CZ 457 Lothar Walther Barrel Flaw FIXED! 

I agree. The manufacturer warranty should not be void because of where their product is sold. This is not acceptable today. Shows they do not stand by their product nor care about their products quality. I will definitely be boycotting their products and spreading the word.

I agree. I was thinking of getting one of their barrels too and am definitely going to double think this. I bought a Shaw barrel from OPlanet and had head space problems from a drop in barrel. Shaw had me send it in and they head spaced it for free. I paid shipping. The never even asked where I got the barrel. They just did it. I think Don made the choice for the better even though he had none. Mr. Pendergraft got some valuable advertising.

Polygonal huh?? I wondered about, with regards to why more .22lr rifle Mfg.'s didn't do that and hammer forge barrels, which is why I love my CZ. I'm a HK pistol fanboy mostly because of the polygonal rifling they use and how all my pistols seem to not care what they eat as a steady diet, as everything shoots well in them from factory ammo to my handloads.

Gary… Thank you for your question. Yes, Tuner work is in plan. That was the original idea behind getting the 20-inch LW barrel. We are finishing two videos about the fundamentals and practical methods for using Rimfire Tuners. We’ll be focusing first on the CZ 457 with the 24-inch barrel and Harrell’s Spiral Hole Radial Tuner/Brake. Should have these posted before the end of April. Cheers, Don.

I’ll anxiously await your results. I tried the Harrell’s clamp on aluminum tuner and it did make a difference on point of impact for the different settings but at the end of the test it never improved over the bare barrel. This leads me to believe that tuners are more effective on long, small diameter barrels.

Thanks for your viewership and your question. I can't say to a certainty that LW doesn't fabricate their barrels to a specific manufacturer, but I tend to think they don't. We've seen different chambers favor different bullet profiles for 22 LRs so our best recommendation is to try a couple of different manufacturer's types to find the best chamber fitment and look at various lots to get the best standard deviations for velocities and hits on targets.

Siyu... Thank you for your viewership and comment. The problem we had with the LW barrel IS NOT common and giving Walther's reputation and quality we were surprised we came across this. All 22 LR bullet profiles and rifle chambers, as we discussed in this video, have small differences. So, this is one of the reasons, once you do your build, you want to try different ammunition to see what works best. For match quality ammo whatever bullet profiles you consider, generally, small amount of engraving on the bullet is desired so it doesn't "jump" into the rifling. This is shown to give the best results. ....Don

Gary… Thank you for your viewership and question. The question of barrel length for 22 LR is a common topic. From an internal ballistics point of view, for the 22 LR in a rifle the maximum velocity for target (subsonic ammo) is probably 16 to 18 inches. Our take is the best barrel length depends on what you are doing. The high-end ammo providers, e.g., Eley, Lapua/SK, RWS all quote rifle ballistic data in 26-inch barrels because of their focus on International/Olympics type competitions that need the long barrels for open sight radius improvement and balance, particularly in offhand. You’ll notice, many of these rifles even have sight extenders on these long barrels, common called bloop tubes, to increase the site radius even further. Back in the days of the Winchester 52D and Remington 40X for 3-position/prone we indeed had 26 or 28-inch barrels. In other disciplines, like Rimfire PRS and NRL22, running around with these extremely long barrels is impractical and shorter barrels are preferred, as higher velocities maybe more important than absolute precision. Also, if you’re using muzzle devices like tuners, brakes, suppressors, etc. that all add length you end up seeing a trend toward shorter barrels like the 16.5-inch. And in other disciplines, e.g., precision rimfire, rimfire benchrest, etc. all follow their own guidelines based on desired performance and trade-offs. For the work we do, the sweet spot is around 20-inch, short enough to give us our velocities, long enough to not interfere with our tuners and brakes. Interesting, when CZ introduced the MTR, which has been getting great results even in the 16.5-inch barrel, we saw a trend from them to push many configurations to 16.5-inch. But now we see their 2022 generation is trending back to 20-inch. Hope this helps, Don.

@@PounderLabs Very informative, thank you .

Hi Gary, I had similar questions. This is some additional information that affect barrel length selection in addition to what Mr. Lutter stated. There isn't much velocity to be gained with most standard velocity 22lr after 16. They also do not loose much going a little longer. F.J.Feddersen says on their web site, of their precision 22lr barrels, that their 16" bull has the best harmonics for standard velocity. Their 18" has better harmonics for high velocity loads. It follows a 20" could have better harmonics for hyper velocity loads. Other manufacturers barrels may have favorable harmonics at other longer lengths by using other profiles. Note that longer barrels are quieter with standard velocity 22lr, as the gas pressure falls off. This could be a big feature before foam ear plugs and suppressors. The pressure of the gas escaping and blowing past the bullet as it leaves the barrel is another factor for accuracy. One of the reasons a properly crowned barrel is important. It follows that a longer barrel has lower pressure gas blowing past the bullet as the cork is popped, potentially contributing to precision. Longer match barrels may be able to take advantage of less bullet disturbance at the critical moment the bullet leaves the barrel and also choose a profile with harmonics tuned to that length, as well as the longer sight radius pointed out by Mr. Lutter.

Roh-Roh... Joe.... Thank you for your viewership and thoughtful comments. First, you are correct Lothar is misspelled several times as Lother. My last name is Lutter so I might have a blind spot for how this word is spelled :-( Second, I believe your point is valid on Carl Walter of Germany makes the high-end Olympics guns and, as I understand it, Lothar Walther is their American operation focusing on barrels like what we're using in this video. I have personally owned Anschutz, Walther, and FWB rifles/air rifles from Germany and I will attest to their quality and precision. Actually, that's why I didn't hesitate too long to invest in LW because of the rich history of German gun manufacturing. Lothar Walther talks this up on their website so imagine my surprise when I got what I got when I reached out for help. Much of this video is about identify and fixing things that affect rimfire rifle performance, but we wanted to give our viewers the background understanding why we're doing this. And in their defense, we're very pleased with the performance of the LW barrel... I just think we could've gotten this sorted out quicker with a little help from them. I edited both the video title and the description and also made the changes in the PowerPoint. But if I upload a new video, we lose all of these comments and I think it is more valuable that we discussed this here instead of starting all over the new video upload. Cheers, Don

@@PounderLabs Hi Don, I've never seen an actual Lothar Walther barrel in person so I'm just after 'Googling' images of Lothar Walther barrels and compared the branding stamp on those compared to the branding stamp on a KK500 stainless steel barrel. They are both done with the same process, either laser engraved or acid etched (I can't tell) - not letter stamped, so that's one shared similarity. The "Lothar Walther" branding and calibre marks are different and much larger, the "Carl Walther" barrel has the flag logo with "Walther" written on it. So at the end of all that I still couldn't say for definite whether they work with one another or not. Glad your barrel turned out right in the end and good luck with it for future use and competitions.

I wouldn't speak for everyone doing rimfire but, because it's a relatively low-cost platform they like trying new things and, of course, the pursuit of ultimate performance with the mystical combination of platform and ammo.We have three CZ457s all put together for a specific purposes. We wanted the Lothar Walther because of the profile and longer than the traditional 16" threaded so we could experiment with muzzle device like tuners and bloop tubes. The second has an IBI 22" with their "Olympic Contour" which has a Shnuble nose for studying barrel harmonics. The last has the stock factory 24.5" threaded that came on the first Precision Varmint Trainer with the Manner stock. Performance? From 50 out to 200+ yards, on any given day, I wouldn't want to live on the difference between any of these. ...Don