What are your thoughts on this technique?

[adam32]

How could it be considered an SBR when it wouldn't even have a barrel on it? Maybe a NBR?

 

[Mram10us]

How could it be considered an SBR when it wouldn't even have a barrel on it? Maybe a NBR?

Exactly. I called my local atf to ask about a 4" fireforming barrel with a prototype "device" on it. They were very supportive and wanted to know how it worked out.

 

[Don A Parsons]

I'm definitely not sold on it,,, and the concept missed out on the Houston Texas Wearhouse experiment by about 20 years...

They had custom made barrels punching bullets consistantly threw 1 hole at 368 yards in the controlled environment...

No other experiment has surpassed this to date... The Houston experiment lead to some of the best barrel makers the world has ever seen,,, they also developed better SD & BC bullets from these tests...

Gains and Sacrifices come to both ends of the scale,,, much like the 2 part barrel & chamber,,, might as well add in the action and bolt...

Lots of things are happening in the """keep it lined up game.""" But as we've seen on this forum many of times,,, a well built rifle/ optic/ ammo/ and set-up behind it will always out shoot the human skills everytime...

Especially when we're shooting long in the great outdoors...

I'll save my funds for the 1000 meter vacuum tunnel idea when it comes out,,, it would put the Houston Texas experiments to rest once and for all...

2 to 3000 shots all in 1 hole at 1 km,,, how kool would that be... LOL...

 

[Andrew Cowling]

I respect people that come up with new ideas. Considering you haven't had your hands on one, maybe you're missing something. I prefer to test things before shooting down the idea

I am looking at it from an engineers/gusmithing point of view. There os no way to guarantee the chamber and throat are perfectly aligned. Seems to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist if a barrel is indext correctly when it is chambered.
A lot of work for little to no gain. The groups achieved were not impressive enough to warrent all that extra work.

 

[ntsqd]

At the time of the throating of the barrel a pilot diameter could be machined onto the OD of the barrel. Then when the chamber is built a matching piloting ID could be machined into that part. Assuming a competent machinist is doing the work and the tolerances result in a Locational Interference fit it could be no better or worse than the same person simply chambering the barrel. That's a fair amount of fairly exacting work, and I don't see a pay-off either.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

I don't think he was talking about an off center throat. I think he was talking about a crooked/angled throat (the length of one side of the throat compared to the length of the other side) and thousandths was what he meant.

Maybe, still an off center throat but that way would be much harder to measure than measuring the off center to the bore which is how most of us check them. There are many methods that rely on the bushing and he is correct about off center throats being common. This is what you get when you dial in a throat only and fit a tight bushing. But there are also methods that produce extremely concentric throats. If I was in the pre fit market and could not have a barrel chambered by a good smith I probably would be looking at using something like this vs the pre fits I have seen. When you buy a pre fit for the same kind of money a chamber job costs, your not getting the same quality of setup.

 

[ntsqd]

I don't know about that. If I'm making pre-fits for profit and I care about my reputation then I'm going to work out tooling that accommodates slight variations in barrels while still placing the barrel and the chambering reamer both absolutely coaxial (not just concentric) to the cnc lathe spindle with the minimum possible set-up time. And then I'm going to test the resulting product, destructively and otherwise. When you're making production runs you can justify tooling that is prohibitively expensive for the occasional job if it reduces your cycle time. That first production barrel will cost a lot. The 1,000th barrel, not so much.

 

[Blancoalex]

Here is wild idea , growing up we had 22LR rifles that the action, chamber and barrel were all one piece. What about building an extended length action with the chamber built in and then screwing in the throated barrel. Course your limited to one cartridge for life, but most rifles stay way.

 

[JamieD]

Thanks for all the comments and inquiries. We received a couple emails too. The system is expensive for sure and took years and a couple changes to perfect. I think we are on our 3rd generation ACE now. The short version of a long story is it duplicates what I was always trying to do with spyders. Trying to cut a perfectly straight throat. We can now accomplish the same accuracy increase we get with the straight throat in a repeatable process that does not require the curvature of the bore to be dialed out several inches in the barrel. This is a problem because they are predictably all different.

The chambers have another advantage now as we can access them at both ends and make them straight. We always use the center of the bore/chamber as the middle. Easy to do now. But with a floating reamer in rifling on one end being held rigid by a tail stock. That is not ideal for scale or major manufacturing. Let alone considering using spyders to dial out the straight throat. You can't do it at scale and you are limited by the skill of the gunsmith dialing in each barrel and the quality of day they are having.

In essence, we can bring the level of accuracy up and do it at scale and volumes like never seen before. Produce benchrest quality rifles is a repeatable process.

Here are some other things we are finding fascinating and we keep moving forward.
1. We are seeing an increase in accuracy we think partly due to the reduced harmonics caused by the attachment of the ACE.
2. We can manipulate the throats as they are exposed at the end of the barrel (think crown)
3. At 100 yards, zero's are staying really close with little to no POI shift when changing ammo (See #1)
4. We can do a run of 100's of 6.5 barrels in advance and attach the chamber needed when custom orders (no wait)
5. Customers chambers are nearly identical for load and reloads as replacements barrels get put on.
6. We are working on using different barrel material that is harder to increase barrel life because we don't have to drill/ream chamber in barrel. (we are working on some this year)
7. Remington estimated the ACE would cut rifle barrel production by miles by saving the two inches the ACE adds when attached. Two inch shorter barrels each.
8. Shorter barrels are easier to make straighter.

The list goes on and on. Things we didn't think of originally that are just hidden benefits.

Please feel free to call if you have any questions. I will gladly take the time to answer any questions. It is pretty exciting stuff for us here.

Thank you,
Jamie Dodson
www.wolfprecision.net
Wolf Precision, Inc.
814-262-7994

 

[Alex Wheeler]

I don't know about that. If I'm making pre-fits for profit and I care about my reputation then I'm going to work out tooling that accommodates slight variations in barrels while still placing the barrel and the chambering reamer both absolutely coaxial (not just concentric) to the cnc lathe spindle with the minimum possible set-up time. And then I'm going to test the resulting product, destructively and otherwise. When you're making production runs you can justify tooling that is prohibitively expensive for the occasional job if it reduces your cycle time. That first production barrel will cost a lot. The 1,000th barrel, not so much.

I am familiar with the common setups for cnc chambering. The guys that are doing it right, in my opinion, are charging going rates for their work.

 

[ntsqd]

I would too. It is a profit driven endeavor no matter how one loves or hates the work.
FWIW I design production tooling, some of it automated, some of it semi-automated and the occasional manual station where automation doesn't make good sense.

 

[JamieD]

I am looking at it from an engineers/gusmithing point of view. There os no way to guarantee the chamber and throat are perfectly aligned. Seems to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist if a barrel is indext correctly when it is chambered.
A lot of work for little to no gain. The groups achieved were not impressive enough to warrent all that extra work.

If you don't think the problem exists then you haven't chambered enough or really bothered or cared to know. Or bothered to use spyders to see just how far off throats can be. This is a big problem and in major manufacturing a constant thorn. Making both parts separate allows each to be made better.

Jamie Dodson
Wolf Precision

 

[fguffey]

If you don't think the problem exists then you haven't chambered enough or really bothered or cared to know.

One day I decided I would make a tool that would aid in determining if the barrel was straight; the best I could get from that one is an expert said; "It might work". I did not expect much and I was lucky my attempt at helping was not threatening.

F. Guffey