ABOUT US
The Founding and Mission of ACE Barrels Co
The founding of ACE Barrels Co
Ace Barrels Co was founded on the pursuit of the highest accuracy and quality before everything else. Mark and Jerry are both driven towards the pursuit of precision and accuracy in the rifle barrel manufacturing industry.
Jerry as an avid benchrest shooter began looking into how he can serve the shooting community, originally interested in manufacturing benchrest rifles. While investigating the market he quickly discovered the lack of availability of quality precision single-point cut rifle barrel blanks on the market. This changed the trajectory of the company he was about to create and focused his search for the right business partner to bring his vision to life.
Mark began his career as a Tool and Die Maker with a passion for shooting sports and hunting. He later owned and operated his own Gunsmith business, serving the hunting and competitive shooter markets alike. His passion and expertise in both firearms manufacturing and engineering drove him to design proprietary equipment to meet the highest standard of precision rifle barrel blank manufacturing.
The Mission of ACE Barrels Co
ACE Barrels Co was founded in the pursuit of specific goals; to create a rifle barrel manufacturing company that serves the entire shooting public with the highest quality barrels, to serve and partner with others in the industry with a passion for the shooting industry, and create a company atmosphere that generates and fosters innovation and excellence.
ACE Barrels Co is excited to work with and serve other companies, gunsmiths, and individuals that are looking for the highest quality in precision single-point cut rifle barrel blanks. We welcome anyone to call or email us about what we can do to serve you, Contact Us.
How we do it
To pursue our goal ACE Barrels Co designed in-house equipment using the latest in available technology and the years of experience Mark developed over his years in the Tool and Die as well as the Gunsmith industries. With state of the art equipment at hand process development began taking every detail into account to optimize the process for quality and repeatability. Numerous test barrels were produced and evaluated at the range after each change to the process and equipment until the desired results were produced.
Even from the beginning of process development the equipment design along with careful planning yielded great initial results. A testament to these results can be seen in the groups shot by even our earliest barrel.
Our Process
Each barrel blank ACE Barrels Co produces starts as a piece of gun barrel quality steel complete with a certificate to verify the material properties and provide complete traceability for each barrel blank produced.
Lengths of steel are then cut and prepped for the gun drill to ensure the drilling process produces a clean hole with minimal run-out. Prior to using each drill and reamer in production they are qualified on a test barrel and checked for dimensions, run-out, and surface finished.
The blanks are then drilled and checked for run-out prior to being reamed. After reaming, each barrel is quality inspected using a dial bore gauge for the internal diameter and visually inspected using a bore scope.
Barrels are then smooth bore lapped with 220 grit to leave a smooth finish for the rifling process. After lapping, each barrel is inspected again using a dial bore gauge and bore scope. Any barrels that do not pass the requirements of this step do not continue onto the rifling process.
Rifling occurs on our in-house designed and built CNC rifling machine using our in-house developed cutter head technology. One of the many keys to our high quality and repeatable process is the research and development that has gone into the cutter head design and process. The robust and high precision design of our cutter heads give us industry leading repeatability in our rifling process and the fine adjustment needed to hold precise tolerances from muzzle to breach. Each barrel is inspected with a dial bore gauge for groove diameter and visually inspected with a bore scope prior to moving to the finish lap process.
After the rifling inspection is complete every barrel is finish lapped with 320 grit before the final inspection. Final inspect includes a dial bore gauge for final dimensions of the grooves and bore scope to verify uniformity in the finish.
Barrel blanks that pass the final inspection are then contoured following a strict procedure based on the contour selected to ensure no stress is imparted into the material as part of this step in the process. Finally barrel blanks are polished to 180 grit and prepared for shipment pending a full review of the Batch Record for each individual barrel.
