Thread: Barrel Fluting - existing barrel

I have one fluted rifle. It’s a light Palma 26” barrel on a .300 Win Mag, which I had fluted after it was built. It wasn’t about weight saving; rather improving the balance of the rifle and it made a real difference. From memory I paid US$100 for the work at longriflesinc. It didn’t make any difference at all to the rifle’s accuracy.

My two newer rifles aren’t fluted as I personally think it’s an expensive way of decreasing weight or improving balance. I now prefer to use a lighter contour or a shorter barrel instead, although I do like the look of a fluted barrel.

Yes, nice theory, but if they get that hot the damage is already done to the throat.

I wouldn’t do that to my rifles personally, but we’re all different.

Fluting may increase the surface area, but it also decreases the amount of material to dissipate the heat through, effectively reducing the size of the heat sink. That’s what I reckon anyway.


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@308mate, no first hand experience, but heard the same from two good gunsmiths here in NZ.
Being an engineer who understands pressure design also makes me weary of doing such things to a barrel.

It cools down faster, but it warms up faster as well.

Early Sako 75 finnlight did have a few factory fluted barrels blowing up at the turn of the century. That happened when beretta had become in charge and the stainless steel used by Sako was an Italian source and no longer their original supplier. Also some stainless do not react well to stress in very cold environment.