In terms of investing a couple thousand dollars in a full custom hunting rifle, would you go with a fluted barrel?

I have not seen one, but am curious.

Rich

No. Doesn't add anything but more space for dirt and expense better spent elsewhere. I think of it as like Cadillac bumper bullets or Buick portholes or really fancy and flashy chrome wheels.

Of course there are other opinions.

Jerry Liles

First you've never seen one. Then it's two weeks ago you saw one you didn't like?

David Miller makes them look aesthetically pleasing.

Chuck,

Two things:

I stand corrected on the post. I did not differentiate between fluted stainless, synthetic stock and blued steel and walnut. I do not consider tupperware stocked rifles, real.

The one I saw was a sheephunter special, but still homely at best.

I would, however, make a sporting wager that I currently own at least one more than you do. The 450 RUM that Jim Kobe barreled for me, if you research a bit, has a fluted barrel.

I am still trying to appreciate the different look fluting imparts. Not a good match with a good piece of walnut, imho.

regards,

Rich

One of the problems is that fluting ,if not done very carefully, may have adverse affect on accuracy. For me I'd like a stress releiving heat treatment after machining !

On the right rifle, I think it adds to the look. Something like a heavy stocked varmint rig where you are saving a little weight, or trying to cool the barrel faster (which is a partial myth). On something like that I think it goes fine with a pretty wood stock, laminate, or synthetic.

If it adds utility to a rifle, it is also welcome. Like shaving weight off of a rifle to maintain a longer barrel, and/or overall thicker profile.

Otherwise, I agree it is a bit out of place on your typical custom classic style rifle. But to each his own. Winslow sold a few rifles, and those are just plain out of place IMHO.

Jeremy

Well I have never understood the need for fluting the barrel of a firearm other than an aircooled machinegun and even then the results is more esthetics than anything else. Of course I fall in the camp of blue steel and good walnut and break out in hives around Winslow rifles, thumbhole stocks, and most "tacticool" stuff. However, if that's what you want go for it. If we all liked and thought the same it would be a boring world.

Jerry Liles

I think eight flat flutes looks pretty neat, Especially if swamped a little.
Seriously, I don't like fluted barrels much. I could have all the fluted barrels I want and I have none. I guess I do have all I want. Regards, Bill

If you like them, why not? They make marginal improvements in stiffness and cooling.

I've seen some I like and some I don't. I have a few.

If I was going to invest a "couple thousand $s" in a full custom hunting rifle, I think I'd be looking at something like an octagon to round or round to octagon.

http://forums.accuratereloadin...251093561#4251093561

But for "a couple thousand" you sure as shit aren't gonna get anything close to a full custom hunting rifle.

Not a couple thousand dollar custom, but I recently built a lightweight 6.5 RSAUM on a model seven action and ended up fluting it. Also fluted the bolt and brought the rifle down a full half pound with both operations. It did change the balance into very nice handling 6.5 lbs w/ 24" barrel. It can have it's place I think.

craigster,

there's an old saying, "it's not what you know, but who you know...".

I have a friend who is such a volume Mauser 98 wheeler/dealer locally, that at any gun show here I can stop by his table and find one or more clean originals, or one that has already been properly reworked. I paid him $350 for a commercial Yugo 1948 that was drilled and tapped for bases, has a spoonbill handle, the extremely rare side swing floor plate release lever, and a jewelled bolt and claw extractor about a year ago.

He also sold me, at the Spring show,a 1908 blued Brazilian military action that DPCD recently barreled for me in 9,3x62. That action had also been drilled and tapped for bases, and had a set of the Leupold bases and QD rings.

I go up to WGG about every four weeks or so with npd345 and inspect some of the new blanks Chris has been cutting. Cash money is a powerful bargaining chip.

In 1978 I came to Idaho for my Army Ranger Company Reunion. The next weekend was the State Muzzleloading Championship. I had my gear, and shot the match. It took me about nine days here in Idaho to decide to finish that semester and move here in August. One of the gentlemen I made friends with was Dick Hart, the gunsmith at a local sporting goods store. He had some guy named George Hoenig working there with him.

