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| One of Us |
besides saving weight and cooling down the barrel faster is there any other benefits of a flutted barrel? also any draw backs of a flutted barrel? | ||
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Fluted barrels. Offer more surface area for cooling down quicker but heat up faster than an un-fluted barrel of similar contour. Flutes make the barrel more flexible but not as much as dropping down in contour. In other words, a fluted 6 contour is going to be stiffer than an un-fluted 5 but not as stiff as an un-fluted 6. They reduce OAL weight of the barrel and they look cool, assuming that is important to you? The reason to get a fluted barrel, IMO, is to reduce OAL weight of a package without totally sacrificing barrel contour or length and the fact that they look cool doesn't hurt. Captain Finlander | |||
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Fluted barrels are a waste of money, and are loved by the fools that buy into the BS They don't save enough weight to matter (they lighten your wallet more than they lighten the rifle), they don't offer enough increased surface area to enhance cooling. The biggest advantage is that they let everyone around you know that your "that guy". | |||
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I agree! I normally tell clients requesting a fluted barrel the only thing they do is make them sexy. Jim Kobe 10841 Oxborough Ave So Bloomington MN 55437 952.884.6031 Professional member American Custom Gunmakers Guild | |||
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Yes, but SEXY is good! especially during the rut.  **************** NRA Life Benefactor Member | |||
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Pure asthetics! | |||
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agree with DWright, mainly asthetics! m | |||
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I wonder if we have a math wizzard in our mist who might be able to calculate the actual weight savings in a fluted barrel.  Doug Humbarger NRA Life member Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club 72'73. Yankee Station Try to look unimportant. Your enemy might be low on ammo. | |||
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Some of us fools did a little homework before we just jumped head long in to the pool. The following is from one of the finest barrel makers in the USA. Fluting barrels for both competitive target and hunting rifles is quite popular. There are two advantages to using a fluted barrel. Improved accuracy is one advantage because of increased barrel stiffness. If we compare a fluted barrel to one that is not fluted, both weighing the same, the fluted barrel is stiffer. This is because the fluted barrel will be of a larger diameter than the unfluted barrel of the same weight and length. Increasing the diameter of a barrel greatly increases its rigidity. Fluting may also allow for a longer barrel, if weight is a consideration. Another advantage to fluting is the increased cooling rate of the barrel because of the greater amount of surface area exposed to the air. **************************The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. | |||
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If we take a barrel and flute it was it whippier before or after? ( SAME OD.).  Can that fine barrel maker back it up with any honest,legitimate test data?  rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME - FLUTG DOES NOT INCREASE BARREL COOLING. PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION. INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO GUNWRITINGS WHO USUALLY KNOW SOMETHING BETWEEN JACK AND SHIT ABOUT WHAT THEY WRITE, HAVE A MECHANICAL ENGINEER RUN SOEM EQUATIONS FOR YOU. UNLESS THE BARREL HAS ALREADY BEEN RUN UP TO A TEMPERATURE THAT WILL DESTROY IT, THE ACTION, STOCK, YOUR HANDS, AND COOK OFF AMMO, THERE IS NO BENEFIT TO THE COOLING EFFECT!!! That said, there are a couple of awesome reasons to have afluted barrels for some rifles. 1. they DO reduce enough wight to be of use in soem scenarios. They also help to keep weight between the hands. Few people know how to balance a rifle. If they are building stainless/synthetic rifles then it is almost a given. Light rifles can be EXTREMELY easy to shoot offhand if they are balanced correctly. Have a poorly balanced rifle of the same weight and it is next to impossible to shoot well off hand or from field positions when winded. Number B: some folks like their looks. Not exactly my cup of tea and the only one I own is one I had fluted purely for weight savings and balance. For those of you who do not think they are attractive (like me) think about it this way-a hell of a lot of custom gun stuff is purely for looks. Look at all of the case colored BS being doen on guns these days. For one reason and one reason only-esthetics. Same for engraving, most of the stuff you see soldered on barrels, nice wood blanks, etc, etc | |||
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Hey Marc, Could you expand on that a bit? For example, do you believe Fluting creates more External Surface, or is that all wrong? | |||
