I'm sure a lot of folks here have considered the very affordable Shaw prefits offered by Midway and Eabco (and probably others). I thought I'd weigh in on my experience with them.

I read all the reviews because I was mostly concerned with the barrel contour - this barrel was for my western mountain rifle, so weight matters. As many of the reviews state, the Shaw "FC" or factory contour barrel is in fact, slightly heavier than the standard Savage factory contour. Not a lot, but enough that you might need to open the barrel channel on your stock just a touch. That is easily done with a long socket and sandpaper, and to me is no big deal if you are okay with a barrel that's slightly heavier than the standard Savage sporter contour.

I ordered a stainless 7mm-08 FC barrel from Midway USA and it came with the barrel nut wrench plus go and no-go gauges for just $239 shipped to my door. It arrived in three days. Since I wanted a 21" (or perhaps even 20") barrel, the first thing I did was chop off 3" and recrown the barrel. This is easily done with hand tools and took me about 30 minutes. Larry Potterfield has a nice video on how to do this, as do others on YouTube.

After chopping and re-crowning, my barrel contour was similar to a Tikka barrel, with a 0.600" muzzle diameter at 21". It weighed 2 lbs. 7 oz. which was acceptable to me. I was shooting for 2 lbs. 5 oz. and may still take another inch off eventually. However, this barrel is shooting very well now so I may not ever touch it.

I also tried bucking tradition and after reading some blogs about "breaking in" barrels (which I've done many times now) I decided to not break this barrel in at all. No cleaning. Just shoot it. I wanted to see what happens. And I'm glad I did.

After 30 rounds, this is what I got. 139 grain Hornady Interlock boat tail (an inexpensive but accurate and deadly hunting bullet for the 7mm-08) going 2900 fps. out of that 21" barrel, using IMR 4166 powder and Lapua brass. Both those 3-shot groups measure under 0.7" and were shot with a fixed 6x scope at 100 yards. Not too shabby for a $239 barrel.

If you're on the fence about trying one, I'd say go for it. This is my second Shaw barrel (the other was a custom 6.5 Grendel) and they have both shot great. They are well worth the asking price, plus some.

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