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This section is for people who shoot or want to shoot in competitions and includes future events, how to get started, choice of rifle and calibres including wildcats, how to prepare for your competition, and of course how you did!
essexboy wrote:Just for the record and this has nothing to do with barrel making, you will find that most pure race engines have billet crankshafts, I was involved in race engine building for many years, billet is king.
Oh indeedy ! It allows good cranks to be made with no need for expensive forge tooling and so is ideal for small production runs. Given the attention to detail and high skills of the machinists employed, the fact that the grains aren't necessarily ideally refined and the material flow paths don't necessarily align with the stress paths can be understood as a reasonable sacrifice to Mammon.
Badger
CEO (Chief Excavatin' Officer)
Badger Korporashun
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
"Quelle style, so British"
Having worked in the motor industry for 40 years in various R&D functions, high stress engine cranks are always forgings. The truck industry expects to get at least 1,000,000 miles from a diesel engine crank----race engineers are pleased and thankful if they get a life of 5000 miles. Lower stress engines often have cranks which are cast in a nodular or speroidal graphite iron: these can be locally induction hardened to increase strength and extend bearing life. I am interested in the carbon fibre comment---it is possible in theory but very difficult to manufacture in practise---never seen or heard of this---tell me more!
Back to barrels: life, stability and accuracy is more affected by the steel specification, especially the cleanliness of the steel, freedom from inclusions etc than it is by the method of rifling. A small, dedicated barrel manufacturer who is prepared to work to very high standards to preserve his reputation will normally use cut rifling because this represents the minimum investment cost route into the business.
Fred.
FredB wrote:... will normally use cut rifling because this represents the minimum investment cost route into the business.
Fred.
The aforesaid sacrifice to Mammon. Properly done, cut rifling is excellent. As is button rifling. And hammer forging. Our personal preference is for hammer forging, but it's mainly that, a personal preference.
Badger
CEO (Chief Excavatin' Officer)
Badger Korporashun
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
"Quelle style, so British"
A small, dedicated barrel manufacturer who is prepared to work to very high standards to preserve his reputation will normally use cut rifling because this represents the minimum investment cost route into the business. [FredB]
That may have been true decades ago when a large number of government arms factories either closed or moved from cut/broached rifling to hammer forging and sold their older plant off. Not at all today - nobody has made cut rifling machines since the end of WW2 and the few survivors that are around are jealously guarded. If Border, Krieger or Bartlein decided to pack it in tomorrow, they could sell their big Pratt & Whitney rifling machines at a huge premium.
The (relatively) cheap way in these days is button rifling - that's why all the relatively new outfits like Green Mountain and Volquartsen selling barrels for Ruger 10-22s and similar use this method, and why numerically most US precision barrelmakers now use this method. Even Geoff Kolbe founder / owner or Border Barrels who once spent a whole afternoon explaining to me how and why the cut rifled method is THE way to get the best results (lowest stress imparted to the blank of the various methods it's claimed) invested in a button rifler shortly afterwards and uses that method for the cheaper 'Archer' barrel range. That was the only, never mind cheapest way for him to increase production. The intervening 10 or so years hasn't changed anything at all except to make entry into cut rifling manufacture even more difficult.
As Vince points out, Armalon has got the former Parker-Hale plant back into commission with fully updated and modernised electronics running it. I have a heavy, fluted Armalon fast-twist barrel on a .223 Rem Remington 700 now and it has performed very well to date.
A small, dedicated barrel manufacturer who is prepared to work to very high standards to preserve his reputation will normally use cut rifling because this represents the minimum investment cost route into the business. [FredB]
That may have been true decades ago when a large number of government arms factories either closed or moved from cut/broached rifling to hammer forging and sold their older plant off. Not at all today - nobody has made cut rifling machines since the end of WW2 and the few survivors that are around are jealously guarded. If Border, Krieger or Bartlein decided to pack it in tomorrow, they could sell their big Pratt & Whitney rifling machines at a huge premium.
The (relatively) cheap way in these days is button rifling - that's why all the relatively new outfits like Green Mountain and Volquartsen selling barrels for Ruger 10-22s and similar use this method, and why numerically most US precision barrelmakers now use this method. Even Geoff Kolbe founder / owner or Border Barrels who once spent a whole afternoon explaining to me how and why the cut rifled method is THE way to get the best results (lowest stress imparted to the blank of the various methods it's claimed) invested in a button rifler shortly afterwards and uses that method for the cheaper 'Archer' barrel range. That was the only, never mind cheapest way for him to increase production. The intervening 10 or so years hasn't changed anything at all except to make entry into cut rifling manufacture even more difficult.
As Vince points out, Armalon has got the former Parker-Hale plant back into commission with fully updated and modernised electronics running it. I have a heavy, fluted Armalon fast-twist barrel on a .223 Rem Remington 700 now and it has performed very well to date.
Laurie,
I do not think to day someone wanting to start cut rifiling would take in hand all the problems generated in reconditionning a P and W mechanically geraed rifilng bench who already have already 2 war efforts on record..
A 2 axis CNC bench on ball recirculating slides would do the job much better and quicker with all the advantages that a rotary axis can give in terms of twist rates and variables twists....notwithstanding the time factor as return strokes can be much faster than cutting ones..plus the progressivity of the movements changes...
I am quite sure some barrelmakers have gone thay way already..and the others think about it....This is so simple..
December 2011 issue, pages 96-101
March 2012 issue, pages 12-16
I'll run further tests later in the year with 52-77gn bullets and we'll get the stock channel to barrel fit issue sorted, although it doesn't seem to have affected initial performance.
December 2011 issue, pages 96-101
March 2012 issue, pages 12-16
I'll run further tests later in the year with 52-77gn bullets and we'll get the stock channel to barrel fit issue sorted, although it doesn't seem to have affected initial performance.
Thanks mate ill see if i can get hold of a back copy.
