Thread: Lightweight Barrels and "walking"

Originally Posted by viper

@Joe_90 , a clever man would exchange the water in the cooling system for Bourbon and coke. That way the system has four major benefits.
1: system still acts as a cooling agent for gun.
2: system acts as a hydration unit for Shooter.
3: Shooter can drain system down his / her throat for walk out and the system is lighter to carry for walk back to car.
4: if Shooter has unsuccessful hunt after emptying cooling system the shooter doesn't fucking care and has had a great time .

Hmmm. One minor problem. You'd have to drink the coolant before it gets hot, otherwise the alcohol would "boil" off long before the water. I know how it would effect my shooting but I guess others might struggle on!

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

A very common cause of 'walking' point of impact is non concentric barrels. The barrel tends to heat faster on one side than the other - and expansion does the rest.

That's a very interesting thought. The CZ barrels are hammer forged though, and as far as I'm aware they are generally much more concentric than the likes of button and cut rifled barrels. A Lithgow LA102 308 I had with a barrel about the equivalent of a #4 (19mm at the muzzle was a good example of a hammer rifled barrel that could literally be run red hot without walking. Lots (but not all) of Tikka's likewise.

I have no idea about which brands are the least/most concentric. The likes of DPT who regularly circumcise rifles may be able to shed light on which manufacturers are most guilty of poor quality... (they may be reluctant to discuss this though!)

It does make sense that hammer forging is more consistent, as boring a hole length ways through a steel rod offers many opportunities to introduce error.

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

A very common cause of 'walking' point of impact is non concentric barrels. The barrel tends to heat faster on one side than the other - and expansion does the rest.

If you shot very fast and thus the thinner side of the barrel heated up relative to the thicker side that would maybe work. But if you shot your 10 shot string more sedately the thick and thin sides would have time to share the heat evenly and stretch by the same amount.

I could imagine if military planners in WW1 found they had to use undesirable non-concentric barrel seconds, they would have arranged the thinner side at 12 o'clock. As a battle progressed and enemies closed in on each other, these rapidly heating rifles' POI would drop. Carnage could thus be executed with precision Victorian engineering, like a temperature-compensated railway clock.

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

I have no idea about which brands are the least/most concentric. The likes of DPT who regularly circumcise rifles may be able to shed light on which manufacturers are most guilty of poor quality... (they may be reluctant to discuss this though!)

It does make sense that hammer forging is more consistent, as boring a hole length ways through a steel rod offers many opportunities to introduce error.

Hi,
The Chinese production is the worst.
Except tikka/Sako which are top of the best, the rest is reasonably good. But you still come from time to time with the oddball rifle from the eighties or nineties with crooked barrel or offset bore.