A while back I saw a custom rifle on Gun Auction with a spiral interrupted fluted barrel. It just caught my fancy for some reason. Does anyone know who offers a barrel done this way? Thanks!

E. R. Shaw also does a spiral flute job.

Just be advised, E.R. Shaw was granted a patent on spiral fluting of rifle barrels. The sent me a letter through there attorney advising me that I had to stop advertising and selling spiral fluted barrels or they would take legal action. Hence the "temporarily unavailable" on our web site. You will also notice that on the twisted barrel web site he does not offer spiral fluting of barrels. He offers spiral bolts, and snake and diamond barrels, but not spiral. I suspect he received a similar letter.

Personally, I think it is BS and if I had the choice of using a shaw barrel of doing without the spiral flutes, I'd get a good barrel and do without the flutes.

John

Tose type barrels might be asthetic to some people,but there is no advantage to them,and i would hate to have to inlet one. VAN

quote:

Originally posted by van:
Tose type barrels might be asthetic to some people,but there is no advantage to them,and i would hate to have to inlet one. VAN

The inletting would be no different than usual.

I think he means if you inlet for the spiral. PIA if you think about it.

quote:

Originally posted by tiggertate:
I think he means if you inlet for the spiral. PIA if you think about it.

Yeah, that would suck.

quote:

Originally posted by gasgunner:
Just be advised, E.R. Shaw was granted a patent on spiral fluting of rifle barrels.
John

Oh WOW... now let's see.. this is nothing but universal dividing head work along the barrel.. basically long helical gear cutting..

and they got a PATENT for it?

Anyone tell Brown and Sharpe?

now this is, imnsho, a DUMB patent

quote:

Originally posted by gasgunner:
Just be advised, E.R. Shaw was granted a patent on spiral fluting of rifle barrels. They sent me a letter through there attorney advising me that I had to stop advertising and selling spiral fluted barrels or they would take legal action.

John

If one person can prove that they cut a twisted barrel and had it in use/possible for public view/use for one year before Shaw applied for a patent then Shaw's patent will not stand up in court. In other words if anyone can find a pic of one in a gun magazine that predates his patent application by one year then Shaw wasted thousands of dollars on a lawyer.

If he really can prove in court that he is the first to do this then no one can legally make their own.

Patent law reads under 271. Infringement of Patent

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses or sells any patented invention, within the United States during the term of the patent therefore, infringes the patent.
(b) Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer.

In other words if Shaw has a watertight patent and you pay some machinist to spiral flute your barrel you could be sued by Shaw. Agian this is asuming that the patent is water tight. I doubt that it is.......... I could be wrong.

Does anyone have the patent #

gunmaker

Gasgunner, I believe Frank White of Compass Lake did this a few years ago as well as Douglas. Somebody else has been doing it for a while. I will try to find his website as I have been to it before.
Butch

Go to www.kampfeldcustom.com, another shop that is doing it.
Butch

Why would anyone want to do something like this to an otherwise decent looking rifle?

It would be interesting to know when Shaw has applied. I can inform that we has been making spiralfluted barrels since 1998. But on the other hand, that is in Europe, so i dont know how it affects a US patent

http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&S...S=AN/shaw+AND+barrel

Now everyone can read it and make their own conclusions so we don't have to go on hearsay evidence.

That certainly clears things up, OH YEA.

Butch,
Frank got a letter just a few weeks after I did. He now has "temporarily unavailable" on his web site as well.

Shaw claims they have defended it 5 times in court and won each time. I suspect they are just using it to intimidate the small time guys like me and Frank who do not have the money to fight them.

I agree is is BS, but I got better things to do than fight them over someting that we only sell a dozen or so a year of.

John

I particularly like this passage in the patent under "Background of the invention"

"Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a strong, lightweight, and accurate gun barrel."

Really??? Since when did E.R. Shaw care about the quality of a gun barrel??? There are still gunsmiths flinching today whenever the name E.R. Shaw and the word accuracy are used in the same article... If the addition of spiral flutes will produce an accurate barrel, one wonders why Shaw didn't think about this years and years and years ago.

Looks like it was filed July 9,1999.

If anyone including Shaw, built one a year or more before and can prove it with pictures, receipts, wittnesses, the patent should not hold up in court. If anyone here is making money at this they should go on a fishing trip around the internet forums, get the pics/proof and send them to Shaw's lawyer.

Again, if Shaw built one before July 1998 and showed it to someone then that would void the patent.

gunmaker

At the 1965 National High Power Championships, Mid Tompkins had a spiral fluted barrel on his "Across-the-Course" bolt rifle. Anyone living in Prescott, AZ should be able to verify that contacting Mid. I saw the rifle and made a remark to him about it so, it isn't here-say.