in the Black Hills of South Dakota.   Ken has 4 decades of barrel making experience with a long history in the 50-caliber benchrest community.  K&P Barrels often overwhelm the equipment list in the big bore BR events.

They are single point cut rifled using conventional land/groove profiles.  They feature honed bores and are made from 416 Stainless Steel.   LRI has been using K&P barrels since 2014 and they’ve more than proven themselves to be a well-made piece that is both predictable and reliable.   From a machinist perspective they cut beautifully.  The grade of material and hardness chosen by K&P demonstrates excellent, consistent machining behavior both on the lathe and the mill.  These are the exact same barrels we use on almost all of our full builds and on many of our sponsored shooter’s rifles.  Guys like Jake Vibbert and The O’Neill Ops crew have all enjoyed success with K&P barrel blanks.

LRI is extremely proud to be the exclusive distributor for K/P barrels.  Our close proximity puts us in a rare and powerful position to have both direct contact with the barrel manufacturer.  Our relationship with K&P is face to face as we are there at least once a week.

The LRI/K&P difference:

In addition to a great shooting barrel, you are buying the LRI reputation for sterling customer service.  In the unlikely event a barrel fails to produce predictable performance you simply call us and we will navigate the process of getting you set straight.

It’s really that simple.

 

Terminology:

“Caliber” describes the hole size down the center of a barrel blank. There are often multiple ways of describing what is essentially the same thing.

“Lands”.  These are the raised “teeth” that physically grab the bullet to make it spin as it passes down the hole.  An easy way to remember is you step “onto the land” and fall into the “groove.”  It is always the smaller number.

“Groove.”  This describes the largest diameter of the barrel’s bore.

Example:

“30cal, .308, and 7.62mm” are all the same. It’s marketing, nothing more. The land diameter of a “thirty cal” barrel is .300″ with the groove diameter being “308”.   7.62mm is the metric conversion/equivalent of the land diameter.

Now we’ll complicate things…

Within these “global” values, there are some allowances.  In some instances, performance gains have been found by altering the land/groove dimensions slightly.   Competitive marksman in the Palma community found that 30 caliber barrels made with a .298″ Land and .3075″ Groove can be beneficial.  The reason is the ammunition.  Palma is an international event with world championships held every 4 years.  The host country provides the ammunition for the Team event.  The rule stipulates that a 155 grain, 30 caliber projectile is loaded into a 308 Winchester cartridge case.  The type of bullet is open to broad interpretation.  “Radway Green” ammunition in the UK for instance, is often used.  This is not match-grade stuff loaded by a bunch of lab techs in white coats.  It’s nothing more than open base, machine gun ammo separated from the links and repackaged in a cardboard box.  It was discovered many years ago that tighter land/groove dimensioning offers a small potential for accuracy improvement.  -It’s splitting hairs a bit, but the 308 Winchester at 800, 900, and 1,000 yards, shooting garbage 155-grain pills through iron sight guns (no magnification allowed), needs all the help it can get.

 

NOTES:

*K&P Barrels*
K&P Barrels are built to suit.  Common calibers, twist rates, and contours are stocked, but the majority of barrels are ordered individually.  Allow for 4 to 6 weeks.