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Are you serious, or just trying to start something again? OF COURSE I see that there is greater surface area. A blind person can feel thta there is more surface area. The problem lies when people know one fact and do not understand enough about that fact to make extrapolations or even understand the context of when that true fact is or is actually relevent. When somehting is true it does mean that it matters. A fact must be true and of great enough significance to have an effect on the outcome. It would require me to go look up things in thermodynamics, fluids, and heat transfer to show you the equations that actually prove the flutes on a still barrle have no effect on cooling in the real world. For barrel flutes to have an effect on cooling, either you would need ungodly convection (winds insanely high), the barrel would have to be ungodly hot (in barrel terms), or the barrel would need to be made out of soemthiong with a much better heat transfer coefficient (say aluminum) and have flutes or rather fins that stuck up say 1/2" to 1". I checked it out many years ago-long before fluting was written to have better cooling efffect by a gunwriter in a gun advertising publication, such as Rifle or Guns and Ammo. I saw a guy shooting a rifle with a fluted barrel during a match back in the '80's and I thought, "Hey, that thing will cool faster than a smooth barrel" So I ran the calculations. Several times. Yes, the barrel cools faster. BUT-the colling is completely meaningless because it is so small. I don't remmeber the numbers and do not care enough to figure out how to run the calcs again. But as an example a barrel that fired a 5 shot group would cool enough to shoot the next group in say .0003 seconds faster. Just an picking numbers for an example, but the "increased collfing" was somehting about as meaningful as that | |||
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Fluted Barrel Analysis _____________________________________________________ A 9mm may expand to a larger diameter, but a 45 ain't going to shrink Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. - Winston Churchill | |||
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You may want to ask Mr. Lilja himself as he can explain it much better than I. **************************The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. | |||
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I disagree with your thought process. The additional Surface Area simply allows more "air" to move past the retained Heat, thus constantly changing it toward the Ambient Temp. Even using only the Chimney Effect, it cools quicker than a barrel with less Surface Area and overall Mass. (It is enhanced by setting the rifle Muzzle Up but works laying down too.) The ability to remove the Heat quicker, created by the additional Surface Area (and less Mass to retain the Heat) is real, so it would be impossible to prove otherwise. It is possible to fool some folks, but the Physics DOES NOT change just because a person wants to believe otherwise. I agree.  | |||
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I think fluted barrels are right up there with bolts with spirals on them and rifles with the bolt on one side and the ejection port on the other. HOWEVER if more surface area doesn't promote cooling why do they bother to put cooling fins on the coils in an air conditioner? I didn't run any numbers to come up with that question, I just thunk it up on my own. Aim for the exit hole | |||
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I didn't run any numbers either but just by looking I doubt if the fluting on one of my varmint barrels increases surface area much over 1%.  Certainly that amount of increase can not yield any significant amount or degree of useful cooling. I would think there may be other barrels that have deeper flutes. I guess some actual measurements of large flutes and calculated increases in total surface areas would be handy about now.  rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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Here's one to think about.... Sometimes when building a gun, I shoot it in the raw...before polishing and bluing and even before much other work....sometimes I like to know what accuracy I'm getting before I finish the work.....If it's really accurate I'll usually spend a lot more time finishing it.....so here's the fun part.....A rough unpolished barrel will cool decidedly faster than a well polished one. It's no contest. I believe the roughness acts like small fins but whatever it is....it cools faster and not just a little! /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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I had 2 semi-custom rifles made by RW Hart and Sons using their cousin's stainless barrels. I asked Bobby Hart if there was any advantage to fluting these hunting rifle barrels. He said it's all for looks. And this coming from a businessman who's CNC lathes are programmed with umpteen styles of fluting profiles. | |||
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Hey Tom, Actually a pretty good question. All this answer is based on discussing "one Caliber" at a time. If we look at the Stiffness of a Barrel first, a Short Barrel is Stiffer than a Long Barrel of the same Diameter. Likewise, a Large Diameter Barrel is Stiffer than a Small Diameter Barrel when the Lengths are the same. Stiff Barrels have Lower Harmonic Swings than more whippy Barrels. That means the "opportunity" for the Load to remain accurate in changing environmental conditions and changing altitudes is enhanced by having a Stiffer Barrel. ----- On the other side, a Long Heavy Barrel is a handicap for some forms of Hunting, especially as we age.  So, we have often resorted to Thinner Short Barrels to make do.And Short Barrels typically(but not always) sacrifice Velocity when compared to Long Barrels. ----- One excellent answer is Barrel Fluting. It reduces the overall Mass(lowers the weight), retain more Stiffness than a Thin Barrel(smaller Harmonic Node) and allows the Barrel to remain Longer(more Velocity). The Flutes provide an excellent "Grip area" for your hand when handling the rifle.  But, the Flutes do hold and retain Mud(Southern Camo) better than a Smooth Barrel.----- Different manufacturers make discussing the differences between Fluting kinda tough. If one person is thinking of the Fluting on a Wby U-LT(Wide, Deep and Numerous) when compared to anything else, it is difficult to agree on the benefits. It would be remiss of me not to mention in Mark's defense, if you only fire 1-2 shots at a time at Game, then the Cooling Effects of the Larger Surface Area are really not worth getting into an argument over. | |||
