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you could rough drill then finish EDM, but the cost would probably be high for the machine & time thats involved with doing long barrels. I doubt most folk would happy to pay the extra cost in the price of the barrel. | |||
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I have one LW barrel. The first 3 bullets down that tube were .25 minute with cleaning in between shots. This was with 130 Nos ABs. Trying different loads, the rifle never shot over .75 minute. Many smiths do not like working with LW steel bc it is hard on the reamer and I've been told it can take 4 times as long to ream a chamber. Every bbl maker has produced a "lemon." Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns | |||
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>>>why can't we get barrels with absolutely straight bores?<<< Just ask for it and you might get it but bring a lot of $$$$ and be prepared to throw a lot of imperfect barrels back. | |||
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Ther seems to be a lot of misunderstandings around. It is not difficult to get straight bores, It is not difficult to get concentric bores. Basically it is only a matter of skill and what tecknique you use. Hammerforged barrels is almost never straight, that is the reason why you often sees an old guy straightening barrels on mutch promotion stufs from factories producing hammerforged barrels. Hammerforging produces usableand cheap barrels, and often barrels with a lot of temprement. You seldom sees hammerforged barrels winning competitions. | |||
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 Everyone please carry on this is entertaining.  | |||
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Whoever told you that is FOS. Chambering a LW barrel ( @ 340 rpm) takes me no longer than any other brand.  Doug Humbarger NRA Life member Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club 72'73. Yankee Station Try to look unimportant. Your enemy might be low on ammo. | |||
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If the steel is really that tough, I'd think it would be pretty hard to drill a straight bore in it??  | |||
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IMO no tougher than any other modern high-strength barrel but I've only fit & chambered 4 so far. Regards, Joe __________________________ You can lead a human to logic but you can't make him think. NRA Life since 1976. God bless America! | |||
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Maybe so. I'm not a smith but that's who made the statement to me. Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns | |||
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The thing that few here have addressed is How straight? How concentric? & How consistent? Everything in the machinists world is a measure of tolerance. and it's that tolerance that is what makes a barrel decent, good, top notch, and benchrest quality. Gun drilling barrels is the most economical way to produce a close spec bore. Hammer forging has yet to be proven to do anything other then provide high production decent bores but not very good ones. EDM might be the wave of the future with barrel making but it would require a very expensive machine to produce barrels at the same rate drilling and buttoning do. EDM is a slow process and when it comes to 26" of barrel or more it's going to be a while before it done. There is a new adaptation of EDM being used to produce pistol barrels right now and it is proving to be quite fast. I believe it's not so much the bore being hard to drill straight but more so of the steel being of proper quality to produce a straight bore. And don't forget No matter how straight your barrel is it's still pointed toward the ground. Gravity alone is making every barrel in the world curve back down toward the earth. I really think we are splitting hairs here and it's not as bad as it seems www.KLStottlemyer.com Deport the Homeless and Give the Illegals citizenship. AT LEAST THE ILLEGALS WILL WORK | |||
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Maybe for most but for competition it does matter. As I said earlier some tubes we will use for a sporter that we would not for a competition rifle. This will get me in trouble but to hell with it---not many Smith's can return barrels before they are chambered and shot. For 99.5% of the folks who shoot this may be splitting hairs. Many Smiths do not know how to indicate in the barrel to take advantage of it's potential. | |||
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+1  Jason "You're not hard-core, unless you live hard-core." _______________________ Hunting in Africa is an adventure. The number of variables involved preclude the possibility of a perfect hunt. Some problems will arise. How you decide to handle them will determine how much you enjoy your hunt. Just tell yourself, "it's all part of the adventure." Remember, if Robert Ruark had gotten upset every time problems with Harry Selby's flat bed truck delayed the safari, Horn of the Hunter would have read like an indictment of Selby. But Ruark rolled with the punches, poured some gin, and enjoyed the adventure. -Jason Brown | |||
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About indicating Indicators and barreling About indicators and action truing Mike Bryant does a pretty good job of photographing several but not nearly all of the ways to use a dial test indicator on an engine lathe. FWIW I am not Mike Bryant nor do I know the man. I do have about 10,000 hrs first hand experience (running the machines not watching). Since that time on the machine I have spent another 35+ years as a manufacturing engineer in industries that manufacture products much more precision, complex and expensive than any firearm. So I feel pretty qualified to say that it appears that Mike Bryant knows his business. Otherwise that was a pretty funny post. | |||
