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Old August 21, 2022, 11:27 AM   #46
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,832
Quote:
Perhaps it's wishful thinking that there was a way get a user-friendly easily replaceable barrel Weatherby considering how they are manufactured--I for one would readily pay a premium for that.
Do consider that the entire idea of the user replacing a rifle barrel himself didn't even exist until relatively recently. Even the Savage barrel nut system wasn't created with that in mind.

From the earliest days of cartridge arms, replacing a barrel was "shop work", and one took the gun to a gunsmith to have the work done. That's what was required and what people came to expect to be required for well over a century plus....

Special tools, gauges, and often reamers were needed to do the job right. PLUS a degree of skill. These were things most people didn't have, and wouldn't get, it was easier, simpler, and even cheaper to have a gunsmith do it.

Even with military rifles, (until the M16), fitting a new barrel was only done at the very highest level of maintenance (Depot level in the Army), because fitting a barrel to the rifle receiver required FITTING, which the lower 4 levels of maint were not trained, equipped or authorized to do.

The M16 changed that, its design allowed for essentially "plug and play", and I replaced many barrels working at the Direct Support/General Support level (levels 3-4) as a Small Arms Repairman.

IF in Springfield, or a Garand, or M1 Carbine or M14 needed a barrel, it was sent to Depot maint (division level) it was not done at brigade level or lower.

Commercial rifles were generally made that way as well, needing work the hobbyist rarely was set up to do in order to fit a barrel correctly.

I don't think one should expect "plug and play" from guns designed back before it was considered something useful or desirable.

Today many people's expectations have changed a bit, and newer designs reflect that, to a greater or lesser degree.

Still, while you might be willing to "pay a premium" for an easy barrel swap in a Weatherby, I don't think most people would.

Most people who buy a high end "sports car" send it to the professionals when it needs work. The few that don't are generally enthusiasts who personally enjoy doing the work, and have their own home shop to do it with.
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