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Excellent post Hot Core....I agree..... That said, I really can't find a reason for fluting.....I'm with the others that say it's ornamental at best. Personally, I have no problem with light barrels and getting accuracy from them.....but then, I'm from the crowd that don't need 1/2" MOA to be happy.....1 1/4" groups satisfy me and have never lost or wounded a big game animal because of it. I'm also of the belief that more 1/2" groups are fired on the internet than ever fired at the range. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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I only like them for the pure looks. They obviously have a greater surface area and shave a little weight. I'm having the bolt fluted and handle skeltonized on a custom, but merely because it looks cool to me. For those of you wondering about the surface area, the flutes can add in the neighborhood of 60% to surface area. More or less depending on the style you go with. That's a substaintial amount, btu not sure it applies to most of us. I simply grab the barrel with my palm. If it's hot, I wait, if cool, lets try it again  Have a good one, Reloader | |||
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 Ran some #s  These #s are a little rough but they tell you what ball park U R in!  If the average diameter of the barrel is .800", the groove dia. is .125, the groove depth is .063" and runs the full length of the barrel the surface change= 15%  If the dia. of the barrel is 1.000", the groove dia. is .187", the groove depth is .093", and runs the full length of the barrel the surface change = 18%. If it is like mine and only runs 13" out of 26 than the surface change is only 9%. If there were 8 grooves the surface change would be 12% .The grooving starts 9" away from the chamber end of the barrel which is the heat generating end. This tells me that much of the heat energy has to traverse the barrel to the grooves or heat exchange with the air and whatever.  Just shows to go-ya that my off the wall original guess wasn't only in left field it was in another ball park. rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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Roger.....this is surface area.....what's harder to calculate is the fact that cooling is also due to the temp gradient between one surface and another... On an unfluted barrel the surface is 100 % convex.....a fluted barrel leaves a large portion of the barrel actually concave.....and this concavity holds in heat somewhat....and actually reduces the gradient between the barrel and it's immediate environment. I'm not even going to try to calculate this in still air....but it might even be negative....meaning worse cooling with a fluted barrel..... /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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 Doug Humbarger NRA Life member Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club 72'73. Yankee Station Try to look unimportant. Your enemy might be low on ammo. | |||
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I had a bull barrel fluted. I care less about the efficiency as I just like the look. But it definately takes several more rounds before warming up to where I'll stop shooting to cool it. | |||
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they are sexy - no question, BUT: You take risk to get heat sensitivy (at a very thin barrel) if the grooves are not made 120% accurate AND the weight saving is not that much You would estimate: I have calculated it when I changed the barrel with my Remington 700 Titanium into a new Heym barrel and it was just a few gramms! Not worth - so I did not took that option... Klaus | |||
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well i do have a fluted barrel on an ar & it does play a pretty tune indeed | |||
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Other than the opinion of a barrel company's marketing department and many on the net, I have yet to see any solid, quantifiable, scientific proof that there is a MEANINGFUL increase in barrel cooling potential achieved by fluting. What little improvement MAY be realized would be completely useless in 99.9% of shooting/hunting situations. Moreover, unless you're a weight weinee (road cycling term), I don't see enough avantage to fluting a barrel for it's weight savings. And as in the cycling world, it's much cheaper and easier to shed weight via good dump or cutting back on the Big Macs! To my mind fluting is all about aesthetics and that's good enough for me. If a fluted barrel possesses those other benefits, it's nothing more than a semi-useless bonus - for my needs. Happy Thanksgiving **************** NRA Life Benefactor Member | |||
