Interesting reading.

http://technology.calumet.purd...3%20-%20No_%207).htm

I like comparing my experiences with barrels with rifling made using different methods.Also,barrels using the same method but from different manufacturers.I prefer accurate and long lasting barrels.It's difficult to come to any conclusion unless you stick to one cartridge,use the same components,bullet weights, and shoot it with various barrels.I am about to get a CZ Lott rebarrelled with a Krieger and once completed,I'll have shot the Lott the same way with barrels from three different makers-two hammer-forged and one cut-rifled.I prefer a Ruger over a CZ barrel(but fired more monometals from the CZ and almost none with the Ruger).I would like to see if the Krieger can top the Ruger.I had great results with hammer-forged barrels in the passed.I said this before but I think it is worth saying again,that I once showed up at the range with two new unfired rifles in 300wm-one barreled with a Krieger and the other a factory Winchester.I used handloads loaded the same way and shot a few groups with each.The groups shot with the Winchester were much smaller(the rifle with the Krieger was rebarreled 3 times so I don't know if this screws up anything).That same Win went on to shoot a five shot one hole group at 200yds a few weeks later.

Thanks for that .When I visited Remington in the early '70s they had a hammer forging machine .Certainly an interesting, proven and efficient way of making a barrel.
In those days there seemed to be reluctance to accept button rifling over cut rifling !! So perhaps hammer forged was much too "far out" to be accepted here.
BTW there is no reason to stress relieve the barrel as long as the stresses are uniform.

I wonder, how many rifle manufactures would choose to use hammer forging to produce their barrels if it cost the same(in time and money) as button rifling?

Pretty unbiased article.

What I see as the next step in the future is using different metal alloys.

Remember that 43xx CrMo, 410 & 416 Stainless are used because they are more or less "Traditional barrel materials.

They were originally chosen not because they were the "best" material, but because they were "practical" materials.

"practical" because any other "better" material was effectively impossible to make barrels from profitably.

There are better materials that aren't practical to machine
(internally) but could easily be produced by hammer-forging.

there are a couple of Ni-Cr, Miraging steels and Hastelloy(Cobalt/Chromium/Nickel) related alloys that would
be essentially indestructable...

But would be impossible to make by other means.

I think they have only scratched the surface of what is possible.

AD

As a Quality Engineer for John Deere I did a survey of GFM in Austria. I was also JD's forging expert. GFM is a high quality house. Allan Degroot is correct.....They have just scratched the surface on the metalurgy. Unfortunately we will still need to chamber the barrel, so they will need to be easily machinable, unless we can come up with insertable chambers.

Allan,
interesting ideas, but somehow the barrel maker still has to get a dead smooth hole punched through the center of blank.

Are you familiar with drawn over mandrel tube? I wonder what that process can hold for finish and size tolerance? And can it be effectively done with the alloys mentioned?

Sure as bears eat berries, you can't gun drill and ream that stuff in a cost effective manner.

Very interesting non-the-less... bears some pondering.

Among High Power Shooters with Custom cut rifles barrels are seen to have the longest life.

In regards to Hammer Forged barrels I have seen a TREMENDIOUS difference between the American Hammer forged barrels and those form Germany...

Both in barrel life and accuracy.

I have experience with several Remington 700 Heavy barreled rifles in 308 [a couple of hundred], and I have never seen one that sid not shoot pretty good, some of them real good.

Likewise I have experience with several Steyr SSG's, Steyr hunting rifles, H&K rifles, and Blaser barrels.

The German barrels last up to twice as long, before accuracy gets squirrely.

The longest lasting barrels I have ever used were German/Austrian Hammer Forged.

quote:

Originally posted by Tapper2:
As a Quality Engineer for John Deere I did a survey of GFM in Austria. I was also JD's forging expert. GFM is a high quality house. Allan Degroot is correct.....They have just scratched the surface on the metalurgy. Unfortunately we will still need to chamber the barrel, so they will need to be easily machinable, unless we can come up with insertable chambers.

IIRC I recently read an article that stated that the chamber can also be "hammer forged" as the barrel is being manufactured. True or not? I have no idea.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

quote:

Originally posted by Tapper2:
As a Quality Engineer for John Deere I did a survey of GFM in Austria. I was also JD's forging expert. GFM is a high quality house. Allan Degroot is correct.....They have just scratched the surface on the metalurgy. Unfortunately we will still need to chamber the barrel, so they will need to be easily machinable, unless we can come up with insertable chambers.