Over the next thirty-two years he built me at least a dozen rifles. He worked out of his house some, and charged me the princely sum of $20 cash an hour to repair or build rifles. He was an oldtime gunsmith, he knew how to use files to make things they struggle to do today with CNC machinery. He died two years ago of lung cancer at age 82, pack a day man for more than sixty years.

I found a replacement, he's also 82. You'd like this guy, he was a fireman for 24 years in Ogden, Utah, and did stock work for some other oldtimer named Ackley.

I pick out a blank from Chris, time to time, and season it a year or more at my house. Then, it goes back to Chris and gets 90% pantographed/inletted. Then I take it to my new wood master, and he fits the stock, applies 18-20 coats of tung oil, and then checkers it. Three easy steps, #150 cash money each step. Four to six weeks later, I can go get it and take him the next project.

This spring I got five actions barreled, that kept me broke until last month. That, and the fact that I bought a new Toyota FJ Cruiser last September, and spent every extra non-gun-$$ dime I had to pay it off in 11 months. So, I have zero debt structure, and that lets me buy/build rifles, and prepare for a fourth trip to Africa.

I got two XX+ blanks pantographed/inletted and shipped the OM 70 Jim Kobe saved and barreled for me (the 450/375 RUM), and the VZ-24 in 404 Jefferys. In a roundabout way, that brings us to the point of this original post. The 450 RUM (aka 460 G&A) has a fluted barrel. I am still wondering if that barreled action, fluted and everything, was worthy of that walnut blank.

I hope I do not sound like I am bragging, it's just that I like custom rifles. Build me something that is my design, in a caliber I want.



I did hope someone here would have posted a picture of theirs in wood to look at.



I will not have $2000 tied up in either one, less than $1500 in the 404J.

I understand that is not a hobby for everyone, neither is hunting Africa. You just have to want to bad enough.

Rich
live well. It will please your friends, and confound the rest of the world.

I have had 2 barrels fluted, both with the objective of reducing weight of rifle. Failed on both experiments. The first was on a bull barrel Model 31 Remington .22. As far as I know it was the first barrel David Miller ever fluted. I kept careful statistics on the rifle as to accuracy while I had it and it actually improved the acuracy ever so slightly. The second one was a again a bull barrel this one a Model 70 with a Marksman stock in 308Win. It was done by by Joe Reid and again acheived a very slight improvement in accuracy. With these two very limited examples I can see no real reason for fluting other than esthetics as weight reduction is not significant enough to be a practical reason. But then is not esthetics the biggest reason for any cosmetic modification of a rifle. If you like it and can afford it - DO IT.

I always figured if fluting was a verifiable accuracy aid, that you would see them on Benchrest Rifles. Ditto for the weight reduction.

thanks,

Rich

I think it goes back to the old adage, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I only have a couple of fluted barrels, one wears a hand painted fiberglass stock and other will be a walnut/maple laminate. The second rifle is just back from engraving the caliber and logo, so if I get it reassembled this week I could send a picture. Personally I don't feel that fluting or stainless steel defiles walnut and if the finishes are similar make a very nice looking rifle.

This SAko looks fine to me with barrel flutes.

http://www.sako.fi/sako85models.php?grizzly

http://www.rifleshootermag.com...Sako-Arctos_0011.jpg

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
I always figured if fluting was a verifiable accuracy aid, that you would see them on Benchrest Rifles. Ditto for the weight reduction.

thanks,
Rich

Not sure where the question is there. Take a typical barrel blank of your choosing, machine and cut out flutes, the part now lying on the floor is the weight reduction.

I've never heard fluting being touted as an accuracy aid, other than increasing the surface area of a barrel to aid in heat dissipation.

I don't know about heat dissipation although it seems to me that the weight taken off would do just that.Also,I hate running my hand over the edges of the flutes especially on a cold day.I like to grab my rifle by the barrel sometimes and it just feels right with a round barrel.I would save the money for a double rifle.

