I've recently bought a Shilen 30 inch bench rest tube. It is in #8 contour, which is far too heavy for the hunting rig I want to build. I've asked the smith to turn it down to say #5 contour, and flute it. I have presumed this will require cryo treatment after fluting, but the 'smith seems to think a button rifled barrel won't be anything more than a 'tomato stake' after this treatment. Any advice you can provide would be appreciated. It will be chambered in 6.5-284 as a long range hunting rig, hence the need to get the weight down to something I don't need a golf cart to carry around...

Here's what Shilen has to say about fluting on their web site....

"What about "fluting" a barrel?

Fluting is a service we neither offer nor recommend. If you have a Shilen barrel fluted, the warranty is void. Fluting a barrel can induce unrecoverable stresses that will encourage warping when heated and can also swell the bore dimensions, causing loose spots in the bore. A solid (un-fluted) barrel is more rigid than a fluted barrel of equal diameter. A fluted barrel is more rigid than a solid barrel of equal weight. All rifle barrels flex when fired. Accuracy requires that they simply flex the same and return the same each time they are fired, hence the requirement for a pillar bedded action and free floating barrel. The unrecoverable stresses that fluting can induce will cause the barrel to flex differently or not return from the flexing without cooling down a major amount. This is usually longer than a shooter has to wait for the next shot. The claim of the flutes helping to wick heat away faster is true, but the benefit of the flutes is not recognizable in this regard until the barrel is already too hot."

If you have any other questions, why don't you call them.....972 875 5318.

BTW, I'm not sure this has always been their policy, I've got a fluted Shilen barrel on a .300 Win Mag that is quite accurate and will easily shoot your requirements with decent loads and good conditions. The man I bought it from gave me the impression that Shilen had done the barrel work, but I didn't specifically ask about the fluting.

This is just a matter of personal taste and may say more about how I hunt than anything else, but I'd rather have a shorter larger diameter barrel than a longer barrel of the same weight, within reason.

the cryo treatment won't do anything for it, so save your money. I I was taught thermodynamics by one of th emen who literally wrote one of the first books on cryogenics several decades ago, and he laughed at the averything that was written about cryoing barrels. And besides, cryoing a barrel will add stress to a barrel, not releive it. All of the gun magazines have it ass-backwards. ANy one who has had even undergraduate thermodynaics and heat trasfer knows this

It is funny you ask this about button rifled barrels being tunred down, as I asked a friend that just this week. As I told him, I have turned down (and had one fluted) several button barrels with exactly zero ill effects. He told me he has turned down even more than me with exactly zero ill effects.

I think this is one of the BS stories that gets repeated over and over that are totally untrue. Just like moly is a miracle cure for bullets, WSM's can do things other cartridges can't because they are "efficient" (recoil, velocity, whatever-all is TOTAL BS), cryo does wonderful things for barrels, fluting helps barrels cool faster, fluting makes barrels stiffer, and on and on and on. THese BS statements that just get repeated with NO factual back up are one of the reasons I stopped reading gun magazines. I know of no gun writers who are engineers and they just repeat the ad copy of the manufactuerers. Few of the readers of gun magazines are engineers, so they just repeat what they read as if all of it were true. Some of the writers are quite good and really do try to get down to the nuts and bolts of what they are writing about, but they are in the minority

At any rate, turn it, flute it, cut a spiral around it-whatever you want. Unless you do something radical like try to go to a #5 from a #8 in one pass, then you will be fine. Just use reasonable gunsmithing procedures and the barrel should be just fine after turning and fluting.

Just one engineer's opinion based on proven fact, engineering theory, and a good deal of real world experience.

Two points. First, if the gunsmith that you plan on having this done by is telling you the barrel will be a tomato stake, I'd take his word for it. Why would you pay someone to do anything if he does'nt think it will work out? Second, Going from a #8 to a #5 IS a radical change in contour and will certainly induce stress in the barrel, as will fluting.

Whether or not the internal dimensions of the barrel will be affected depends on the turning down and fluting being done properly and that the barrel is stress relieved after the fact. JMHO, but I would'nt do this to a barrel that was to be used for the purpose you stated. Long range hunting requires an extremely accurate rifle, and you may end up with a so-so barrel.

quote:

Fluting a barrel can induce unrecoverable stresses that will encourage warping when heated and can also swell the bore dimensions, causing loose spots in the bore.

Please note that Ed Shilen does not say that fluting WILL introduce stress, etc., he says it CAN. For the engineers among us, that is a big difference. I would respectfully suggest that when Shilen Barrels says something about barrels, they are speaking from vastly more experience AND TESTING than almost anyone else in the world. I would be very hesitant to contradict them based on a few isolated examples.

I personally would not screw around with your present barrel. Why run the risk of destroying a perfectly good, BR class barrel?? Use it for something else in the future, and get a new blank matching the contour you want for the current project.

In the end, the price of the barrel blank is the smaller part of the complete project price. You can get 1st rate barrels for not that much $$$ these days - e.g. a cut rifled barrel from http://www.bartleinbarrels.com/. Or if you feel too broke for that, PacNor or Douglas also deliver excellent barrels for even less $$$.

- mike

If the barrel hasn't been machined on at the present, Shilen will swap it out for what you want.
Butch

butch,and others have good points,i had a similar,project once the barrel was a chrommoly straight bull barrel shilen 1-10 twist 257 caliber, length was a 27 or 28 inch,my smith said he''d turn it down to any conture i wanted ...so says i keep it 26 inchs long and give it a pennys diameter,in the chamber end he gave it 4 or 5 inchs before it came down to that penny size,he did ausome but later told me he broke 3 new carbide cutter bits in the process,another smith chambered it and didn''t like the steep step-down to the penny diameter, said it would goof-up barrel harmonic''s, and he''d order me a new barrel, i told him i couldn''t afford a new barrel ,and asked him to please chamber my barrel that he didn''t like,sorry so long!,any way he did chamber my barrel to it s 25'06, and man is she a shooter, so it can be done but its the hard way 4 sure,ifin you get yours spun down ....Don''t flute it peroid mr Shilen knows his barrels inside and out! consider all options ....regards jjmp

If you're going to cut around 4-5" off the length then turning it down should be fine. I'd shorten after you chamber it. Then, turn it down. Most of my barrel work has been from a blank. I've never had a problem with a Shilen barrel that I turned down. I've got a 25" 25-06 with a .550" muzzle the packs them into itty bitty groups. Gets hot pretty quick, but deadly on antelope.

The problem with turning barrels down is with the hammer forged ones. They can open the bore up if the outside is turned or fluted very much after the forging process. Lots of stress built up just waiting to do something. Hammer forging makes a very smooth barrel inside. The least stressful way to make a barrel is the old proven cut rifle method. If you want to spend the money someday to have a cool integral Q rib machined on a barrel I would start with a cut rifled barrel.