Cryonic treatment of rifle barrels.

[J E Custom]

I believe that, if Stainless Steel barrel material starts losing it's strength at 0°, cooling it to -300° could do something to it. I just don't know what that something is.

The problem I have with this is that I will stop hunting long before -300 Degrees and will not benefit
from any improvement.

The coldest weather I have ever been in was -57 Degrees and I certainly was not hunting, Had my feet to a fire and a hot cup of coffee. with no intentions of going outside.

J E CUSTOM

 

[ntsqd]

I've read the tech articles that I've found on the topic with regard to racing parts, but have only seen one or two about firearms parts. One place where Cryogenic H-T seems to really pay off is in brake rotors. Cryo'd brake rotors have been shown to last longer in the same use than un-treated rotors. This is interesting because the life of a brake rotor is very much about abrasive wear and large thermal cycles. Seems like those brake rotor results would directly translate to a barrel life improvement, but how to quantify that is problematic.

 

[epags]

The process in definitely not new! 16 years ago I was trying to accurize a couple of Ruger mini14s that were in the 3+ MOA. A shooter scientist recommended the process so I sent the entire barrel/reciever assemblies off to be treated. However I also had the trigger actions gone over by a gunsmith and then bedded/shimmed the treated actions. Now they shoot +/-1MOA. I should have tested each mod to see which made the most (or if any) improvement.
At any rate it was fun. And only cost 1/2 again as much as the original rifles. LOL

 

[Radman]

Here is a link to a barrel maker that describes the process and benefits if any.

FAQ - Lilja

FAQ Q. What is your opinion of the deep cryogenic processing of barrels? Q. What is your opinion of the use of moly coated bullets? Q. What is your opinion of the “BlackStar process and Fire Lapping” ? Q. What are the differences between chrome-moly barrels and stainless steel barrels? Q. What...

riflebarrels.com

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J E CUSTOM

Thanks. A GREAT read!

 

[cohunt]

I've read the tech articles that I've found on the topic with regard to racing parts, but have only seen one or two about firearms parts. One place where Cryogenic H-T seems to really pay off is in brake rotors. Cryo'd brake rotors have been shown to last longer in the same use than un-treated rotors. This is interesting because the life of a brake rotor is very much about abrasive wear and large thermal cycles. Seems like those brake rotor results would directly translate to a barrel life improvement, but how to quantify that is problematic.

Kinda off subject-- but brake rotors are a whole different ball game ( even on those, some guys see vast improvements, others see little to none) Brake rotors are cast or forged, then machined and are heated to glowing red each corner then cooled down on the straights --cooling and pad selection do more for rotor issues than cryo treat-- also there are multiple types of cryo treat process-- dont use the liquid nitrogen process-- the process that ends with a proper heat treat will work better than just a cryo cold treat--besides, real race cars use carbon rotors not metal , besides I'd rather pay more for the driver than the equipment --- a good driver will take you further than just good equipment , just ask Hiro Matsushita/CART racing--Racing is kinda like shooting-- practice, practice, practice -- natural talent shows through with practice not money

 

[25WSM]

The custom barrel maker I use has his barrels frozen in large batches. He thinks it's worth it. My only expiernce with it was last yr my friend had it done to his Savage barrel. He shoots in a factory class match so has to use the factory barrel. After bedding and everything I could think of his gun would shift impact point during a relay. It would just start walking the bullet on a horizontal plane. We ship his barrel out after I told him it probably wouldn't do anything. But to my disbelief it actually did fix the problem. He won the yr in that class and every other class at his range. Now for the durability part. His 6br barrel had 5 inches of cracking in it at 1000 rounds.
Now this could be the quality of Savage steel. And he only shoots 108 Berger's at 2800fps so he didn't hotrod the heck out of it. I just recently cut about 4.5 inches of of it and rechambered it and it shoots even better than it did before. This factory Savage shoots in the 1s and 2s. Pretty impressive. The freezing did settle his barrel down but I don't think it helped longevity.
Shep

 

[Northwoods001]

I live in Wisconsin not far from where Krieger barrels are made. 20 years ago roughly I was considering purchasing one of their barrels for a build and called them with multiple questions, one of which was to ask if cryo-treating their barrel would void any warranty/moa guarantee if I sent it off to have that done.

The customer service lady that answered the phone put me through to one of the bosses in the cryo-treatment area, she said he specialized in the cyro treatment process. I had no idea they were already cryo treating their barrels.

I don't recall the guy's name I spoke with but he relayed Krieger did indeed cryo treat their own barrels in-house. He said they incorporated a 2-step process in that they cryo'd the barrel blanks before cutting the rifling and then again afterwards. The reason was through experimentation they saw a significant decrease in spoiled barrel blanks due to exceeding runout per their tolerance specification. It cut down so greatly on their loss of product due to that runout that they decided through industry recommendation to also cryo treat the tooling used for cutting the barrels and they saw a second significant gain in that the tooling would also last longer.

I never did buy one of their barrels but my gunsmith will only use Krieger barrels because of their straightness and he has never encountered one that didn't shoot extremely well.

