Spiral fluting is NOT allowed by barrel manufacturers

[txsendero]

Really? Sounds like a load of scrap (pun intended) to me. I ordered straight flutes on a Broughton barrel, and they called me to ask if I was OK with getting spiral flutes instead, the operator hit the wrong program button on the machine and made it spiral instead of straight. Since I didn't want to wait for them to re-make the barrel, I said to bring it on.

 

[Rick Vincent]

I know what you mean. i wanted spiral flutes also but found out that E.R. Shaw thinks they are original. Some smiths will do it for you. Ask around. If anyone asks, tell em its a shaw barrel. Good thing Shaw didnt patten sprial flutes on bolts they would have made alot more money.

Carolina Custom Rifles, check them out for the spiral flutes!

 

[marshal]

Or Lilja..

 

[marshal]

Benchmark and Pac-Nor also sell fluted bbls.

 

[Buano]

I'm a lawyer AND an engineer.

As others have said, a patent is a limited monopoly for 17 years to sell a product. The patent office used to test most patent claims but their staff got slashed under Republican administrations and they reportedly no longer vet all claims in patents.

From an engineering point of view, a spiral-fluted barrel cannot be as stiff as a straight-fluted barrel, but the difference would likely be negligible. Flutes do speed barrel cooling by increasing the surface-area of the barrel. More narrow-deep flutes increase the surface area and speed cooling more than fewer shallow flutes.

Even if this patent wouldn't stand up to a challenge, it's still likely to keep SOME competitors from spiral-fluting barrels as some people are so afraid of being dragged into court they would never take a chance of winning the case.

I suspect the holder of this patent would never take someone to court for infringing on their patent because they are unlikely to win, and if they lose the case their patent would be gone. If they simply ignore the patent infringement, they still have a patent to scare SOME people away.

 

[whitely]

I'm a lawyer AND an engineer.

As others have said, a patent is a limited monopoly for 17 years to sell a product. The patent office used to test most patent claims but their staff got slashed under Republican administrations and they reportedly no longer vet all claims in patents.

I have about 35 granted patents at this point, maybe more since I haven't checked lately, but I can tell you the above statement is simply not the case. There are tons of people working at the patent office, and they vet all claims. My last patent was around 600 pages long and they go through the whole thing and check all the claims - line by line.

If you have access, you can see the back and forth from the inventors and the patent office over various claims.

Sometimes we (researchers) complain that the patent office seems to grant too many, and claims that are too broad. But, as our chief counsel likes to say, "they are called the patent office, not the non-patent office", so they tend to err on the side of granting too much. They figure that it will work itself out in court.

 

[Catfur]

They figure that it will work itself out in court.

While they do often work themselves out in court, even if it works out to the best, it's not before the lawyers get their pound of flesh.

Software and electronics patents, on the other hand, are simply out of control. Stuff with blazingly obvious prior art has been allowed. Derivative patents that prevent the original manufacturer of an item/program from ever improving. Suites of impenetrable patents that prevent anyone but the established players with their own counter-suite of patents from innovating and bringing product to market.

Intellectual property rights in the US are in bad need of reform.

 

[lazylabs]

I would never get spiral fluting! I might consider some external, rotary cut, mirror pattern rifling stress relief grooves.

This sounds like a little like the WSM bla bla bla that happened a while ago........

 

[RCrem700]

You can get a Hart barrel with spiral fluting.

 

[7magcreedmoor]

I have a 6.5 Creedmoor barrel from Shaw on a Ruger action, with helical fluting. It shoots half minute if I do my part. As to cooling faster, I don't know. All that matters is that my wife says it looks cool, cause we all know if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy...

 

[antitactical]

Clay Spencer (a very well known benchrest gunsmith with 88 world records with his guns and makes barrels and his own bullets) says that spiral fluting is a load of B.S. he says the barrels heat up and do all sorts of weird things. He says they may look cool and shoot fine when kept cool but they go crazy when warmed up. It may work on a hunting rifle but I will stick to straight flutes. He is opinionated but is right 99.9% of the time.

 

[Kennibear]

Just a poor old carpenter from Boise ID here but I have a question for the engineers out there, especially anyone with a background the thermodynamics of steel:

Since the flutes are in a radial pattern around the barrel and that pattern is spiraled around the length of the barrel, when the steel expands from the heat of shooting would not the spiral flutes induce a twist to the barrel winding it up as it were? Since the steel in the flutes are homogeneous to the barrel only on one surface the flutes would be acting as rods wrapped around the barrel, yes?

A barrel that twists as it heats up sounds like bad ju ju....

KB