I thought I heard some time back that Winchester went to hammer forged barrels, but I just can't recall for sure.. Upon looking from the reciever down the length of the barrel on my new to me 300WSM, there is the spiral lightly seen such as in the Steyr hammer forged barrels. Anybody know for sure??

Thanks All..

Mopane,

I don't know if all Winchester models sport hammer forged barrels are not, but I also heard Winchester was using hammer forged barrels.

I did however look at several Winchester barrels along with other factory rifles at the same time with a borescope and Winchester bores were at the top of the list in smoothness.

I would not be at all surprised if Winchester used hammer forged barrels. Remington has used them for years and Ruger does too I believe. Hammer forged barrels have been around since the Germans developed the process duing WWII. There's nothing terribly wrong with them if the process is correctly executed. Lots of rifles that wear them are plenty accurate for 99% of us shooters.

Winchester's advertizing actually at one time sadi....."hammer forged barrels"

But why?.....there is no proof that this is better.....was it more thrifty?...beats me but the manner of installing rifling is not of much interest to me! There is nothing to show one better than another.

hammer forging is cheap and produces a quality bore,..just with some stresses moreso than button or cut rifling.

The big companies have only about $7 in a barrel.

Barrel manufacturing is about "probability". Whether a barrel is hammer forged, buttoned by pulling, buttoned by pushing, or cut rifled can result in an accurate barrel. The question is does one process produce a "more consistently" accurate barrel.

I might be wrong, but it was my understanding that the blued barrels were hammer forged and the stainless barrels were button rifled.

You are probably right about this because stainless steel work hardens to a much higher degree than chrome moly and can become too hard to hammer forge. 410 stainless could be hammer forged because of lower chrome content than 416 stainless. Also, the radial stresses induced by hammering are more difficult to stress relieve.

The advantage of hammer forging is longer barrel life due to the work hardened bore.

quote:

Originally posted by jnemmers:
I might be wrong, but it was my understanding that the blued barrels were hammer forged and the stainless barrels were button rifled.

jnemmers.. Turns out you are correct...

Doh!... When all else fails read the friggin manual!!{quote}Pg. 11 figure 1E The Model 70 gives you the precision of hammer forged barrels (on all blued models)the most accurate rifling made{quote}

How gun barrels are made isn't really important. How well they are made is...................DJ

According to the "The Rifleman"s Rifle," the barrels were cut rifled until 1955, at which time they were button rifled.

In 1959 "cold formed rifling or 'hammer rifling' was attempted on stainless steel barrels in .264 caliber.....The process was expensive and the results were less than favorable so this 'swaging' program was deferred. When perfected five years later, it displaced the broaching procedure." p.54

So the bottom line is all pre 64s were either cut rifled (1936 through 1955) or button rifled (the last 8 years).

All post 64s were cold hammer forged.

The way I read Rule's book was that in '55 they went to a broach-cut barrel (as opposed to the earlier single point cut barrel). In '64 they went hammer-forging.

My guess is that the later versions had forged CM barrels, and pull-button swaged stainless barrels (probebly subletted from Shaw or Wilson).

YOU boys need to toss this discussion down on the gunsmithing forum...

there are a lot of guys in the know on that forum...

I hate to say, but I see a lot of guessing done above here... and I am not qualified to agree or disagree with any of it..

but those gents will give you the real facts quick...

cheers
seafire

quote:

Originally posted by DougH9:
The way I read Rule's book was that in '55 they went to a broach-cut barrel (as opposed to the earlier single point cut barrel). In '64 they went hammer-forging.

Yes I agree- I re-read it (carefully). I goofed earlier, must have read it too quickly.

All pre 64s were indeed cut rifled barrels.