Me, I never did buy their barrel but clearly it's working for them. Bear in mind this process was developed by NASA so I'm convince that regardless of anybody's opinion it works. I feel it's more of an issue of whether you can measure the results which is difficult to do unless you take a nominal barrel that shoots mediocre groups and do a before and after test. But even then, if you start with a barrel that has too much runout cryo treating can't fix that…..

My dad always said if you start with Sh$t you end with Sh$t so if you have a good barrel and want to squeeze out that extra bit of performance then cyro treating is a great option. I used to lap all my barrels and after experimenting and getting a barrel cryo'd the first time I realized I was wasting my time lapping. If you have a barrel treated and don't notice how smooth the bore is when cleaning it then you must have ran a jack hammer your whole life and lost the feeling in your hands….but that's just my opinion.

Good Luck and happy shooting!

 

[25WSM]

I have had great luck with Kreiger barrels myself. But I think there are 7 or 8 companies making fantastic barrel right now and you can't go wrong with any of them.
Shep

 

[ntsqd]

Kinda off subject-- but brake rotors are a whole different ball game ( even on those, some guys see vast improvements, others see little to none) Brake rotors are cast or forged, then machined and are heated to glowing red each corner then cooled down on the straights --cooling and pad selection do more for rotor issues than cryo treat-- also there are multiple types of cryo treat process-- dont use the liquid nitrogen process-- the process that ends with a proper heat treat will work better than just a cryo cold treat--besides, real race cars use carbon rotors not metal , besides I'd rather pay more for the driver than the equipment --- a good driver will take you further than just good equipment , just ask Hiro Matsushita/CART racing--Racing is kinda like shooting-- practice, practice, practice -- natural talent shows through with practice not money

I was referring to Hi-Po street car rotor results more than racing rotor results. I can see where I led you astray though, that the articles on the topic were racing oriented. I've never had my street rotors glowing red. Best I've ever done was turn them blue. That was a scary grade.
FWIW all barrel blanks start as a casting, all metal parts blanks do. By the time the barrel maker gets the blanks they aren't castings any more due to the processing involved. Mostly that processing refines the grain size in the metal and adds internal stresses. Kind of like what we're doing with the various Heat-Treat processes.....

Such a narrow definition of what is a "real" race car.

 

[Buck Fever]

I think it's better to say it does something.

The Savage barrel example above is a good one. A factory button rifled barrel that wanders is probably a barrel with residual stress, cryogenic treatment could reduce the residual stress.

If you start with a barrel that has low residual stress, cryogenics will not be able to improve it.

That Savage example sounds like it had pretty average barrel life so anything it did for hardness and ductility seems not to change barrel life.

My take is if you use the money you would spend on cryogenic treatment on a higher quality barrel up front, you will probably do better. The more you spend up front, probably the less cryogenics will help up to the point that you buy a Krieger and cryogenic treatment becomes 100% redundant.

 

[Buck Fever]

I was referring to Hi-Po street car rotor results more than racing rotor results. I can see where I led you astray though, that the articles on the topic were racing oriented. I've never had my street rotors glowing red. Best I've ever done was turn them blue. That was a scary grade.
FWIW all barrel blanks start as a casting, all metal parts blanks do. By the time the barrel maker gets the blanks they aren't castings any more due to the processing involved. Mostly that processing refines the grain size in the metal and adds internal stresses. Kind of like what we're doing with the various Heat-Treat processes.....

Such a narrow definition of what is a "real" race car.

All barrel steel starts as a hot formed bar, not a casting.

 

[Randy Tidwell]

I've read the tech articles that I've found on the topic with regard to racing parts, but have only seen one or two about firearms parts. One place where Cryogenic H-T seems to really pay off is in brake rotors. Cryo'd brake rotors have been shown to last longer in the same use than un-treated rotors. This is interesting because the life of a brake rotor is very much about abrasive wear and large thermal cycles. Seems like those brake rotor results would directly translate to a barrel life improvement, but how to quantify that is problematic.

I had a F350 4x4 that would not stop warping rotos, found a company in CA that cryo'd rotors. Bought a set, never warped again! So it works!

While having new tires put on one weekend, I looked at front pads and seen they needed to be changed. Planned on doing it the following weekend.

Friday night on my way home, about a 1 mile from the house, heard the most gut wrenching sound as I hit the brakes. Not going to repeat the words that came out of my mouth here. Destroyed the rotor by the time I got home.

Tried to get another set, but they went out of business.

Sold the truck to my son about 10 years ago, its his problem now

 

[25WSM]

Is there a list of the barrel makers that cryo their barrels as part of their process?
Shep

 

[Spd522]

I had the barreled action cryoed on a M77 Ruger 7 mag I used to own. It was a 2 + moa gun at best with factory loads before the cryo, even with the action bedded and a Timney trigger. Afterwards, groups shrunk closer to 1.5 moa. So the treatment did help some. I ended up selling it back to the guy I bought it from for what I paid plus the improvements.