Are the the fluted barrels better? I was woundering what the advantages of having a fluted barrel.

Lighter weight or bling only.
Butch

the advantage is it mskes the barrel makers and gunsmiths more money.

you notice I can't spell good and it shows how dumb I am. I live in upstate ny and you aren't allowed to be smart here or you wouldn't live here.

Voids the warranty on Shilen blanks. I think if you flute before you lap the bore you would probably be OK. At least that is what I have been told. God Bless, Louis

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Lighter weight or bling only.

No. Much greater cooling area. My 22.250 barrel stays much cooler having long flutes.

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No. Much greater cooling area. My 22.250 barrel stays much cooler having long flutes.

Actually, fluting a barrel will not affect cooling unless the metal is up to soemthing like 350° and there is soemthing like a minimum 25mph air cross flow.

Gun writers say this quite often, but they are wrong. I wish they would take take time to learn a littl escience an dnegineering when they quote ad acopy in articles. Not all of them do it, but the overwhelming majority do.

THis myth has spread and will probably be around as long as the myth about low number Springfields and Damscus being dangerous

Marc, you are correct. About like the guy that said SS barrels cooled faster than a CM. Same as the fallacy of a fluted barrel being stiffer.
We did that at the range a couple years ago. I have an infrared temp. tester. It told the story real quick.
Bling and weight only.
Butch

Same BS as with the carbon wrapped barrels. I read the first article and honestly laughed out loud. Kept telling people that such a barrel was frying the steel core because the carbon was an insulator-which meant it held the heat IN!

I keep waiting for a rifle company to read that a black body is the fastest cooling thing in the universe. My prediction is that they will come out with an ad campaign and then all of a sudden every single gun magazine has a story how SS barrels need to be painted black and it will double their life. 90% of the gun writers will just keep repeating it as if they actually knew what they were talking about. I am serious-this is coming sometime down the pike.

Everyone makes mistakes and I am speaking from a position of authority here. Seriously! But come on, do a little more than read the ad copy for the new product you are getting paid to hawk that month. Again, not all of them, but most.

The reason for a fluted barrel is to provide a higher section modulus than a non-fluted barrel of the same weight. Or, a lighter barrel than a non-fluted one with the same section modulus. Supposed to give you stiffness like a heavy barrel in a sporter weight.

15 quick shots thru my rifle would heat the barrel up to an uncomfortable touch level. Now it can be held onto not much more than lukewarm. I only know what I have.

What Marc said x2.
Flutes are for guys who like to look at flutes.
The provied nothing else.

I'll drop out after this, it's not worth the argument. More surface area has to emit more heat. Otherwise radiators would be solid blocks. A fluted barrel has much more surface area. My experience is on the same barrel, before and after.

wymple,
If you compute the surface area of the fluted barrel you will find that it is very close to the same as it was before fluting.
Butch

quote:

Originally posted by wymple:
I'll drop out after this, it's not worth the argument. More surface area has to emit more heat. Otherwise radiators would be solid blocks. A fluted barrel has much more surface area. My experience is on the same barrel, before and after.

Well, yes and no. Yes, your barrel actually does cool quicker. Under normal circumstances it is very small, like less than a degree F. But technically, yes, it is cooler. God did not give us hands calibrated well enough to pick up the difference. LOOOONG story to explain radiators, heat exchangers, etc. etc. and why that does not apply to your fluted barrel in the sense that you actually have much more cooling. It has been brought up and discussed in this forum numerous times over the years.

Not trying to be argumentative at all and sure do pray it does not come across this way. I mean it. I am not doubting your sincerity one bit, but it is just not physically possible for it to happen in a sporter rifle barrel. We all do it and I think things to be true that turn out not to be all the time. If you run a test you will see the barrel is not cooling any quicker. Get two identical rifles (except the fluting) and some thermo couples. Start shooting and start collecting data and you will see what we are talking about.

As for the stiffness, yes, that is why it started-give a stiffer barrel for the SAME WEIGHT. Again, 90% of the gun writers cocked up this story too. Many have said that fluting makes a barrel stiffer, but it actually makes a barrel more limber. But a 1# barrel that is fluted compared to a 1# barrel that is unfluted will show that the fluted bbl is stiffer. To break it down, a cylinder having a larger diameter will be stiffer than a cylinder of the same weight having a smaller diameter, assuming the same material was used for each cylinder.

I had a barrel fluted one time to reduce weight and shift the balance point. Mark Bansner did it and had it back to me in about 3 weeks. Man, that little 5# 10oz rifle sure does shoot! Has perfect balance and shoots great off hand as well. The idea that light rifles are hard to shoot off hand is right up there with the ideas that fluting cools barrels faster, makes them stiffer, “efficient” cartridges shoot faster with less powder at the same pressure, etc, etc.

Fluting doe shave its place. Many folks just think it looks cool and that is as valid a reason to have it done as anything else. Had a friend with a Remington Custom Shop rifle that would not shoot (surprise, surprise). It had a long, heavy fluted barrel he lopped 2” off of it and it shot great. But now the flutes run all the way to the muzzle and the barrel looks like a tractor axle! Pretty damn funny looking but it shoots great and he likes it, so all is well!

I think I'll stick to a regular barrel, Thanks you guys are very informative,

Hopefully a little facts.

1: Fluting a barrel makes this barrel loosing a little stiffnes
2: Redusing the same amount of wheight by reducing diameter, makes it loos more stiffness
3:Reducing wheight in any form will cause a barrel to become hotter during a rapid fire.
4: Increasing surface area will theoreticaly make a barrel cool faster. There might be som reduction in that efect, as the convektion around the barrel, can be inhibbited by som thermal fenomens, as tome of the airflow might get "trapped" in the flute pointing upwards, ant the one pointing downwards (hot air baloon efect)
5: same wheight delivered in a larger outer diameter will provide a stiffer barrel.
6: a fluted barrel during a long and werry slow string, wikk stabilize at a little lower temp, because theoreticaly better coolingability
7 If light wheight and accuracy is of importance, you might flute (but i doubt it is worth the money)
8: Fluting is in many peoples mind, werry dekorative. As fancy wood, fine checkering, engraving etc. In some peoples mind it also makes your gear look more "Swat or sniper like"


so please dont try to dind logic in any of those gimics. In those hard times please let the gunsmithe have a little work to do

The idea that six 1/3 diameter depth 1/4" wide flutes in the barrel of my 223rem chambered varmintrifle has any material (as opposed to theoretical) effect obviously never took high school physics or if they did failed the course.

It isn't the increase in surface area that matters, it's the surface area relative to volume,

the effect of those narrow flutes is therefore trivial
aside from the cosmetic effects

If you believe otherwise you are simply dilusional

NOW, a slender barrel with narrow aluminum or copper fins as a heat sink, like some of the early air cooled machine guns made for aviation use would cool very effectively, but air cooling on the ground, depending on wind and or convection is never as effective as water cooling.

the probably has something to do with the fact that water has 680times the mass as a similar volume of air.

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