Well, I agree. I just bring a few extras along with the one I'm working on, and don't have a problem with air-cooling. My suggestion was merely for those looking for one.
Worst case is when it's just me, the rifle, and my 1911. I can shoot that puppy all day.

how about comressed air in a can used for cleaning computer equipment? i just might try that myself tomorrow!!!

put some solvents in the fridge or freezer, Keep them in cooler at range, use them to push a wet patch down bore, ie. (Kroil) between shots. Put guns in gunrack with bolt open in upright position so heat can disipate (sp?) out muzzle faster. (heat rises) as you know. Takes about 8 wet patches to make difference. Strange, I know, but it sure works.

Another option is to go buy about 8-10 more rifles and take them all!! Each one should have plenty of time to cool that way!

I had the same idea and took my portable air tank to the range. The results weren't too promising though. You just can't move enough air. It would take my shop air compressor to really make a difference.

Several years ago a friend of mine once shared an Arizona shooting range with a well known fellow from the Remington gun company (Jenks?). He cooled his rifle barrels with water, using a rigging that he hooked up to a drinking fountain at the range.

Gents;

I've been working on this problem too, because of high ambient temps here in the Nevada desert. A hot barrel takes forever to cool.

My latest "brainstorm" actually works very well. The vast majority of my shooting is with cast bullets, and the conditioning of the bore is CRITICAL to good results with CBs. Therefore, once the bore is "conditioned", I don't want to disturb it if possible. This means no brushes, patches or other implements.

In my shooting van, I have rigged an insulated two-gallon cooler which I fill with water and ice cubes. A fitting cobbled to the springloaded valve accepts a 3/8" plastic tube, and the jug gravity-feeds to the rifles. The hot rifle is positioned with its muzzle down and projecting out over the rear bumper (I shoot from INSIDE the van) and just ten seconds of ice-water flow gives me a cold barrel. I have an eleven-gallon 160-psi air tank under the benchrest, and an air hose with a blow-gun type valve which fits into all my rifle chambers. Twenty seconds of forced air and the bore is cold AND dry, and it appears that the conditioning is not disturbed, since groups before and after cooling show no ill effects.

I do have to ensure that all water does in fact go down the barrel, as I don't want it getting into the bedding. This procedure is fairly new, but on the strength of a couple months' experience I can see no reason to stop using it. It most definitely speeds things up.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

Got the idea of rigging up a battery operated fan/contraption to blow air down the bore of a rifle. Purpose being to speed up the cooling process between shots while at the range. I've been doing a lot of load testing this summer and would like to come up with a better means of dealing with the heat build-up problem. Wanted to keep it simple and lightweight, as I'm already hauling too much gear to the range. So I found a small folding fan that runs on 2 "D" batteries. The fan had a round, protruding front that would lend itself to attachig some type of funnel that would channel the air to some flexible tubing that could be put into the chamber between shots.

So far, so good.

Here's the fan I found....

battery fan

(hope I figured out the photo posting)

But I ran into problems. First, the little fan doesn't have enough umph to push much air into the ever restricting funnel and tube. Attempts to somehow mold a plastic funnel to fit the front of the fan are apparently beyond my expertise as well; tried a heat gun, managed to distort the fan plastic too much).

I got a couple of these little fans from my source, they might work (somewhat) by just sitting on the bench blowing air on the action and barrel. I remember a couple years ago somebody coming out with a compressed air set-up called "cool breeze" meant to do the same thing.

Anybody got any ideas?

The little cans of compressed air for computer keyboard cleaning is a good idea. It will indeed work...but they are a bit pricey. The "Cool Breezes" that I saw proposed in one of the gun magazines a few years ago was a bigger version of this. Some type of compressed inert gas that was cool but not cold was gently flowed from the chamber through the bore.

Yes, I take extra rifles, keep the bolts open, etc. But sometime I need to work on just one rifle/project. When it's 80 degrees + the barrels heat up pretty fast and putting a steady flow of air down the bore between shots would be a good thing. As long as it was in a "range user-friendly" package.

I went through this same dilemna recently. I started up rigging a 12V compressor they sell for emergency for flat repair. It connects to your cigar lighter. I took a trailer light connector and replaced the cigar lighter part. Then I took an old valve stem and cut it to fit the chamber and put the air to it. If you can't back a car up to a shooting bench then a cheap 12V battery can work.

I was all set to hook this up when someone in Houston suggested a wet towell over the barrel. I started this about a month ago while rigging up the other and it really works! I merely cut a strip off of a hand towell about 4" wide. With a jug of water you wet it pretty good, wring it out and just put it over the barrel all the way to the chamber. Three or 4 minutes at most with nature's air conditioning and you're ready to shoot again. It's much simpler than all the other contraptions and you don't have to worry about changing the fouling in your bore or swabbing water out of there. This wasn't my idea but it has worked well for me and I've forgotten about the other bright idea.

I think you guys are making this too complicated, or I'm making it too simple! I always have a couple of bottles of rubbing alcohol on hand when I go to the range. You can pick them up cheap just about anywhere, I get mine from Walgreen's for $.50 a piece. Once the barrel heats up, you wet down a rag/hand towel liberally with the alcohol and then towel the barrel with it. It really helps wick the heat off the barrel. From bull bbl to sporter it cools all of my barrels off in no time.