I think "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" fits this rather well. I've had only one fluted barrel rifle a Rem Sendero 25-06.

It looked cool with the "Tupperware" stock and shot quarter inch groups with specific 75, 100 and 120 gr bullets when I got the loads worked out...I liked it until something else caught my eye and it got traded.

The fluting DOES give a higher surface area and DOES give higher structural strength... theoretically, but how much is up for grabs, I don't think I've read of any actual area calculations being done with specific measurements, and again, those measurements, if done, are rifle/barrel specific.

Then...EVERYONE starts assuming and transferring that data to any-old-fluted-barrel and usually gets it wrong.

Everyone has a "beauty thing" about something and an "ugly thing" about something else.

I think they ALL are beautiful...even my "UGLY" ones, basically because they do the job. I don't have any "closet queens"...if they're too pretty to take hunting, they're too pretty to be in my rack. Being a "junk yard dog" makes it easy to select a shooter...I pick the ones that are like the Energizer Bunny...they keep going and going and going and are CHEAP.

If you like pretty, that's OK too.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Chuck,

Two things:

I stand corrected on the post. I did not differentiate between fluted stainless, synthetic stock and blued steel and walnut. I do not consider tupperware stocked rifles, real.

The one I saw was a sheephunter special, but still homely at best.

I would, however, make a sporting wager that I currently own at least one more than you do. The 450 RUM that Jim Kobe barreled for me, if you research a bit, has a fluted barrel.

I am still trying to appreciate the different look fluting imparts. Not a good match with a good piece of walnut, imho.

regards,

Rich

Now you've never seen one but now own one? This is interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I don't know about heat dissipation although it seems to me that the weight taken off would do just that.

Fluting increases barrel surface area, resulting in increased heat dissipation.
Same reason air-cooled engines have finned cylinder heads.

The extra material in an unfluted barrel will contribute to retaining heat.
Fat barrels take longer to cool down than thin barrels.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I like to grab my rifle by the barrel sometimes and it just feels right with a round barrel.

Flutes actually allow a person to have more positive firm grip of the barrel, hence improved control of the whole rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
I do not consider tupperware stocked rifles, real.

they are real enough in that animals & people still effectively die when one is used against them.

The fluting in a rifle barrel won't dissipate that much heat. The fins are deeper, thinner, are made of aluminum which conducts heat better an aircooled engine is much larger and the amount of heat to be rejected larger and aircooled engines typically have some means of forcing air over the fins. If you are shooting enough to need fins you are shooting a machine gun and even then the effect is not great.

I wasn't said that flutes were great dissipators of heat.
But they do dissipate heat more effectively than unfluted.
Its just a slight added advantage if your fluting the barrel for weight reduction.

The aircooled engine example was used simply to demonstrate a much more common application
where material is removed that results in increased cooling effect.

I know. I guess I'm saying that the flutes are really more of an affectation than a real asset. Looks cool but really has little or no practical value except, perhaps, for a bit of weight reduction that could also be achieved with a thinner barrel. Nothing wrong with cool but, I suspect, it will be like a roll over cheek piece, bell bottom pants, and duck tail haircuts, out dated and uncool after a few years.

Jerry Liles

Rich, please do not tell D`Arcy Echols that his Legends are not "real." He will be devastated. He will also keep selling them at 14K a pop as fast as he can make them.

along that line, pen raised lions in RSA are still selling for $40,000 to 50,000 with a waiting list.

You don't have to have as much talent to know how to inlet a stainless barreled action in a tupperware stock as you do in a XX+ grade stock. If you mess up a mud-in, you just scrape/dremel it out and start again.

That piece of walnut does not allow for "oops!". Neither will that, for instance, rust blued OM 70 or painstakingly customized M98 if you scratch it along the line.

Nor does the impressed checkering in tupperware require the same level of skill as flawlessly applied 32 line per inch hand cut checkering.

Echols has created a market for his work, and I am knocking it or him.

