The cost of going custom ...is it really worth it?? When it comes to purchasing interchangeable barrels for our Thompson/Center handguns we have more choices than kids in a candy store. I own several custom barrels from the various producers but have to admit that the majority of my collection is made up of regular old factory T/C tubes.

Would I commission a custom house to build me a .44 Magnum...never! There are way more than enough 10" and 14" barrels to go around. There are also more than enough .22LR's, .223's, and 30-30 Winny barrels to be had. Some folks complain that factory barrels are poorly chambered and don't shoot worth a darn. Between all the barrels I currently own and have owned at any one time there were only two that would not shoot. Both were returned to T/C with a nice letter explaining the problem and they were quickly replaced. The rest of my barrels shoot very well with a few that group absolutely unbelievable! A factory tube may take a bit more load development to find the sweet spot but always perform well enough for the intended purpose.

There are some quasi-custom chamberings that T/C may have chambered a small run of and may be hard to find. Such examples would be the .22 K-Hornet, .300 Whisper, or 30-30 Ackley Improved. If you desire something like the K-Hornet of 30-30AI, without hunting down a pure factory barrel you could either spend the funds for a full custom or have a factory barrel rechambered. My 14" K-Hornet was rechambered from a factory Hornet by a local gunsmith for a crisp $20 bill, while my 30-30AI was redone from a factory Super 14 .30 Herrett by SSK Industries for a couple of twenties. Both rechambers are extremely accurate.

In the case of the .300 Whisper, about the only barrels it could be chambered from would a .30 Carbine or .32-20 Winchester but there are not many of those just floating around. However to perform as the Whisper is intended to it needs a fast 1 in 8" twist and T/C never produced anything of the such. So this chambering would do best in a custom SSK barrel.

Though the 6T/CU was produced as a factory tube, at the time I was looking there were not many to be found. I ended up getting a barrel from Bullberry Barrel Works to satisfy the itch. There was also no other factory T/C barrels in which this barrel could have been rechambered from.

Probably one of the most popular wildcats in the single shot handgun world is the .375JDJ. If shooters did not buy it as a custom from SSK they were hunting down factory .375 Winchester barrels to have rechambered for the JDJ version. But as you may have read in Mark Hampton's February column, this chambering is now available as a factory T/C barrel.

Since T/C has chambered barrels in bore diameters from .172" to .458" there are few cartridges that cannot be rechambered from a factory barrel for a fraction of the cost of a custom. The one bore diameter that T/C has never chambered is .338". So in order to get my .338JDJ#2 I had to go custom.

So to sum it up, for myself anyhow, the determining factor whether to get a custom or factory barrel is the chambering I wish to shoot, not the cost. The higher cost of a custom in the exact chambering I want may just keeping me pinching pennies for another month or two.

Good shooting,
Dan B.