Just my $.02
Regards,
Tom

I use the damp towel method, actually a strip cut from a t-shirt as most towels are too thick to fit between a low mounted scope and the barrel. Just make it damp, not actually dripping wet and there is no danger of getting water between the barrel and stock.

I usually take a little Coleman cooler with a few soft drinks to the range, so another very effective cooling method is to rub an ice cube over the barrel. Turn the rifle upside down with the muzzle down and the water from the melting ice cube will drip off the end of the barrel. This will cool down a .300 Win. Mag sporter weight barrel on a 98 degree day. I worried that this might cool off one side too quickly introducing uneven stresses but so far I have never seen any accuracy problems attrributable to this.

Bob338 and Jim in Idaho's method is the easiest, simplest, cheapest method I know of and it works great. A damp rag placed over the barrel will cool it in no time. It works great on my .300 Weatherby and my other rifles as well. The rag doesn't have to be placed in an ice chest or anything like that either.

I use a wet BORE SNAKE. The trick is to leave it in the bore for a few seconds. As it compresses it becomes saturaed, and the heat energy is wicked into the water in the snake. when you pull it through, you have a clean bbl to boot.

I think we've all had the problem of barrel heating and so I thought I would share my little method of cooling with you. Its very simple, but it works for me. My vehicle if very close to my bench, so I turn on the engine, turn the Air/conditioning on full/high with the fan on the floor. I place the rifle with the barrel down close the the floor air vent and it takes just a couple of minutes (not an actual times measurement) to cool the barrel down. A lot of shooters also use a wet towel that has been iced down and drap it over the barrel and rub it back and forth a little. I don't like the idea of getting water between my barrel and stock so most gents just hang the towel over that part of the barrel beyond the stock.... Its an interesting subject and a simple, effective cure for the problem is something needed by everyone that shoots a lot....

I recall seeing something about shooters using CO2 from a tank to cool their barrels. After shooting, they would put a tube in the action that was connected to the tank and ran the gas down the barrel to cool it. It was simple and effective but you need a portable gas welder sized tank. I suppose most any compressed inert gas would work and perhaps even scuba tanks and compressed air.

How about those cooler packs with the dry pellets that you put in the freezer and use for swelling's like on TV

Martin

Kingfisher....great idea, I'll use it. Waiting is sure a pain in the butt. Working on a 25-06 now and you can't get three rounds, so it's two and wait. Smoker

What about a piece of vinyl pipe, rated hotter than the barrel will get of course, run thru the bore, and attached on two ends via nylon tubing to a dc fishtank pump (run off the car battery) and a bucket of ice water? This way, no water in the bore.
Make the pipe as close to bore size as possible for adequate heat exchange.
If you could find a footpump instead, you could do it "off the grid," and probably only need a couple pumps every sip of beer for 3-4m.

I use my air compressor to push air down the barrell. My range is out the garage door or window,,,,,,works real well with the ML.

Where in Nevada are you? I'm up in Fernley; the shootin' is good up here and places to do it are just about everywhere.

Smoker even with the heavy barrel my 338/378 is the same way. At 2 it's warm, after 3 you have to stop. I've shot more but it gets warmer than I feel is good for accuracy. It's unbelievable how many people I see at the range shooting a whole box of ammo in rapid succession, all the while chasing the point of impact around with their scope and wondering why it wont hold zero, meanwhile the barrel is so hot you can't touch it. I can't tell you how often I see this. It's probably THE most common mistake I see folks make at the range.

Try rigging the fan to pull air thru the bore rather than pushing it.

After trying a couple of ideas, I now agree that contact with cold liquid is by far the most-effective way to cool a barrel. Early-on, I investigated compressed carbon dioxide and decided the cost and inconvenience were a bit excessive. Nitrogen is certainly a possibility, too, but I'm finding that heat-transfer to gases is limited by the short time-in-contact, and simple ice-water works incredibly well..... and it's CHEAP!

An early method I used involved a small cooler-chest full of ice and water which used an aquarium air pump to push air through a copper coil immersed in the water inside the cooler, and thence to the rifle barrel. Even though the air coming out of the coil was less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit, it still didn't cool the barrel as quickly as I'd expected.

I don't find my method "complicated". Remember that my van is dedicated to shooting, and ONLY to shooting (and reloading). All I have to do is fill the jug with ice and ensure the airtank is charged. If those requirements are fulfilled on the way to the range, it then takes me a minute or less to have a cold barrel! Typically, I can repeat the process at least twenty times before the air runs out.

With "a place for everything, and everything in its place", my range trips are getting better and better as 'Der Schuetzenwagen' gradually gets better-equippped with the passage of time and the application of considerable thought.
Early development of my shooting van can be seen at

www.castpics.net

under "special projects".

At what temperature does a barrel become "hot"?

What damage does artificially cooling do?

I use carb or brake cleaner in a spray can with the little extension tube. It cleans the fouling out and the high evaporation rate cools the barrel quite rapidly.

If you don't get the barrel over abour 400-500 degrees, rapid cooling shouldn't hurt it.

Walmart sells an air pump that is used to fill inflatable swimming pools and stuff. I have one and it really moves alot of air, and it comes with attachments that would fit right into the bore of just about any gun, except maybe a 22 or 17. All you need to make it work at the range is a power converter so you can run 110 off of your car battery and an extension cord. It will run a long time off of a regular battery and the converter is fairly cheap also and they come in really handy sometimes.