Thread: Stainless vs Chrome moly

Not counting external care.
Does either have any advantage over the other
Eg, is one easier to get to shoot, does one take longer to bed in than the other
for varminting where perhaps shots are numerous, is stainless an advantage?
Does stainless wear better or worse given the same charges through them?

What are people experiences here?

I rebarreled phosphated moly to stainless barrel. from a shooters perpective no difference, from a gunsmiths perspective they do machine differently.
More importantly is the quality of the material, finishing & stress relief process.

Stainless is easier to clean....

Originally Posted by matagouri

Stainless is easier to clean....

Inside you mean?

My understanding is that stainless steel is generally more brittle than other "steels" (i.e. tends to break rather than bend), but that was related to stainless cutlery etc and probably only applies to some types of stainless.

The only barrel I have ever had that developed pitting was stainless, but tat might not have been related to the type of steel.

Both do an acceptable job but chrome-moly is generally considered to give a longer life (subject to a normal cleaning regime) than the standard grade stainless. The reason is that in order to be readily machined for a cost-effective barrel, stainless has to be a low grade that is quite soft and also capable of rusting. Where cost is not a problem then higher grades of stainless can be used which give a better performance but at the cost of considerably longer manufacturing time. Dollar for dollar chrome-moly is better.

From the Kreiger website

Which is better - chrome moly or stainless steel?
For the most part neither one is better than the other. The only difference we find is that sometimes the chrome moly might take a little longer to break-in and might have a little more affinity for copper or seems to show it easier. In terms of barrel life and accuracy, we can find no difference comparing clean barrels.

Lead and sulphur are two commonly used ingredients in steels to improve the machinability but they are in minute quantities. I have never heard of solvents causing such problems but Sweets is a fairly potent brew.

CRUCIBLE 416R is a hardenable chromium stainless steel particularly suited for use in high quality precision rifle barrels. This grade has good machinability and, because of closely controlled chemistry and processing techniques, may be machined and lapped to a high finish, which is important for bore accuracy. CRUCIBLE 416R may be purchased either annealed or heat treated to a hardness of about 270 Brinell.
Typical Chemistry
Carbon 0.12%
Chromium 12.50%
Manganese 0.40%
Phosphorus 0.03%
Sulfur 0.13%
Silicon 0.40%
Molybdenum 0.40%

"Real" Satainless Steel eg grade 316, suitable for marine, has a much higher Chromium content, Nickel, Molybdenum upped to ~3 % to improve corrosion resistance.

416R has some corrosion resistance but as many will have found still needs looking after. Many years ago Kimber SS barrels used to corrode badly. I don't know if that's still the case.

And of course a SS barrel has the bling factor....

for what it's worth you can usually buy a better quality CM barrel for the same price as a SS one. which if rust isn't a concern would tip me to a CM barrel.

Originally Posted by gundoc

Both do an acceptable job but chrome-moly is generally considered to give a longer life (subject to a normal cleaning regime) than the standard grade stainless. The reason is that in order to be readily machined for a cost-effective barrel, stainless has to be a low grade that is quite soft and also capable of rusting. Where cost is not a problem then higher grades of stainless can be used which give a better performance but at the cost of considerably longer manufacturing time. Dollar for dollar chrome-moly is better.

And is this why gunsmiths don't like making 284's out of Tikka 7mm08 barrels, are they a higher grade of SS than most budget rifles?

I have not worn out any barrels but I have done research into steel in other applications so here is my view, for what its worth.

As other posters have pointed out , there are many different types and grades of Stainless steel. They are all stainless for the same reason but they are used for different applications do their other properties are different. high end stainless steels are not only expensive but very hard, difficult to work with.

25 years ago, when the majority of mountain bike frames were made from chromoly steel, aluminium (and a handful of cabin fibre and titanium), a few mountain bike manufactures did make SS bike frames. They were always expensive because SS is difficult to work with, and it was hard to get desired results from them. Today Chromoly is the main stream for park and dirt BMX, dirty jumper. SS is still as rare as it was 25 years ago.

Another area where SS and non-SS often compete is knife making. High end SS are very expensive. If you want a knife that is sharp and sharpens easily, you can save a lot of money buying non-ss.

Now on guns, i would imagine the cost sand work-ability with SS for other application must also exist for gun barrels. so I think to make rifling, they must use less-than-premium SS. If you are shooting a caliber where you do not shoot a lot, but you carry it with you a lot thus resistance against rust is a bigger concern than wearing it out, then SS would make more sense. But if you shoot a lot then I guess high quality chromoly steel has to beat SS.