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Pretty funny but you don't know enough to be dangerous.  Kind of simple actually--some people are driven to excellence others are happy knowing it is just beyond their grasp. You need longer arms my friend and take up "blacksmithing" rather than "gunsmithing" ."Elite" is a not a term to describe me. "Driven" would be much more accurate. | |||
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If you'd ever stop bragging, in time we might learn to overlook your other faults. Regards, Joe __________________________ You can lead a human to logic but you can't make him think. NRA Life since 1976. God bless America! | |||
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enough name calling bs -- stop it opinions vary band of bubbas and STC hunting Club Information on Ammoguide about the416AR, 458AR, 470AR, 500AR What is an AR round? Case Drawings 416-458-470AR and 500AR. 476AR, http://www.weaponsmith.com | |||
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Hi Guys, this will be my first post. Just wanted to say something reference Lothar Walther barrels. I just had my Ruger M77 MkII in 30-06 changed to 7x57 Mauser. I ordered the #1300 carbon steel barrel from Brownell's and used a sammi spec reamer. My gunsmith had it done in a day and it came out beautiful. First trial handloads with Vectan 7000 and 140gr bullets shot between .30 to .80" at 100 yds. Factory ammo was from 1" to 1 1/8", no matter what I feed it. So far I'm very happy with it's performance, and will use LW again for my hunting rifle needs. | |||
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In their brochure, Lothar Walther barrels are as straight as they come and superior to every thing on the market. In truth, some are straight, some are not; just like everyone else. Nobody drills a perfectyly straight hole except by happenstance. I have seen barrels which were curved, kinked, and spiral. By the way, some of the visibly straightest barrels I ever used were hammer forged blanks. One was a Winchester match barrel blank (don't see many of those) two were Swiss (hammerli) blanks, and one was a Baikal. My feeling is, anyone who says hammered barrels can't be precise has an axe to grind. On drilling; if the drill is well started and the material is consistent, a gun drill will drill a pretty straight hole. Occasionally, it may even drill a perfect hole. Even a common twist drill can do remarkably well if things go well. I once had to drill two hydraulic cylinder rods which were 52 inches long. The hole was 17/32" and had to run 50 inches deep. We didn't have time to send the pieces out to a shop with a gun drill so I simply silver soldered a twist drill bit to a piece of half inch rod 30 inches long. I drilled each piece to a depth of 28 inches, then drilled from the other end to meet. In both pieces the holes were within a few thousandths. In fact, on the best piece there was no visible step and the rod, when spinning in the lathe, appeared to be nearly perfectly straight. This was that happenstance I was speaking of. I welded a plug in one end to end up with the required depth and there it was. As I recall each rod took about 2 1/2 hours to drill and I was pretty tired from dragging the 150 pound tailstock back and forth! I could drill about 3/8 inch before having to remove the chip. By the way, other rods we had drilled with the gun drill were no better and, often, not as straight as those done with the twist drill. It was much easier however! Every gunsmith who installs barrels has had to, at some time deal with barrels which were less than perfect. Those 'smiths who work primarily on accuracy oriented rifles accept that NO barrel is perfect and establish methods to work around this. On those rare occasions where a barrel approaches perfection, the gunsmith will count that as a bonus. Regards, Bill. | |||
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I had a stainless LW on a Service Rifle. It shot pretty good and I even got some of my highest 600yd X counts toward the end of it's life. It lasted 4,200 rounds before it started hosing rounds all over the target. That was about 700-1,200 more rounds than I would expect from similar button rifled barrels from other makers. | |||
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I'm a hunter and don't know much about straight barrels or benchresting. I do know what works. My rifles all wear pre-chambered and screwed C/M L/W barrels. The first was a 9.3x62 and every weight projectile I put in it can be made to shoot well. The next was a .243 and we stopped with the first MOA load as my son only likes 100 grainers. The last was a 7x57 which also shoots all weights of projectiles well. L/W barrels are easy to clean, don't foul quickly, aren't fussy and are exceptional value. | |||
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I like that report. It's straight forward. I also have a 7mm LW barrel form Brownells, just waiting it's turn at the gunsmith shop. I have it set aside for a 7mm-08. I'm really looking forward to trying it. KB ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ | |||
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I had Woody return a call at 01:30 a.m. that I had left on another website (C.S.S.). My body clock is flipped so I did not mind at first. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm he is not. After a bit I started trying to anticipate what negative answer he would say to anything I asked. My batting average got up to 70% over an hour. I just remember thinking "dude, this negativity thing is not helping you, me or your company (paraphrasing Donald Sutherland as "Oddball" in Kelly's Hero's , the best movie of the 20th century.). Eventually I had to go pee; that solved my problem, anyway. So, Krieger, Broughton, Bartlein and Rock it is. I do like some of the contours on their website, but contours on a website do not a hummer barrel make. I so miss Tom Burgess, ADD and all. LD  | |||
