Barrel Torquing ?

[edge]

I have several Savage rifles and they are easy to change barrels. My friend is a Remington fan and his barrels are a bear to get off.

My question is:

Is there any reason to torque a barrel tighter than just tight enough so it won't unscrew itself from vibration?

Is there anything magic about 30, 50, 75, 100 Ft/lbs, accuracy wise. If not, then why so tight on the Remy's?

thanks.

edge.

 

[royinidaho]

Go here:http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f37/kirby-shawn-other-smiths-25997/

My only experience is years ago when the 17 REM came out and I was having bad luck with it I screwed off the barrel which was a brute to get off and installed a Shaw 222 REM.

I trued and polished the recoil lug as good as I could, no tools just tried to burnish it square. I then worked some kind of DIY process to mate the barrel shank to the lug. Similar to engine valve grinding.

What I found was that I could "snap: the the last little bit when seating the barrel and after a few shots a barrel vise was required to remove the barrel.

Also I think that the rotation of the bullet tends to tighten the barrel....

Anyway it was kind of fun and it shot pretty good. Used it for years.

 

[edge]

Thanks a lot, I appreciate your reply.

edge.

 

[J E Custom]

Edge

I have had several rifles that after a while started shooting
poorly and found the barrels to be gust made up by hand,
after tightning them up to 100ft/lbs they started shooting
again.

I torque all of my custom rifles to 100 ft/lbs, this forces the barrel
to recever fit to make up square and act as a solid so if temperatures
go from 0 degrees to 100 there is no shift in the barrel makeup.

I know that some smiths use less torque than me and have herd
of some using 125ft/lbs.but with 100ft/lbs I get about .001" crush
and strech and don't have to use a filler/sealer compound like some
factorys do. I just use a good high pressure grease to prevent
galling.

On the savages once you loosen the barrel nut the barrel should screw
out by hand.

If you break a remingtion down for the first time they are tough
because they use a sealer on all of there rifles.

Its just the way I do it because it works for me.
J E CUSTOM

 

[edge]

Thanks, interesting thought on temperature influences, I did not consider that.

In another thread I mentioned Spiralock threads. They seem interesting, at least in situations where you can't pull the male portion.

Spiralock Homepage — Spiralock

While it can't compete with stretching the bolt, it seems that it does spread the tension over more threads which should reduce the need for over torquing.

royinidaho also mentioned that the bullet should tend to tighten the barrel, and intuitively that seems to be the case.

I also did not know that manufacturers used a locking sealant...perhaps a version of Loctite I would assume.

Thanks again.

edge.