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Fluting barrels is no worse than upgrading wood. People will pay 2X (or more) the rifle's cost to get pretty wood put on when it does absolutely nothing to improve any function of the gun. Frank "I don't know what there is about buffalo that frightens me so.....He looks like he hates you personally. He looks like you owe him money." - Robert Ruark, Horn of the Hunter, 1953 NRA Life, SAF Life, CRPA Life, DRSS lite | |||
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Hey Dr. Lou, Got a question for you. I just did what you suggested for the past year and it took a HUGE amount of weight off. Without any medication, I now have lower Blood Pressure, lower Heart Beat, Sugar under complete control and stamina increased. Now, how much lighter is a rifle "in my hands" to carry that weighed #10 a year ago? | |||
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You could get alf and warrior to help you!  | |||
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possibly.....but would anyone understand?  /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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I own 2 fluted bbls, a Blaser R93 and A Rem 700 Sendero. Both are very accurate but I would be hard pressed to find a difference as compared to regular bbls.   André DRSS --------- 3 shots do not make a group, they show a point of aim or impact. 5 shots are a group. | |||
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Hot Core, congrats on the weight loss. My point was that by combining weight loss and being in better shape will make whatever you carry easier. I doubt that a few ounces, if that, will be that big of deal. If it is, perhaps you need to add a little weight training to your new routine.  I agree that there is a noticeble difference in rifles with a 1-2 pound differential, but not with just a few ounces. Ergo, fluting will not remove enough weight by itdelf to make a heavy rifle a light rifle, but it will make it cool looking. **************** NRA Life Benefactor Member | |||
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Thanks Dr. Lou! Didn't need to be toting it around at all. Just got lazy. However, having to take a couple of Pills snapped me back to reality. Now the weight is gone and NO PILLS!!! I agree, with all of that. Haven't shot a Bow in 30yrs and in the process of getting one primarily for excerising. Agree with that too. Only saying a #10 rifle will still weigh #10 in your hands regardless of how much weight a person looses(or adds on over the Holidays ).Good Hunting and clean 1-shot Kills. | |||
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I had a good lookin gal come to me at the range once asking me about my fluted barrel...asked her out to dinner and eventually hooked up with her... Flutes are ok in my book! Mike Legistine actu? Quid scripsi? Never under estimate the internet community's ability to reply to your post with their personal rant about their tangentially related, single occurrence issue.  What I have learned on AR, since 2001: 1. The proper answer to: Where is the best place in town to get a steak dinner? is…You should go to Mel's Diner and get the fried chicken. 2. Big game animals can tell the difference between .015 of an inch in diameter, 15 grains of bullet weight, and 150 fps. 3. There is a difference in the performance of two identical projectiles launched at the same velocity if they came from different cartridges. 4. While a double rifle is the perfect DGR, every 375HH bolt gun needs to be modified to carry at least 5 down. 5. While a floor plate and detachable box magazine both use a mechanical latch, only the floor plate latch is reliable. Disregard the fact that every modern military rifle uses a detachable box magazine. 6. The Remington 700 is unreliable regardless of the fact it is the basis of the USMC M40 sniper rifle for 40+ years with no changes to the receiver or extractor and is the choice of more military and law enforcement sniper units than any other rifle. 7. PF actions are not suitable for a DGR and it is irrelevant that the M1, M14, M16, & AK47 which were designed for hunting men that can shoot back are all PF actions. 8. 95 deg F in Africa is different than 95 deg F in TX or CA and that is why you must worry about ammunition temperature in Africa (even though most safaris take place in winter) but not in TX or in CA. 9. The size of a ding in a gun's finish doesn't matter, what matters is whether it’s a safe ding or not. 10. 1 in a row is a trend, 2 in a row is statistically significant, and 3 in a row is an irrefutable fact. 11. Never buy a WSM or RCM cartridge for a safari rifle or your go to rifle in the USA because if they lose your ammo you can't find replacement ammo but don't worry 280 Rem, 338-06, 35 Whelen, and all Weatherby cartridges abound in Africa and back country stores. 12. A well hit animal can run 75 yds. in the open and suddenly drop with no initial blood trail, but the one I shot from 200 yds. away that ran 10 yds. and disappeared into a thicket and was not found was lost because the bullet penciled thru. I am 100% certain of this even though I have no physical evidence. 13. A 300 Win Mag is a 500 yard elk cartridge but a 308 Win is not a 300 yard elk cartridge even though the same bullet is travelling at the same velocity at those respective distances. | |||
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Guess she was enamored over your flutes.... /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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Fluted for her pleasure...or yours? Lou **************** NRA Life Benefactor Member | |||
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