IIRC I recently read an article that stated that the chamber can also be "hammer forged" as the barrel is being manufactured. True or not? I have no idea.

It's true JBrown ,the Australian military get their barrels made by Australian defense industries, hammer forged, chamber and all.

czs are hammer forged and thought to be quite accurate.

IIRC, Ruger barrels were of middling quality, the situation improving when they began to hammer forge their own barrels.

Aren't most cut rifled barrels done on old Pratt & Whitney machines?

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

quote:

Originally posted by Tapper2:
As a Quality Engineer for John Deere I did a survey of GFM in Austria. I was also JD's forging expert. GFM is a high quality house. Allan Degroot is correct.....They have just scratched the surface on the metalurgy. Unfortunately we will still need to chamber the barrel, so they will need to be easily machinable, unless we can come up with insertable chambers.

IIRC I recently read an article that stated that the chamber can also be "hammer forged" as the barrel is being manufactured. True or not? I have no idea.

The Steyr AUG has a hammer forged chamber. I don't know the limitations, if any for doing that. The AUG is a quick-change convertable weapon to squad automatic and has several barrel configuations. I am guessing but hammer forging the barrel/chamber as a single operation would be the fastest and cheapest way to make a modular part that headspaces in any combination of barrels and bolts.

The Sauer, Blaser and Steyr rifles all have hammer forged barrels. Collectively they make some of the most accurate out-of-the-box weapons in the world. FWIW, most artillery today uses hammer forged barrels.

quote:

BTW there is no reason to stress relieve the barrel as long as the stresses are uniform.

Exactly what "shot peening is". A uniform stress induced in the surface of the material creating a stronger overall part.

As far as Any Rifling technique is concerned
No process is better then the other as far as the useful life of a barrel is concerned So long as every step of every process involved is executed with the upmost of precision and accuracy. Basically you get out of a barrel what you put into it. If you order a mass produced piece of junk, Guess what it will never shoot good except under the the most fortunate of conditions. But a high quality Cut, Broached, Buttoned, or Hammer forged barrel will shoot as intended.

I once had a discussion with a buddy of mine on the inherent accuracy of a cartridge. He believed that the cartridge design played a major roll in it's potential accuracy. I disagree. I believe it is a single variable that lends itself to accuracy but is not what will makes or breaks it. The thing is (just as stated above) We are only scratching the surface of variables that we understand for one, and that we can control. There are so many variables involved in a firearm's accuracy aside from the human element that it should be impossible to control but as we have all seen we can control the major players as we know them now to extract the most potential accuracy we can.

The shop that made the barrel and how much attention they gave it is more important then the process used to make it.

So can anyone one point to one of the hammer forge european shops and say they produce the "best" or at least are among the best?

I have a hammer forged barrel on one of my custom rifles and I have to say that I really like it. Excellent hunting accuracy and no loss of accuracy after a large number of rounds. I've also got a couple of Kriegers that give outstanding accuracy but have not been shot much over 1000 rounds.

Are hammer forged barrels out of the running in benchrest? Has anyone ever tried a high-end hammered barrel on an all out benchrest rifle?

Always looking for answers.

j

quote:

Originally posted by Josh A.:


Are hammer forged barrels out of the running in benchrest?

j

I'm too lazy to search for the article that was posted here last month, but it compared the three types of rifling and stated that button and cut are the only two that are seen in benchrest competition.

That was very interesting. I just wish that they had included some actual video of the process in action.

quote:

Originally posted by Josh A.:
Are hammer forged barrels out of the running in benchrest? Has anyone ever tried a high-end hammered barrel on an all out benchrest rifle?

Always looking for answers.

j

One part of the answer was posted above; there are no aftermarket barrel makers using hammer forges. The initial cost is too high to recoup. And all the arms companies in the USA that make barrels in-house don't sell barrels over the counter.

Most of the European arms manufacturers that have barrel making equipment have ongoing military contracts for small arms and have the ability to use that equipment to make both. But again, none of them are in the retail barrel business.

I would like to know where your barrel came from. Was it new made or a takeoff from another rifle?

Aren't Lothar Walther blanks hammer forged?

Allan , it's Maraging [MARtensite + AGING ], not miraging [you've been seeing things ]. Developed around 1960 it's a high alloy materal, not technically steel as it has no carbon.Rather expensive !!
I worked on a similar alloy for my thesis in those days .When I recently googled maraging I found that the most common site was golf clubs !! Golfers are very much gadget types !

