do tuners "cheat" barrel harmonics or is there another way to duplicate previous barrel

ARlife4me

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just like the title says! for those barrels that have short life i've been thinking about getting 3-5 at a time to save time on waiting. doing a "switch lug" or "mrad" types will make it easier for pre-testing/load development. any other insight is appreciated!
 
With use of a tuner, you can initially develop purely for a powder node, then use the tuner to reach a barrel node on top of the powder node.
If your other barrels are from same steel lot, and finished the same, your powder node should hold, and you'll be close with prior tuner setting.
It IS cheating.
 
With use of a tuner, you can initially develop purely for a powder node, then use the tuner to reach a barrel node on top of the powder node.
If your other barrels are from same steel lot, and finished the same, your powder node should hold, and you'll be close with prior tuner setting.
It IS cheating.
i haven't used or needed a "tuner" as of yet. thinking of possibilities ahead and hopefully barrels of the same lot is why. would a custom reamer or a specific reamer to the cartridge hold a more truer possibility of obtaining a more equal barrel to barrel process?
 
Holding a reamer, and having all barrels cut with this same reamer, will ensure that your chamber matches across multiple barrels.
I think it's best to have the machinist finish all barrels together, so that head spacing/breech clearance/threading/crowning will match as well.
The last time I did this was with 3 barrels. It worked so well that nothing about the brass, die settings, or load results changed as I burnt through them.
 
Tuners don't work. They appear to work with small sample sizes because of the stochastic nature of shooting, but don't actually influence precision over many rounds. If you have a good smith chamber multiple barrels at the same time they'll all shoot pretty much the same.
I am not the argumentative type, but all of the experience, and exposure I've had with them, they absolutely make a difference. Definitions of 'working or not working' could be argued, but I definitely think that it is way too broad and all-encomompassing to say that they don't work.
 
Tuners don't work. They appear to work with small sample sizes because of the stochastic nature of shooting, but don't actually influence precision over many rounds. If you have a good smith chamber multiple barrels at the same time they'll all shoot pretty much the same.

I'm thinking that there is a whole world of Small Bore shooters who will vehemently disagree with you.
 
I am not the argumentative type, but all of the experience, and exposure I've had with them, they absolutely make a difference. Definitions of 'working or not working' could be argued, but I definitely think that it is way too broad and all-encomompassing to say that they don't work.
It'd be more accurate to say no one who has rigorously tested them has demonstrated they work, but it's easier to say they don't work and that's close enough to accurately for most situations.

How many rounds per setting do you test with?
 
I'm thinking that there is a whole world of Small Bore shooters who will vehemently disagree with you.
They probably will. I'm not going to try to change their minds. For some reason it's become a holy war against basic physics and statistics. I don't care about the folks who have already made up their mind, but if I can save someone from wasting a few hundred bucks on snake oil and ammo to test it that's a win to me. The fact remains that no one has shown changing the settings on a tuner has an effect on group size over many rounds, that the results are repeatable over multiple tests, or the effect with low round count groups is outside the expected dispersion in group size.
 
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Part of the problem is that you're asking for a consistency in ammo that doesn't exist, either. One lot to the next of high precision small bore ammo usually requires a range trip or two to dial in. The physics of how a tuner works is solid.

By insisting on a huge number of data points you're actually causing the results that you desire. I've no personal experience with tuners myself, but I'm surrounded by data acquisition and analysis every day at work. In R&D work you don't know what you've done unless you can measure it. Sometimes a large sample size works against you because you can't hold all of the other factors in the system to the same value(s) over a long run.
 
It'd be more accurate to say no one who has rigorously tested them has demonstrated they work, but it's easier to say they don't work and that's close enough to accurately for most situations.

How many rounds per setting do you test with?
I am fine with agreeing to disagree, but I have the same but opposite motivation for replying. I want someone who is considering a tuner to not make a decision on one person's staunch, well-stated opinion or experience.

Lastly, when you reference physics, there is plenty of physical evidence that anything that changes a barrel harmonic can change outcomes, in this case accuracy.
 
It'd be more accurate to say no one who has rigorously tested them has demonstrated they work, but it's easier to say they don't work and that's close enough to accurately for most situations.

How many rounds per setting do you test with?
It would certainly be nice to see an independent test done on a tuner. Shoot with no tuner, add a tuner and start at zero, and then observe the group sizes at the different settings.

Last tuner testing I did was in the early 2000s with the Browning BOSS rifles. I would do the two shot groups, and dial one way or the other to see which setting put the two shots closest together. As it was marketed, one could just load to the maximum velocity allowable by safe pressures and just use the tuner to "lasso" all that into harmonious harmonics. Now I wonder if I was only observing the noise within the MOA cone of POI potential of the barrel.

Then there is the question, "Why did Browning stop manufacture of the BOSS?" This one really hits hard for me.
 

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