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Hi Bill Not to be ofencive, But what you describe about drilling straight holse, is not near to my expierence, witch is limmited to apx 4000 holes of 26" lenght pr year for the last 15 years. Over 95% of those holes were bend less than 0.004" over the entire length. You can't determin liniar straightness form the exitpoint of the hole. That generally just tells you something about the startinghole and the aligning og your mashines. Even a hole that comes out 0.04" of center can be completly liniar straight, if checked for that. So please dont mix the terms. Most hammerforged barrels go tru a straighteningprocess after hammering. The straightening is performed by counterbending the barrels, and the result is basically a product of the skills of the guy who does the counterbending. We have for the last 10 years supplied blanks to a company producing sparebarrels for a specific match rifle. All those barrels has ben installed on a reciever that was mounted on a concrete block on liniar guides. All barrels has been fiered at the ecxact same target, and the center of all groups has been inside a radius of 3" at 100 meters. None of the barrela has ever been straightned. But on the oter hand it is only a limited number of barrels (5000pcs) This test is performed for 2 reasons, the first is to check if all barrel has a poi within the ajustmentrange of the sights on those rifles. The next was to check accuracy, and out of the 5000 only 1 has delivered a 5 round grupe larger than 0.6" at 100 meter. All barrels was tested with standard match ammo, with 2 rounds just for setteling, followed by 5rd registered | |||
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Like you, I can only speak from my experience. I am well aware that the exit point of the hole does not necessarily reflect linear straightness or the lack thereof. Now you may well have drilled a whole bunch of holes which bent less tham .004" over their entire length but I didn't see any of them so I can neither confirm nor refute your statement. What I have seen is the many barrels I have installed and looked through since I started doing this and I can tell you this much, I don't recall seeing a hole which was perfectly straight but diverging from center. What I usually see is a barrel where the hole travels straight for a way then starts to wander. It seems like most barrels are pretty good for the first 16 inches or so some are good for 20 inches and some appear straight throughout. On the very straight Swiss hammer forged barrel, there could not have been any straightening (or counterbending) done since the inside was straight and the outside was concentric and also straight. These were, by the way, unturned blanks approximately 1.2 inches in diameter. I must add, in contouring these barrels, they showed no tendency to move as material was removed. These barrels might have been exceptional but I seriously doubt that anyone would specially select a barrel because it was going to some old 'smith in BC. The results of the firing tests you describe, similar barrels attached to the same receiver, are what most would expect to see. What you should do is let me know where I can get one of these ultra-straight and consistent barrels so I can give one a try. That is the only way I can ever verify this quality. Regards, Bill. | |||
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Hi Bill For the moment we don,t deliver anything to North America, and i am not into this debate to sell anything. The mentioned company we supply barrels for, also uses a German brand of hammerforged barrels, and to obtain the criteria for POI they have to straighten/counterbend over 70%. Her in scandinavia (especially Norway, Finland and Sweden), it is highly popular to install supressors on rifles. This instalation often is don by shortening and treding the muzzle. This process gives a substantial statistic basis to evaluate straightness and concentricity of manny different brands and mfg types. The feedback is that hammerforged barrels has the biggest variations, folloved by button rifeled. Decent cutrifeled barrels hardly ever shows excentricity. and again of cause my statistic base is only limited to feedback from over 4000 sold supressors in the last year. Combined with contact to customers who has sold and installed manny more over the last 10 years. Btw how do you actually perform a straightnesstest on a rifeled barrel. The tecknique we use, only works reliable in a bored and reamed hole, before rifeling. Not that we can't se if a rifeled barrel is bend, but we can't determin how mutch it is bend | |||
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Likewise, it is easy to see when a barrel is not straight but not so easy totell by how much. When a barrel is spinning in the lathe, looking through the bore will show any bend or any divergence from "starightness". I think one can easily see .002" of bend. I once made up a heavy walled tube, 24 inches long. This tube had centring screws, in groups of four spaced at 90 degrees, every four inches of it's length. By setting this tube up to run true in the steady, putting a barrel into the tube and indicating both ends, and spinning the tube in the machine, I could easily see any bend. By turning in the screw at the point of the bend, I could make the barrel visibly straight. By measuring the height of the screw at the point of contact with the barrel and subtracting the height at the point where the barrel was visibly straight, I could tell, roughly, by how much the barrel was bent. An interesting excercize but of no practical value since it was too much work to be a reasonable inspection technique and also there was considerable possibilty of error (I like to think I am infallible but I'm probably not!). Besides, knowing how much a barrel was crooked was meaningless anyway except as a matter of interest. The installation of a suppressor (or a muzzle brake) gives a pretty good indication of eccentricty but, as you are aware, it doesn't necessarily indicate a bore which is not straight. Many barrels are reasonably straight and true inside but are porrly contoured and the outside is eccentric. When it comes to manufacturing methods, the drilling and reaming of a blank is the only operation which affects straightness to any degree. The rifleing method does not. In the case of hammer forging, it is apparent that some companies make very straight barrels (like Hammerli)and some make mostly crooked barrels (like Remington). The very worst hammer forged barrels I ever saw were some from Ferlach. By the way, over here, we spit on .6" 100 meter groups (just kidding!)! Regards, Bill. | |||
