I was wondering who makes the barrel for the 14.5 inch Sabre with a pinned/welded warcomp. It says its stainless 416r but no brand name. Does anyone know or have any ideas?
PSA does at their DC Machine shop.
it is my belief that if you buy a PSA Sabre rifle, you’re going to get a PSA Barrel. they dont sell other manufacturers barrels in any of their weapons.
Appreciate the responses, I had no idea that PSA makes they’re own barrels!
I thought they put FN HFCL machine gun steel barrels on some of them.
They do on the Forged receivers, the one I’m looking at is a Billet ambi receiver
Psa makes everything almost.
as far as an ar is concerned yea, everything.
upper lower barrel small parts, everything… the plastics though, outsourced most likely… but thats normal. this also includes the billet items.
Sometimes* Psa will outsource to the FN manufacturer and put the FN Machine gun steel COld Hammer FOrged barrels in their guns. This is a nice little treat for us who love FN CHF barrels. but PSA also has their own Hammer Forge, and thus produces PSA CHF barrels as well. SO its is hard to say which receivers and uppers will definitely have a FN CHF… it used to be easier before PSA had all the manufacturing abilities that they have now to say yes, all FN or even wilson barrels, but now a days, its usually all PSA with the few exceptions of the fn barrels.
They use FN barrels also. In the Sabre line you can get FN in the forged Sabre line. In billet it will be their barrels, in my accuracy testing PSA barrels are more accurate than FN. As far as burning out a barrel. Do some research on chrome lined, nitrite, and stainless steel. Best accuracy comes from Stainless steel then nitrite. Worst is chrome lined. What damages a barrel is the heat. In military testing they got 28,000 rounds out of a nitrite barrel on full auto before burnout. On another site I found a barrel manufacture got 14,000 out of stainless steel on full auto before burnout. Your semi auto-finger will never create enough heat to damage the barrel.
that kinda doesnt make sense to me. The reason is i would expect the FN Chrome lined (which is the only way the chf barrels come from FN) would be in the billet setup, as its more expensive then the forged. You are correct though , regarding CL vs Nitride or stainless. Anything that is Chrome Lined will be less accurate than anything nitride or stainless steel with our without nitride. The reason is that the nitride actually goes into the metals of the barrels and is absorbed into the metal itself, versus the Chrome lining process is On Top of the barrels rifling… which changes the barrel to being less accurate. I don’t know many people who buy chrome lined for accuracy, but they buy it rather for endurance…
You are right, they do use the FN CHF /CL Barrels in the Sabre’s for the most part, however there are some Sabres that come with the Nitride 4150V Chrome Moly Steel Barrel’s as well. these are both Chrome lined. so i would expect accuracy to be very similar on the barrels. I would however expect the CHF barrel to last longer over time than the 4150v barrels to last under constant firing.
THe big question is which is better.,… and for that answer… CHF or 4150v Nitrided… well to me thats a personal preference question. THere is no way in heck i’ll ever shoot enough out of one of those barre3ls to ever shoot out the barrel and need PsA’s lifetime barrel warranty to replace the barrel. thats for sure…
- to be totally honest i’m assuming the Sabre with the Nitride 4150V Chrome Moly Steel Barrel’s are made by FN… because on the add they are not listed as such because it does not say FN while reading the description… so perhaps they are not FN, but rather PSAs own barrels. Here’s the link im talking about Non FN listed 4150v barrels in a Sabre
My understanding is billet upper and lowers are mated together (you can’t buy them separately) and you could get better accuracy because of the tighter tolerances. Hence the stainless steel nitrite or the nitrite 4150 on the Sabre billet line. PSA does make their own barrels and have a proprietary way they do their rifling. Watch “military arms channel” on youtube it’s the video with a Jakl on the picture when they go to the PSA factory. they talk about this. In my testing PSA has always been more accurate than my "high end " stuff. When I found out about their rifling technique, I finally understood why. I just thought they had mystical fairies sprinkling magical pixie dust crushed from unicorn dingle berries while dancing under rainbows on their barrels. Guess I was wrong.
