Not sure where to post this but this looked like the spot. One of the guys at the club always puts a narrow wet rag on his barrel when he tests loads. He even goes as far as to re wet it as the shooting session goes on. These are hunting rifles by the way not bench guns. I always say what ever makes them happy but in my opinion this is way over board. Anyone do this or know people who do?

Back in the early '90's a friend built a 6mm BMF (7Rem Mag necked to 6mm and blown out to a 40 degree shoulder). Needless to say, the barrel heated up rather quickly. We kept small hand towels soaking in ice water when shooting PD's in NM. We tried to keep the barrel cool by draping a soaking towel over the barrel. It helped some but the barrel only lasted about 700 rounds. the towel did not appear to have any effect on accuracy. It was a HV barrel.

Don,

I routinely use a wet rag or ice cubes wrapped in a rag to cool the barrel, but sometimes worry about getting the stock too wet. In my experience the barrel gets hottest in two places: just in front of the chamber and a few inches back from the muzzle.

One trick I found that works well is to use isopropanol alcohol (buy the 90% concentration). I put it in a squirt bottle and after a string of load testing, usually 5 shots for my method; I tip the barrel muzzle down over a small “bucket” and squirt the alcohol down the side of the barrel trying to coat the whole barrel. The evaporational cooling (per Newton’s law of cooling) drops the temperature of the barrel quite quickly. The alcohol will not damage stock finishes or plastic stocks but I try to use care not to get the stock wet under the barrel since even at 90% it does contain some water and no sense in taking a chance warping the stock. I let the barrel temperature equilibrate a few minutes while I record velocity and other parameters of the load. I’ve even used the isopropanol down the inside of the barrel and it will do a bit of flushing of the fouling (not a real cleaning), but make sure to run at least two dry patches through before the next sequence of loads…forgot a few times and the bullets were as much as 2 feet off target!

I’ve also used compressed air sprayed down the tube but that is not easy to take to the range unless you get one of the small compressors that will run off your car/cigarette lighter plug.

There once was a device that used a tank of carbon dioxide gas with a hose and spout to spray into the barrel and that will cool a barrel real fast but just more stuff than most of us want to take to the range.

Finally another option is to take multiple rifles and swap between them letting one cool while you shoot the other.

Good luck.

I have a pump that recirculates mineral spirits through the barrel. I have friends that plunge their barrels in a big bucket of water whlie prairie dog hunting. Very effective and they clean thoroughhly before shooting again.
Butch

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Reed:

Finally another option is to take multiple rifles and swap between them letting one cool while you shoot the other.

Good luck.

That is what I do. Another method is to BS with the other shooters while we all wait for barrels to cool. That is my favorite.

While prairie dog shooting, I have actually poured ice water down the bore of my rifle. I used a small plastic hose with a funnel at one end.

a guy i hunt with uses one of those little c02 air pumps. they are basically just a little handle with a valve stem atachment to it and you use the little small co2 cylinders that you can buy at walmart for pellet guns. he says it works pretty well and its small enough to throw in your bag or even your pocket. like this
http://www.rei.com/product/798069

A wet towel and a can of compressed air normally sold for cleaning electronic equipment (cools very quickly). It's also good for huffing if you get frustrated with your shooting that day.