Short version: for a competitive rimfire barrel, an unthreaded, well-crowned muzzle is the safe default. Threading solves exactly one problem — running a suppressor — and introduces risk you don't otherwise carry.
The crown is everything
The crown is the last point of contact between barrel and bullet. If gas escapes unevenly around the bullet base as it exits — because the crown is asymmetric, nicked, or damaged — the bullet gets a tiny lateral shove at the worst possible instant. That shows up as a flier, or as a low-grade dispersion you'll spend weeks blaming on ammo or wind.
What threading actually costs you
Threading destroys the factory crown, so a correctly threaded barrel must be re-crowned afterward — a good smith will recess-cut a fresh 11° or 45° crown inside the threads. Done right, threaded barrels shoot beautifully. The catch is that not every threading job is done by a precision-focused smith, and many quality rimfire barrels are hand-lapped with a deliberate muzzle choke that a careless thread job can undo. If you already own a threaded barrel that shoots well, leave it alone. What you should avoid is threading a good match barrel after the fact for the option of running a can someday — the risk-to-reward is poor.
Tuners clamp on — you don't need threads for one
A lot of new shooters hear that barrel tuners help vertical dispersion (they do, with good ammo) and assume that means a threaded muzzle. It doesn't — the vast majority of rimfire tuners (Harrell's, Ezell PDT, and friends) are clamp-on. If your barrel is already threaded and you want a clamp-on tuner, run a snug thread protector under it or use a threaded insert.
"Doesn't a suppressor act as a tuner?"
Only if its weight never changed — and it does. A rimfire can accumulates carbon, lead, and unburned powder over its life; the muzzle mass grows, the harmonic node moves, and your zero walks with it. You can start a match zeroed and be throwing shots high or low by the back half of the day with no way to tell whether to blame conditions, ammo, or the can. A real tuner has fixed weight and a variable you control; a suppressor makes the weight itself the variable.
The scoring problem
This one doesn't show up until you try to keep score for a suppressed shooter. An unsuppressed report tells the whole line exactly when a shot broke; with a can, the only way to know a shot was fired is to watch the muzzle. Minor friction in practice, a real headache in a scored match.
So when is a can the right call?
For practice, plinking, and pest control it's one of the most enjoyable accessories you can own — subsonic match ammo is already below the sound barrier, and most modern precision rimfires (Anschütz, Vudoo, RimX, KIDD, Ruger Precision Rimfire) ship with factory threads done right. For competitive precision rimfire, the crowd has largely settled on bare or thread-protected muzzles with clamp-on tuners.
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