Mete, Winchester used hammer forged barrels in their Model 70's starting in 1964. 'Twas the Germans who came up with the process in the late 1930's.
Slamfire, this is amazing:
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A gunsmith told me of a mutual acquaintance who had bought a Krieger barrel. The barrel was installed correctly but shot so far left that it ate up all the windage on the gentleman’s sight. Another barrel was installed. The gunsmith marked the take off barrel, rethreaded and rechambered it so the left offset was pointed 90 degrees up. That barrel was installed on a palma rifle and shot great at 1000 yards. I think it was shooting high but at that distance, it just took less elevation.
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Palma rifle rear sights need at least 40 MOA of windage on both sides of zero. With a 30 inch barrel whose breech is 7 inches in front of the rear sight, sight radius gets up in the 36 inch range. Which means the guy's rear sight that ran out of windage to get a zero was 4/10ths inch or more off center from the chamber axis at the back end of the action.
Do you know how much bend that barrel had to have if this is what needed to be done? Putting that barrel on a granite gauging table would have shown a 1/5 inch or more gap between its ends at the middle as it was rolled on that surface. I can't imagine a 'smith chambering or crowning such a barrel; it would wobble his lathe quite noticable. Much less the barrel maker who would have to have seen its condition as he made and finished it.
My question is, why did the barrel maker let that out of his shop?