Well, I Have owned both Criterion and Shilen barrels and I have had good luck with them both. I dont know what wildcat cartridge your talking about but if memory serves me right IN. law says that you can use a rifle to shoot deer but it has to be a straight wall cartridge. So I am assuming this cartridge is a straight wall cartridge, would this be right? I can't imigine a straight wall cartridge putting up 50,000 to 60,000 psi that most bottle necked cartridges safely opperate at. There is hundereds if not thousands of Criterion barrels that are safetly opperating at these pressures everyday. What the smith may be thinking of is Bergara barrels, there was a lot of reports of them making a barrel that would rupture under the pressures used in the modern cartridge.

As far as Criterion being made from a diferent steel than Shilen, at first this was true, in the stainless steel barrels. When Criterion first came out the made there barrels from 410 stainless steel. I have one of these barrels, and I had it rechambered and it was the gun smiths worse nightmare, it took him several trys to get it right, and this is a higly seasoned smith. Since then Criterion whent to using 416 stainless steel, the exact same steel as Shilen uses in thier barrels. I been told there is only 2 sources of 416 steel, so with that said I would be willing to bet that both Shilen and Criterion use the exact same steel. Why not call both Shilen and Criterion and ask them; What type of chromoly steel are you using? They will give you a number, and see if the numbers are the same. That is one way to skin the cat.

As far as wall thinkness, well if a blank is the same contour then why would one have a thicker wall than another? On accuracy, well read all the reports on the Criterion barrels, and that should tell you about that subject. No one can make ammo for a specific make of barrel, all barrel have thier own personality, and will all behave diferently. He may match his ammo to the specks of his reamer, but that would be it, if anything at all.

Any smith critical of the Savage usualy has never worked on one, they just go with the main stream prejudius that is out there. If they actuly played with one that would find that it is every bit as good, if not better than thier beloved Remington.