After a lot of looking around I bought a barrel vise from Paul Becigneul, Pbike4466@directv.net. I paypaled the $ Friday Dec. 9, 2011 and received the vise the following Monday-3 days later. The vise is nice, big and well made and completely without wood blocks of any kind. Paul's instructions recommend wrapping the barrel-where it is held in the vise-with a 4" X 6" card. I used a piece of a manila folder.
The barrel nut came loose after a good yank or two on the Wheeler nut wrench, but the action was still tight on the barrel. I loosened the action from the barrel using a BIG screwdriver in the action port. I can't explain how, but if you look at the port you'll see.
I put the new 22-250 barrel on the action using a fired full-length-sized cartridge case to set headspace. Again, with the BIG screwdriver and the Wheeler nut wrench, the bolt closed on a ctg. case but had a lot of resistance to closing on a ctg. case with 1 piece of scotch tape on the head of the case. This all done with several f.l. sized cases, several with scotch tape.
This is my 2nd barrel change. Reports on the Wheeler action wrench were mixed, so I went to the bbl vise. The vise was $79 delivered, and I'm very happy.
joe b.