Stainless and Tupperware just do not impress people the way great walnut and rust blued metal components with perfect checkering will.

Go to SCI or DSC and watch people oohing and ahhing over the custom. If the tupperware/stainless offering had zero markings it might be very difficult to tell who made it.

If a blued/walnut rifle had no markings on it, people would still pick it up to look at the inletting, the checkering, and the rust bluing just to admire the craftsmanship.

It's something you can either appreciate for the skilled craftsmanship required, or you can't...

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
If the tupperware/stainless offering had zero markings it might be very difficult to tell who made it.

Not really, since Echols Legends stand out like dogs-ntz well before one is close enough to read the lettering on the barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Nor does the impressed checkering in tupperware require the same level of skill as flawlessly applied 32 line per inch hand cut checkering.

sorry, Legend stocks don't have impressed checkering.
The checkering is accurately moulded via a production mould taken from an original stock sample that Echols made for McMillan.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
You don't have to have as much talent to know how to inlet a stainless barreled action in a tupperware stock as you do in a XX+ grade stock.

The Echols shop clearly has the required talent make the highest grade walnut stock if one so chooses, but obviously its not every customers preference.
Echols began making Legends because of increased customer requests for such, not because he personally wanted to flog syn. stock rifles.
He was and still is obviously out to satisfy his customer base with a high quality product.

and damage-break a high grade walnut stock in the field and see how long it takes to restock compared to a Legend restock.

Q./ Are you also the type of guy who would prefer a wooden leg in preference to an advanced carbonfibre-titanium prosthesis?...

I don't need an artificial limb. That's silly.

You obviously have no appreciation of beauty.

I know a lot of hunters, and haven't seen any of them handling stainless/synthetic rifles. I do see most all of them taking the blued steel/walnut out of cases and handling them frequently.

It's not anything to argue about, but if you cannot appreciate the difference, then...

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
I don't need an artificial limb. That's silly.

You obviously have no appreciation of beauty.

I know a lot of hunters, and haven't seen any of them handling stainless/synthetic rifles. I do see most all of them taking the blued steel/walnut out of cases and handling them frequently.

It's not anything to argue about, but if you cannot appreciate the difference, then...

I'm glad you handle your fine rifles in the living room and am not surprised you build them with that end use in mind. I handle mine in the field and have them built accordingly.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
but if you cannot appreciate the difference, then...

I appreciate that people have free will to choose what makes them personally happy.
for some its wood , for some it synthetic, and some are content with either or both.

I enjoy hunting just as well with a Rem700KS or a bespoke walnut wonder, makes Fckall difference to me really.
I don't feel like I'm missing out either way.
Clearly there are people that can have appreciation for both, and there are people with narrows minds who cannot.

This is just an ordinary 7x57 Pre64 with McMillan, not much custom work done except a Douglas #2.
I like it just as much as the walnut customs costing many many thousands more that live next to it.
For actual hunting, I would rather carry that rifle.

I'd much rather you showed us the walnut stocked one. Much rather...

Based on what you are showing, I'd say you have gotten to the phase of the opened minded thing that your brains fell out.

God loved Adam and Eve so much he gave them Free Will, as all loving parents must someday do for their children.

The success rate is Z-E-R-O percent to date.

Chuck,

on your rationale, it is just as rewarding to marry a 300lb woman with halitosis. After all, the way you see it, looks and shape are vastly overrated.

Personally, I've chosen to operate at a higher standard than the minimum you espouse.

Run thru the archives and see the pictures from my three trips to Africa. All good walnut and blued steel rifles, including a couple of doubles.

Could you kindly post the link here to your Safaris and pictures of the animals you took?

I have trouble, sometimes, chronicling you and my other critics exploits.

regards,

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Chuck,

on your rationale, it is just as rewarding to marry a 300lb woman with halitosis. After all, the way you see it, looks and shape are vastly overrated.

Personally, I've chosen to operate at a higher standard than the minimum you espouse.