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I truly respect your knowledg and opinion, but i have to disagre on the comment of "the only operation to affect straightness" Specially hammerforging totally changes and deform the whole shape and structure of the blank during the hammeringprocess. Manny barrels starts out with a hole diameter larger than ½" and a length of 15"- 20" ending up with a holediameter of .22" or larger, and a total length of 24" up to 30". This change of dimention, is caused by plastic deformation of the steel. Some can get lucky and make a decent percentage of reasonably straight tubes, and manny can't. According to your responce of the .6" group. That is why a bunch of amateurs like us don't dare to start selling to north america  And has to stick to selling to more avarage people, like Scandinavians, other Europeans, NewZelanders, Australian and a few others. There we can even with sutch limited accuracy, draw headlines in tests like "The most accurate huntingrifle i have tested yet" or "Shiessmashine aus Dänemark" But one day, when we become better and more rutiened, we plan to start selling to North America. In the beginning just for the avarage hunter I did understand your "just kidding"  | |||
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No, no, I know about hammer forging and should have been more specific and excluded it. I figured that was a given that this was an entirely different situation. What I meant was that in conventioally produced barrels (cut, buttoned, or broached)drilling and reaming were the only operations which affected the straightness. Plainly, hammerforging as an entirely different matter and I am, frankly, amazed that it can produce such good barrels. and not amazed when it produces some bad ones. Many years ago, we used to be able to buy Sako barrel blanks and also Shultz and Larsen and they were good barrels. As good as most and better than many we could buy at the time. I don't in any way mean to disparage the products of any country but we often hear claims which, upon further investigation, seem to have been exaggerated a bit. Regards, Bill. | |||
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I've never heard a Kiwi, Ozzies, or South African mentioning your barrels as good enough for competition. Lawndart, so you've met old Woody also? Butch | |||
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So, we can say that a straight barrel is (+/-) ?. Rusty We Band of Brothers! DRSS, NRA & SCI Life Member "I am rejoiced at my fate. Do not be uneasy about me, for I am with my friends." ----- David Crockett in his last letter (to his children), January 9th, 1836 "I will never forsake Texas and her cause. I am her son." ----- Jose Antonio Navarro, from Mexican Prison in 1841 "for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Thomas Jefferson Declaration of Arbroath April 6, 1320-“. . .It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.” | |||
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Rusty, I don't think we can get a real answer to that question. Butch | |||
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Butch. Glad you are back but I had a question. Have you ever bought a barrel from Lothar Walther? I know you have a "special Place" for Woody that gets a little intense at times. But what started it? They don't do much in the benchrest circut and their Mil barrels are quite good. | |||
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Yes in the distant past I paid for a couple barrels and chambered 4-5 more of them. Butch | |||
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Hi Butch, I did have a Decent enough hunting barrels during hard times (defined as no money to buy a cut rifled tube), but I think they do something different over in Europe. | |||
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I didn't think we could, sir. Living in a physical world using man made machines to make man made products, straight is, as beauty, in the eye of the beholder! (+/-)  We, however, seem to know what is not a straight barrel. Thank goodness we did not try find a perfectly straight barrel!  Rusty We Band of Brothers! DRSS, NRA & SCI Life Member "I am rejoiced at my fate. Do not be uneasy about me, for I am with my friends." ----- David Crockett in his last letter (to his children), January 9th, 1836 "I will never forsake Texas and her cause. I am her son." ----- Jose Antonio Navarro, from Mexican Prison in 1841 "for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Thomas Jefferson Declaration of Arbroath April 6, 1320-“. . .It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.” | |||
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I'm about to find out what I think of LW barrels, with a sample of one. Yesterday, I sent to the gunsmith a stainless #1400 in 8mm, along with a new reamer. I'm having a CZ medium in 7mm mag rebarreled in 323 Hollis. In two or three months, I'll be testing it. If it works out, then I'll use the other blanks I have. If not, I'll sell them. KB ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ | |||
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