Radial barrel fluting

[milanuk]

I've been quite fascinated by the article in the latest 'The Accurate Rifle' magazine on the .338 Edge Hard Target Interdiction Rifle, or HTIR. Seems like it'd be right up the alley for some of the long range hunting scenarios.

Part of what really has my wheels spinning is the radial fluting on the barrel from Wes Harris, w/ the integral muzzle brake.

Anyone here have any experience w/ these radial fluting jobs, or w/ Wes Harris Gunworks? To quote from the article:

Wes makes radial (circumferential) cuts on the exterior of the barrel about 1/8" apart. You are left w/ a barrrel that is one diameter at every 1/8th inch and another at ever other 1/8th inch. Wes uses this method for faster barrel heat dissipation. Wes calls them "Insta-Kool" and claims a 10 fold increase in heat dissipation. He also states that the radial flutes break up harmonics so that accuracy is enhanced."

They go on to talk about the lands appearing wider than normal, and it turns out "the rifling is polygonal... there are no grooves. Better seal of the bullet, no distortion, therefore better accuracy results. We do this type of rifling in 7mm, .308, and .338 only."

You guys are the long range experts, what's your take on this?

Thanks,

Monte

[ 09-28-2002: Message edited by: milanuk ]

[milanuk]

Bump

[littletoes]

Seen this done to some Ruger pistols with custom barrels in a some magazine, years ago. The smith at that time claimed the same results.

[ppro]

You may want to check out statistical results on this type of fluting at Varmit Al's site: www.varmintal.com/aflut.htm

This may answer your question re circular fluting.
Paul

[DANTEC]

by barrel "flutting " as circular grooves / cut in the barrel that true you increaseheat surface exchange (a heat exhanger ) but you loose stiffness and a lot stiffness of your barel

LILJA article on barrel stiffness is great and varmintalweb site give a clever well made software in basic to compute stiffness

question :does the new weapon HTIG ( terrific mane ) in 338 in a machine gun or do you really think that heavy cooling system is a need or a must on a real sniper weapon ? .

some year ago Bruce BAER have make some barrel with this design just for FUN .

good shooting

DAN TEC

My two cents

As it sits, a lot of eye candy, call the round an "Ultra" and you increase sales, call it "Short Magnum" and sales increase, "Radial Fluting" is nothing more.
You do get more surface area, and compared to a barrel of the same shape and length without fluting, the fluted barrel will disapate heat quicker.

One thing they never talk about is imparted stresses during the machining process of fluting. Any time you machine a metal you impart new stresses into it, without stress relieving it when heat is added to it it will be an unstable platform and unpredicatable movements will accompany the heat changes.

Its neat and I think it does cool down quicker, but as a rule when Sniping never fire more than 3 rounds, so with that being said is the cost worth the cool name? I doubt it, gimmicks, snake oil, and charmers come up with flashy new names and new methods after all you can only go so far with a gun before you call it what? A gun is a gun is a gun?

[wwharris]

Regarding Radial Flutting...It is coined by Harris Barrelworks in Phoenix. I designed it for long range shooting in Australia where the ambiant temperature is 105 F. Using a 30/378 and 300 Ultra I was able to make shots at 500 to 990 yards in rapid succession with 16 kills for 17 shots. The barrel never overheated and the harmonics are non existant. Barrel length 28" measures .700@ muzzel. Used Horus Vision 4-16 Scope with H-2 long range reticle, Atrag 1S5 ballistic aiming system...in fact, these were two of 6 test rifles used to perfect the Horus Shooting System.