Faxon Firearms – SHOT Show 2019

For more on Faxon Firearms, be sure to check out our interview we did with the company a few months back. We talked about a variety of topics, including their barrel making process:

As background, there are basically three forms of rifling.  Cut, button, and hammer forged.  We do buttoning.  This involves pulling a little piece of steel through a very small hole to create the rifling in the barrel.

At Faxon, we do all of this rifling and machining in-house. We make and grind all of our barrel extensions.  Doing these things in-house allows us to control every step of the manufacturing process.  It also allows us to keep our prices down.  We don’t have any inflated costs from subcontracting services out.

As for button versus cold hammer forged…this is something that people get into a lot.  Neither one I would say is superior.  Each has benefits and each has downsides. 

Someone who does button rifling well will create a great barrel, just like someone who does hammer forged barrels well will do great barrels.  The difference is there are only a couple hammer forgers in the country.  

As for Faxon Firearms‘ button rifling, we believe it results in more accurate barrels.  Hammer forging can induce a little bit more stress into the barrel because you are hammering the material around the mandrel. It’s actually expanding while it’s just getting hammered by thousands and thousands of PSI of force.  For us, button allows us to make very accurate barrels but it is also a very efficient process that allows us to keep costs down as well.