I would like to know a little about the history of micro rifling. I have a Sako Forester in .308 Win which has micro rifling and is extremely accurate. I know that some of the Marlins had micro rifling as well. Could anyone enlighten me on the reason that it is not used anymore and does it have any distinct advantages or disadvantages?

G'day sarge do not quote me on this but I think that micro rifling has stopped in marlin's larger calibers due to the difficulty of removing fowling from these types of barrels. They still however use it in there rimfires, I just got rid of one of there .22 mags it shot like trash. My 45/70 which is only a year old has the deep cut ballard rifling. These barrels are suppossed to I think stop the loss of gasses and keep pressure more uniform which leads to better bullet stabilisation and increased accuracy. I was thinking that if they seal off escaping gasses better would these types of barrels produce higher velocities than regular barrels??? Hope this helps, regards PC.

P.S. my .22 mag I don't think shot like trash because of the micro groove barrelling, just the rest of the rifle was rubbish.

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Hello Sarge

Interesting. I've read for decades that Marlin's micro-groove was a stale marketing ploy from the last century; I wonder how Sako came to use a similar technology.

I shoot a Marlin 60 for targets, most of the time lube the bullets. There hasn't been much fouling, and it shoots half-inch groups at 50 yards with one brand of cartridges. Anschutz guys view it with disgust.

Tom

Sarge, please describe the "micro rifling" in your Sako. In the Marlin rimfires, it is very shallow and has about 12 grooves, I believe. The early Sakos I'm familiar with may have as many as 8 grooves, but they are about as deep as standard grooves (more or less .004").

Incidentally, I've found most Marlin .22 Rimfires to be rather accurate.

Thanks for the replies. To answer your question Stonecreek my Sako has 12 grooves. I am not sure when it was made because I got it secondhand but I believe that Sako did not make them for very long with the micro rifling. Do you think that they dropped the idea maybe because of excessive barrel wear?

I am not aware that rifling was used except for the Marlin's using Sako actions and made by Marlin. They (Marlin) used it in their 222 Rem rifles.