A friend once had a .338 Winchester Mag. on a 700BDL. It would shoot no better than 2 1/2" with factory ammo. He sent it to the States, to Remington and they acknowledge it shot 2 1/2 with all makes and weights of factory ammo and that there was nothing wrong with it as their standard was 5". They sent it back and it was stolen during transit, however my friend received the paper work. Did he buy another Remington? Not on your life - never again. He will now own a rifle that does not shoot under an inch and Reminton proved to him, they do not care about quality - that was 20 years ago. He still shoots anything but.

If shooting a factory Remington .17 cal. barrel in comparison to a Lilja or Pac-Nor, you will appreciate the 'extra' work that goes into a truly good barrel and that QUALITY hasn't been maintained in the Remington barrel.

The others are button'd too, but more and proper care seems to be taken when the 'custom' barrels are buttoned and/or lapped. The Pac-Nor will be hand lapped as well - I suspect the Lilja barrels are hand lead-lapped as well.

Remington .17 barrels have been famous for excessive fouling, which can be attributed to their inner finish - in comparison to the others, it was rough as a cob.

Today, there is a possibility that their barrels are of better quality than they used to be - isn't there a possibility this is true today?

There was a time & not too long ago that a .17 Rem had to be scrupulously cleaned every 15 to 25 shots or it would start keyholing the bullets, not just shooting badly.

My first .17 barrel, a CZ at that, albeit a hammer forged barrel, was first a .17Rem at 4,450fps using 20gr. Vmax and Bergers, then a .17AH at 3,925fps with the same 20gr. Vmax, got cleaned after 300rounds and showed just a trace of coppering. Like today with the Pac-Nor, there was/is no loss in accuracy at the time I clean them, I merely figured it was about time they were cleaned - only a trace of coppering and Butches mixed 50:50 with Kroil removed it, which shows it was quite minimal.

My current Pac-Nor .17AH barrel shooting the same bullets at 3,925fps, gets cleaned every 600rounds and shows no coppering, just the powder fouling. It is the same scenario with a friend's Pac-Nor stainless .17 AB running 4,100fps with the same bullet - no coppering.

So - are Rem barrels better nowadays than they used to be? I don't know, but in the small calibres, the differences will show more quickly as the little fast ones are much more difficult to make, and much harder on their .002' deep rifling than the slowpoke larger bores with .004" rifling.