I just did a search on this site about polygonal rifling after having talked to Gary Schneider who makes polygonal rifled barrels. I wonder if any of you use the Schneider polygonal rilfed barrels? They sound interesting. Instead of the conventional sharp edged rifling his poly rifling is rounded. Apparently they foul less and seal the bore better. He said that they will give about 25 fps higher velocity at the same pressure since they seal better. They deform the bullets jacket less also which may lead to better accuracy. On another subject he said that cryo does no good on stainless steel barrels. David Tubb has switched to using them. An endorsement from David Tubb holds a lot of weight. From the search it looks like Pac-Nor and Lothar Walther and some others use this form of rifling to some extent. Any comments? Thanks, Rufous.

So far, i have only used polygonal rifling in machine guns. There, the main advantage is that due to lower friction the barrel stays cooler and lasts a lot longer than conventional rifling. There are no sharp corners to be eroded away by hot powder gases.
It is also true that polygonal rifling fouls less.

Would it stand to reason that a polygonally rifled barrel, in a heavy contour, fluted, would make a good target barrel and possibly have longer barrel life?

I think that glocks are polygonal rifled aren't they?

This reminds me of something else that I think I will post about in regards to barrels, if I can just remember what it was called....

thanks guys

Red

Jacketed and plated bullets work well with polygonal rifling, but lead bullets tend to deposit a fair amount of lead requiring the barrel be cleaned more often.