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

quote:

Originally posted by Tapper2:
As a Quality Engineer for John Deere I did a survey of GFM in Austria. I was also JD's forging expert. GFM is a high quality house. Allan Degroot is correct.....They have just scratched the surface on the metalurgy. Unfortunately we will still need to chamber the barrel, so they will need to be easily machinable, unless we can come up with insertable chambers.

IIRC I recently read an article that stated that the chamber can also be "hammer forged" as the barrel is being manufactured. True or not? I have no idea.

Not only can it be done it i done...

Ever look into a Current production Rem740 760
or 710-? barrel with the locking lug recesses forged into the chamber end of the barrel?


As for the "Machining" of a chamber into a "exotic" alloy barrel? there are stronger/harder (and sadly more expensive)materials to make the chamber and throating reamers from if you don't hammer forge the chamber profile directly into the barrel

What's worse, I've heard of expiremental barrels that are made of exotic ceramic
and intermetallic compounds...
They generally aren't machined at all.
The internal profile is moulded

OR how about making a barrel on a removable form by a plasma deposition method...



AD

quote:

Originally posted by Tex21:
Aren't Lothar Walther blanks hammer forged?

No, they are button rifled.

quote:

Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

quote:

Originally posted by Tapper2:
As a Quality Engineer for John Deere I did a survey of GFM in Austria. I was also JD's forging expert. GFM is a high quality house. Allan Degroot is correct.....They have just scratched the surface on the metalurgy. Unfortunately we will still need to chamber the barrel, so they will need to be easily machinable, unless we can come up with insertable chambers.

IIRC I recently read an article that stated that the chamber can also be "hammer forged" as the barrel is being manufactured. True or not? I have no idea.

Not only can it be done it i done...

Ever look into a Current production Rem740 760
or 710-? barrel with the locking lug recesses forged into the chamber end of the barrel?


As for the "Machining" of a chamber into a "exotic" alloy barrel? there are stronger/harder (and sadly more expensive)materials to make the chamber and throating reamers from if you don't hammer forge the chamber profile directly into the barrel

What's worse, I've heard of expiremental barrels that are made of exotic ceramic
and intermetallic compounds...
They generally aren't machined at all.
The internal profile is moulded

OR how about making a barrel on a removable form by a plasma deposition method...



AD

Not to pick nits but the 760/742 series of rifles have a conventional barrel screwed into a machined barrel extension that has the lug recesses, not a hammer forged single piece. Are the new guns now forged as a single unit?

Sorry, I'm certain that 710 Bolt action that was done that way.

Certainly the new cheap ass plastic rifle that replaced it
is done the same way.

I'd been told the current production 740/760s were also done that way...

I've never had my 740 apart so I couldn't actually say...

If the barrel will seperate from the breech block that opens some interesting possibilities....

I'd love to rebarrel my 30-06 semi to 35Whelen
and black teflon coat it while I'm at it...

AD

quote:

Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:

If the barrel will seperate from the breech block that opens some interesting possibilities....

I'd love to rebarrel my 30-06 semi to 35Whelen
and black teflon coat it while I'm at it...

AD

There are a few gunsmiths that specialize in rebarreling the older ones. I have a spare 760 barrel for my rifle and you can see the parting line on the breech extension. On a 742, it might be one of those cases where a re-bore would be more economical than a replacement barrel. None of the extra machining would be needed to install the gas port on a new barrel.

A 760 is a pretty straight up rebarrel job if you have the tools to unscrew the extension without twisting it.

Triggertate, the barrel on my rifle is a Heym. I have no idea if Heym actually manufactured it or if they are made by someone else for them.

There must be s few European makers that do hammer forging and sell raw barrels. Pedersoli hammer forges the BPCR barrels on their Sharps, etc rifles and they have an excellent reputation for accuracy. I remember reading a rep writing about them working with the barrel making process until they were able to consistently build in a slight choke at the muzzle.

On another note, Shiloh Rifle Co. button rifles barrels but the steel they use is flat out tough. I had a gunsmith shorten the barrel on one of my rifles and he commented on how hard the barrel was to cut off. He said it was much harder than other barrels he deals with.

I like the Heym I have.

josh

NewGuy could comment on Heym. They make fine rifles and may be a subsidary of a larger weapons manufacturer or purchase barrels from a division of another. Pedersoli is a piece of another conglomerate. IIRC, they are owned by Beretta now.