I have barreled a lot of actions over the years and I have used every barrel out there. Wilson does own Cooper and the barrels shoot great. I have personally had very good luck with them. If the jerk that owns that outfit would sell them in less than batches of 100 you would probably see a lot more of them in use. Without exception, every Wilson barrel I have had in my shop I stuck my Hawkeye in for a look and saw no tooling marks. For the money I say you cant go wrong based on what I have seen and the way they shoot so far. I see a lot of tool marks in Douglas and Shilen barrels. You wont see tool marks left in Wilson, Xcaliber or Pac-Nor. Shilen makes a higher grade barrel that will not have tool marks either. I have never understood a manufacturer offering two grades of barrel...good and what, not so good??? Shouldn't all custom barrels be the best they can do??? I will also say this, tooling marks or the lack of them may or may not be an indicator of how accurate or whether or not a barrel is going to copper foul, but it is a pretty good place to start.
One issue that no one much talks about is the steel itself. I believe barrel makers {maybe unknowingly} buy alloy steel from mills that are less than honest. Bartlein gets the alloy certificate from their mill. Some barrels seem to wear out and/or burn the throat way too fast, Wilson is not one of them. I have a 260 stainless barrel that scorched the throat in less than 100 rounds, it was not overheated and it was not shot with hot loads, it wasn't even shot with max loads. I have a 223 stainless barrel that did the same thing {not the same manufacturer}. Neither of these calibers are barrel burners. Neither of the two are wasted or shot out by no means, but I believe fewer than 100 rounds in two rifles that are not "hot" is way too soon to see noticeable scorching and cracking at the throat.