I have done a lot of research on barrel manufacturing since making this post and the main takeaways for me have been the following :
The 5.56 FN CMV are going to have the longest life due to there chrome coating they receive while most likely having the poorest accuracy out of the saber offerings. Not saying they are inaccurate, but probably a 2-3 MOA.
The .223 Wylde 416r stainless barrels are going to have the shortest lifespan while supposedly being the most accurate, but the caveat is you are only going to have said accuracy gains if you are running high end ammo or custom loads due to the Wylde chamber, I believe it was to achive a 1 MOA or less.
So that leaves 5.56 Nitride barrels which are supposed to be pretty good corrosion resistance while maintaining 1-2 MOA accuracy, kind of like the best of both worlds, so long as the manufacturing and nitride process we’re done correctly.
This information has made me completely rethink what I want to purchase from the sabre line and to be honest other than the ambi controls,in MY opinion PSA doesn’t offer enough options or variety to justify paying more for a billet rifle, so the plan going forward it purchase they’re Forged Lower with a geissele trigger and a Forged Upper with a PSA 5.56 nitride barrel. If I get lucky I will have gotten a well made barrel, if not the upper is low enough in price to swap out with a after market barrel. Sorry for the novel length post, but I hope this info helps other customers out and saves them some research time!
well remember the FN Cold hammer forged, what makes it so good, is the fact that they have a proprietary formula for the steel they’re using called “Machine Gun Steel” and that steel is supposed to last much longer than the regular Cold Hammer Forged steel from other companies. so there is in fact a major difference in the steel there. before you get into applying the Chrome Moly to the inside of the barrel.
i wish you luck on your plan
That is something I didn’t fully consider when making this post as I just researched barrels in general. Are FN CHF barrels really built that much better than other brands, and if so what would be the difference in life expectancy on average?
You wont outshoot the FN. Its the same steel they use in the m249 barrels.
GG is right. The "MachineGun Steel that they use in their CHF barrels has a proprietary recipe to the steel that makes it stronger than the rest, which in turn is chrome lined, and prooven to last much longer durring high round counts. Look at it this way, you’re buying the same barrel basically in the M249 which fires in full automatic for the life of its use, and your using it in a semi automatic ar-15 that is uses for non-military and non-full auto applications… you’ll never shoot out that barrel. ever… and i mean Ever Ever… and thats why people have such a high opinion of their CHF barrels. not all of them use that steel, their standard FN barrels may not use that steel… but i know all their chf barrels do.
Well I believe that about the lifespan of the CMV barrel and in a belt fed machine gun that is probably the most important characteristic, but I also read where chrome lining typically affects accuracy since the chrome is applied after the barrel has been rifled?
Yes. Chrome lined barrels tend to not be quite as accurate.
correct about the accuracy… however, we’re talking minimal effects here… i dont know how many .moa if any it could be even sub moa effects i have never researched how much it changes the accuracy, but im sure its not enough to make a difference much in a batttle rifle and what is required of it, which in the end, really is what these are civillian versions of. It’s nice to know my rifles are gtg if i have to defend mine and myself, but i doubt that i’ll be worrying over weather i should have not had chrome molly lining when i shoot that home invader or murderer who broke in to my home… being just a few millimeters left of his shirt button or being dead on the shirt button wont mean squat to me as long as he’s dead ya know…
I agree about home invasion and self defense, but I also want a rifle I can make hits at 300-400 yards consistently. I had looked up how much the chrome lining would affect accuracy and I really couldn’t find much reliable information. Some people said it was sub moa, others said it was all over the place. I kind of want to get both and test for myself, but the other things I dont like is the A2 profile being front heavyand the 1/7 twist rate. Idk there is a lot to consider when it comes to barrels, I may just assembe my own upper and go with a faxon
You speak as though you have some authority. Please expound further. I see you’ve put an hour of research into the forum for the last year and a half or so. 24 minutes recently, impressive.