I have not voted yet, because unlike the 17 Fireball or 35 Remington, I already have a 35 Whelen barrel. I have not tried factory ammo in it, but I use Remington brass for my reloads, and have yet to have a FTF. Granted I have not shot it alot, but I have went through a box of 50 bullets, with no problems. However, my barrel is a 22". If the barrel offered was a 26" one, I would probably sell mine to buy the longer one.
It seems to me if Remington is going to offer new accessory barrels, and they still have to be factory fitted, why not just do like T/C and offer a list of cartridges they can chamber for, and charge more for the service? It would seem they could keep a number of barrels in each caliber on hand, and then just chamber them in the chosen cartridge when submitted for fitting. Might take a little longer, and they could charge a little more for the service, rather than trying to keep a number of each barrels on hand in each chambering. Maybe I don't understand the manufacturing process they have, but i wouldn't think doing the chambering at the same time as barrel fitting would be too hard. Just as an example, they could just keep 35 caliber barrels on hand, when a rifle came in to be fitted for one, fit it, then chamber in the buyers chosen cartridge. They don't have to do one-offs or wildcats, but doing it that way would make more people happy and keep costs lower I would think. They could still offer barrels that are sold as complete rifles, and sell them as accessory barrels at lower prices. This would probably cut into the custom gunsmith work, but I would hazard a guess that it would increase their barrel sales greatly. Call it the Handi Custom Shop. Billy
BTW, I would rather have a 338 Marlin Express(rimmed case)!