I live in a hot humid area. I do not have the luxury of a climate controlled range. I get about one shot every 15 min (maybe more, never timed it) with my 375 after the first 3 shot string. that is too slow for me. I tried a 9oz CO2 paintball can and remote, with the valve cracked pushing CO2. That lasted about 4 shots, what a waste of money. What do you guys do for positive air displacement in your barrels to shoot more? Oh yea, I am poor and cannot afford a shiny new 500 AR till the fall, so shooting more guns is not an option. I already shoot my 22 in between shots till that gets hot.

Pull the bolt, and blow compressed air through it. Then, leave the gun in the shade between strings.

You could always pour water through the bore and swab it with a bore mop.

A .375H&H shouldn't heat up enough to cause vertical stringing or throat erosion; you don't have one of those Browning Stalkers, do you?

George

1. Leave the AC on in the car full blast and set the vents to blow toward the opened action, muzzle up between three-shot strings.

2. A blast or two of Gun scrubber down the barrel from the action end, muzzle down for drainage, will cool it evaporatively, pretty fast, and does not seem to affect big bore accuracy to any significant degree ... I never had the urge to dunk the barrel in a barrel of ice water between shots.

Gixxer,

I recently found some discussion of this same subject on AR in Reloading or Bench/Targetshooting forums I think.

One method that was suggest was cooling the barrel either inside or outside with swabs a solvent with potential to evaporate.

I recently tried rubbing alcohol [ clean and plenty cheap! Kept a towel wet in a zip closed bag for hours. ] swabbed on the barrel exterior. The alcohol rubbed on the metal with a cloth, evaporates almost instantly at first then slower as it cools. I stayed well away from the wood.

Notionally I feel this cut cooling time by 50% at least.

I forgot to mention this was a RUM, not an H&H. Not that it matters really. I am going to have to try some of those ideas when I go to the outdoor range, like the air conditioning in the car. I just wish there was another way to get enough compressed air to get the job done at an indoor range. The indoor range I am a member of is not climate controlled in the range area. They pump in plain jane outside air for ventilation. But I do look forward to different options.

I thought this was a heckuva cool idea....



It was posted on the Africa Forum a few months ago by one of our African members. I think the shoot was in Zimbabwe as a tuneup for the hunting season.

Here is the way that Saeed's rifles get cooled down during his annual shooting competition at the end of the hunt...



A towel is soaked in a bucket with ice and water, then wrapped around the hot rifle and held that way for a few minutes. Since Saeed takes two near identical rifles, one is in service while the other is being cooled in this fashion. Unconventional but very effective!

Cheers,
Canuck

that fan is definately cool!!! you know... I could rig up something like that using a computer fan, roofing flashing, and a pool hose.

Go up to the "Find" function at the top of the page and type in "barrel cooling". Do NOT select "this forum only".

I just tried it and found seventeen pages of posts on the subject. By the time you get through all that, you will likely have read about virtually every barrel-cooling method known to man.

I use ice-water in my barrels, followed by
compressed air to blow 'em dry. Never harmed a thing.

I use a gallon bucket of the Ed's Red mixture. I push a patch thru the chamber to the muzzle, assuming you are shooting a bolt gun, put the muzzle in the bucket of Ed's Red and pull the cleaning rod out. The patched jag will act like a piston and syphon the cleaning solution up the barrel. Push the rod back down the barrel you'll get bubbles in the can, pul the rod back up, pulling cleaning solution each time.
The Ed's Red also cools the barrel.
Jim

I just take some ziploks and a bag of ice from the convenience store. Put a few cubes in the ziplok and wipe down the outside of the barrel. after a half dozen rounds that ice is all water and just dump it out. Add afew more cubes and you are ready for the next string. Only cost a couple of bucks for a big bag. If you rob your own ice maker it shouldn't cost anything much at all.

I keep my bore solvent in a shooting box in the shade, stays pretty cool (under the bench). I shoot no more than 10 shoots at a time, ussually 5. I pull the bolt push one wet patch down the bore and leave the rod in the barrel, while I go mark the target. It seems to help pull the heat out. Two or three patches to dry, right back in business.

Do load development work in the winter?

well if you will permit me a story - years ago we were shooting PD's inb S.D. with keith purdie (president of the past gopher shooters supply) and when you go with keith, you don't get to come home until you shoot up all his ammo, which was piles into a big old washtub. anyway keith as into archery at the time and he was bound and determined to get a PD with hiw bow. We walked out away from the turck and when we h=came back a c ouple hours latter, here was keith, passe dout in the truck with beer cans littering the landscape. There was a dog hole ab out 3=20 yards away that lookedlike a pin cushion. Seemed like when the PD would stick his head out keith would loose an arrow, missing, and had a beer waiting for thedog to reappear. (keith by the way didn't really drink) so, from my experience i would say beer would cool down the barrel

I go with 500Grains, I do my load development in the fall and winter, cooler, more comfortable on the range, etc.. It gets Hot here in Texas! Tampa was another thing though, all that humidity made rust more of a worry than barrel wear, for me anyway.

