Dixie drills the fuse hole for you on the Hern Barrels and roughly doubles the price for doing it.
If you want a cast barrel, Hern barrels are awesome. They have seemless steel liners with welded breech plugs. You can get an NSSA style breech plug for $200 more (at least that was the cost a couple years ago). I have a coehorn and a carronade. They are both good barrels, although the Coehorn lacks a traditional powder subchamber (making it difficult to shoot light loads).
A machined barrel is probably going to cost you more for the same size barrel, but would typically be a stronger barrel. A machined barrel would give you the option to ask for custom features though as cast barrels all come out the same. For instance, Caliber choice based on what you have access to for cheap projectiles would be one thing tht would be nice.
Do some homework, look at both cast and machined versions, get pricing, compare. The barrel is only about half the cost (don't forget the carriage) so a little difference in barrel cost is an even littler cost percentage wise of the total gun.
Rick
