Barrel Fluting

Does fluting increase area- yes.
To what degree?
If we use a 6 flute feature .094 deep on a 1" barrel your surface area will increase around 19%. .2dp increases to 32%.
See attached calcs.
We increase surface areas by 300+%.
We measure multiple places in and on our barrel while temp testing. Shot strings are in the 10, 20, 50's range. Our CheyTacs run cooler than the typical 300WM or 300Rum all day long.
Yes mass is slower to heat and to cool. However the radiator in your truck is not a 4 pound block of copper (when they used copper) it is a finned device. Our barrels are too- they are radiators. The hottest values you will measure on our style barrel is within a few minutes of completing a firing session and then it is cooling down.
However - and a big one at that- heat on the lands and throat is the issue. If I am pulling heat out of the chamber on every round fired - which barrel will last longer..?
.416 we shoot are freakin hot for 10's of minutes after a 15shot string.
Stiffness increase is an argument based on compression of the opposite fluted section and tension of the loaded fluted section. Vertical walls dramatically increase resistance to bending in given vectors. Most fluted barrels do not have vertical walls. We add the outer layer back onto "the fluted section" ie.. a closed flute. The large diameter section dramatically increases stiffness and our flutes are "tubes". Does anybody have any bending values or load values of a fluted barrel they can share?
 

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Measure the inner tube diameter of your current hand guard.
Or give me your platform description and we can find it for you.
We will need the DT barrel extension and print.
Inner Diameter. Sorry have not had my coffee yet. I will get you those measurements. Thank you
 
give me a bit and lay this one out. We are getting ready to build a series of lighter/smaller diameter barrels .. and the 50's would be the edge the envelope.
Feel free to contact me thru our website or personally:
[email protected]
 
All of my fluted bbls shoot fantastic. I have them done by the barrel manufacturer spec'd for maximum weight reduction. It's not purely cosmetic for me. Properly fluted barrels make a more balanced carry rifle and I love well balanced rifles.

I had several done over the years by Twisted Barrel. Mo objective is reduce weight. Normally the flutes reduce between seven and eight ounces. That is significant when you're trying to get a steel action rifle under seven pounds with a twenty-two ounce scope.
 
Excuse my ignorance, I'm rather new to this level of expertise. When considering the amount of thought, work, and expense that goes into building a long range rifle why wouldn't one want to include the following steps: order largest profile reasonable, have deep flutes placed, send barrel for nitride (salt bath) treatment, have barrel stress relieved AFTER all steps completed. Would you not end up with a barrel that achieves the goals of stiffness, cooling, accuracy and longevity???
 
Excuse my ignorance, I'm rather new to this level of expertise. When considering the amount of thought, work, and expense that goes into building a long range rifle why wouldn't one want to include the following steps: order largest profile reasonable, have deep flutes placed, send barrel for nitride (salt bath) treatment, have barrel stress relieved AFTER all steps completed. Would you not end up with a barrel that achieves the goals of stiffness, cooling, accuracy and longevity???

Salt bath nitriding is about a 50-50 proposition. I had a few done and my gunsmith had lots done and we both discovered about 50% are great and 50% just will not shoot accurately. Both of us no longer use that service. You didn't mention cryogenics, I discovered cryogenics seems to smooth up the action. I don't remember if anything else changed.
 
Rich, cryogenics was the process I was thinking of when I mentioned stress relieving. Were your 50/50 results with salt bath nitriding treatment obtained on top tier barrels (Krieger, Bartlein, etc.) that were hand lapped prior to nitride/cryogenic treatment? As you may know, one of the manufacturers of AR15 barrels (AR Performance) has nitride/melonite treatment done on essentially all of his barrels. Barrels are very well thought of in that community. When using one of his barrels it is typical to expect <0.5" groups (100 yards) with barrel lasting several thousand rounds before accuracy begins to fall off.
 
Straight flutes on a Rem varm contour dropped 6oz. Spiral dropped 8oz on my rifles. Some companies say there is a stress free way of fluting to make them shoot better. Feldkamp in Idaho does a great job and his shoot great.
 
[QUOTE="DoctorPMN, post: 1736783, member: 106383" Were your 50/50 results with salt bath nitriding treatment obtained on top tier barrels (Krieger, Bartlein, etc.) that were hand lapped prior to nitride/cryogenic treatment? [/QUOTE]

I was using Pac-Nor barrels. I don't know what the 'smith was using.
 
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