Run thru the archives and see the pictures from my three trips to Africa. All good walnut and blued steel rifles, including a couple of doubles.

Could you kindly post the link here to your Safaris and pictures of the animals you took?

I have trouble, sometimes, chronicling you and my other critics exploits.

regards,

Rich

This from the guy who once claimed to have shot 15 350 class bulls but had no pictures to prove it. A guy who constantly reminds us of his exploits in RVN but fails to mention the much longer career working in the Post Office. And a guy who thinks three trips to Africa makes him an expert.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:

Personally, I've chosen to operate at a higher standard....

... All good walnut and blued steel rifles, including a couple of doubles.

I suggest you ask Mr.Searcy about his doubles that repeatedly fail by splitting barrels...
Yours could be next!..
Clearly your idea of a 'higher standard' is vastly different to that of sensible people.

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
... And a guy who thinks three trips to Africa makes him an expert.

ISS was an expert after his first trip to Africa, three trips makes him a legend....

IMO,you only need to go once to be a legend.What is required is that you do it right naturally-not copied from someone else-genial is the word that comes to mind.For example you can't be a legend in my book if you went 50 times and all of a sudden you feel as if you should shoot your game instead of the PH shooting it for you.

I've been lucky to make three trips. I am going again next spring.

I made the last payment on the new FJ, so I have Z-E-R-O debt structure. It is a very good feeling.

you yappers have the opportunity here, to show me up with your tales of derring-do on the Dark Continent.

Well...

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
In terms of investing a couple thousand dollars in a full custom hunting rifle, would you go with a fluted barrel?

I have not seen one, but am curious.

Rich

I would not do it, based solely on appearance...unless the rifle is to have a good, hand-laid all-weather composite stock and he barrel is to be a matted stainless steel one no longer than 24". That's just because I REALLY DON'T personally enjoy the appearance of blued fluted CM barrels.

BTW, fluting doesn't even marginally increase the Stiffness of any barrel, unless on uses the weight saved to be able to increase the diameter of the barrel. Any engineer should be able to explain why that is the case. (If both barrels are of the same weight the fluted one will be the larger diameter and may be stiffer, depending on the kinds of flutes.

As to barrels and stocks in general, the only place I appreciate hexagonal or octagonal barrels is on truly old lever guns where they are original. Ditto half round/half octagon ones. I think they are especially out of place on ANY bolt action gun, though 1/4, 1/2 or full barrel-ribs are authentic classical styles.

And Composite stocks have become very, very nice on properly proportioned, properly hand made (not by injection)rifles. Six of my favorite hunting rifles are now a Remington 600 in .243, with a round CM barrel and an MPI stock; a Steyr Professional in 8x57 with a composite stock; a Steyr Pro-Hunter in .376 Steyr with a composite stock, an original W pre-64 M7- FW in .270 Winchester, with the plain old original Winchester stock; a Ruger #1-
S in 7x65R with the original stocks, and a full bespoken custom Musgrave .404 Jeffery with an "African Walnut" stock, which actually isn't in strict realty a member of the Walnut family tree at all (pardon the intentional pun).

Both have their places and styles in hunting rifles. Personally, I don't much like dogs-breakfast mixing of styles (especially just for getting "status symbols") but I love both kinds of rifles.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
I've been lucky to make three trips. I am going again next spring.

I made the last payment on the new FJ, so I have Z-E-R-O debt structure. It is a very good feeling.

you yappers have the opportunity here, to show me up with your tales of derring-do on the Dark Continent.

Well...

Now that explains it. You hunt from a car. If I hunted from a car I would use rifles like you have as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Nelson:

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
I've been lucky to make three trips. I am going again next spring.

I made the last payment on the new FJ, so I have Z-E-R-O debt structure. It is a very good feeling.

you yappers have the opportunity here, to show me up with your tales of derring-do on the Dark Continent.

Well...

Now that explains it. You hunt from a car. If I hunted from a car I would use rifles like you have as well.

I thought 'ole Goat Scrotum face had a Jag?