LLS

Whenever possible, I try to take a gulp or two of cold beer between shots.

My understanding is that loads for Africa should be developed during the heat of summer since they will be used in the heat of Africa.

That's why I always take 2-3 rifles to
the range. While one is cooling I'm shooting
another one. Today it was a 223 Remington
and a 35 Whelen.

dxr

quote:

Originally posted by John in SC:
My understanding is that loads for Africa should be developed during the heat of summer since they will be used in the heat of Africa.

Just out of curiosity, you were posting that for the barrel cooling threaad, not the africa hot thread? confused.

Too bad they will not let me drink at the range. Wait, firearms and booze don't mix! Oh well. I am gonna try the rubbing alcohol as soon as I get back from Alaska. I leave tomorrow, get back in a few weeks. Too bad it is a military flight, I would at least bring one gun and try to shoot something.

Hello,
I am not sure why you would want/need to cool your barrel between shots so frequently?? Shot long range matches for several years, super hot days in Quanitco, VA., Benning, Oak Ridge, and even Perry and would shoot strings of twenty rounds for record with unlimited sighters at some matches and usually had that done within 12-15 minutes. Unless you were having a problem, wind messing you up,etc. sighters were in the 2-4 range, or a total of some 24 odd rounds in 15 minutes. A proper stress relieved barrel seemed to give no noticeable deviation in accuracy due to heat. Now, if you did not keep your ammo out of the sun, that was a different story, but the barrels were so damn hot that you could not grab with your bare hands for long at all. I do understand that benchrest shooters striving for that magic .1 group would tend to treat the barrel differently than a XC shooter or LR shooter, but for a sporting rifle with more than enough accuracy for hunting ranges/targets, would not worry about the advantage cooling would show in a group of your deer, elk, moose, etc. rifle. Hell, I wish I would have let my barrel cool some, would have made HM a lot quicker. Only took me about 15 years!!

The evaporative cooling is a good idea, my recommendation is this:

Get an inexpensive bottle of vodka, keep it in the freezer (it won't freeze, but will get colder than water could without changing states), take it with you and a rag to the range. dampen the rag and wipe the barrel. In between wipes you need to sample the vodka yourself to make sure it is still cold enough to help. eventually the time between shots won't matter.

Red

It's not so much an accuracy issue, I practice all of my shooting standing offhand @ 50yd. I do not have the skill yet to hold steady enough to do that @ 100yd, let alone see if the rifle was stringing by 2 inches or so. About once a month I bench shoot a group to make sure it still shoots straight and its me that creates the shotgun patterns! It is more about cooking the barrel. I just do not feel comfortable shooting another shot after I cannot put my hands on the barrel. Visions of charcoal briquettes down the first 4 inches of my barrel dance in my head... You know, I wish there was somebody in my area that hade a Hawkeye, I would love to see what the guts of my barrel look like.

I take a bunch of rifles to shoot.I usually take 15 rifles to shoot.It gives me alot of cool down time.I put therm in the shade too in the case open.I stop shooting if the barrels warm,I take all 5 of my 416s and 6 or so 338s .I take a couple of 22s also and my 22 pistols.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by John in SC:
My understanding is that loads for Africa should be developed during the heat of summer since they will be used in the heat of Africa.


Just out of curiosity, you were posting that for the barrel cooling threaad, not the africa hot thread? confused.

I was just trying to see if I could get sierra2 mad at me.

Have a great trip!

I don't, just keep shootin em, the only thing I do with a hot barrel after a session is run bore cleaner down it, best way of getting all the fouling out....

Within 1-2 weeks I will try a 2nd hand scuba cylinder, to blow compressed air into the barrel; I'm pretty sure that it will be effective.

gixxer ----- Last saturday was pretty typical of my shooting, hot or cold weather. I took 4 rifles and two pistols. I shoot three shot groups with Magnum rifles and 5 shot groups with standard rifles. I shoot one rifle, waiting about one minute between shots with the bolt open, when finished shooting that group I then place that rifle in an upright position in my gun rack with the bolt open (works like a chimney cooling the barrel) if I am going to shoot it again that session. I will then shoot another rifle or pistol. By the time I have shot each I can go back to the first one and start over again. I also have a magazine with pretty pictures (guns or girls of course) to view whle waiting between shots. This works for me and has for years. Good shooting.

Taking two or three rifles to the range is a good idea. That way you can keep shooting one while the others are cooling off.

I also like shooting in the dead of winter (not a good idea for developing loads for high temp climates I know). It's amazing how fast a barrel will cool when it's below freezing. The public shooting ranges are always nice and empty as well.....

Matt V.