Advantages or not to a fluted barrel???

[Art Eatman]

I don't argue with the theories as much as I do the practicality.

That is, with respect to cooling, the idea is to function as do the fins on the cylinder head of a motorcycle.

The barrel is intended to be stiffer for a given weight. Well, yeah, I guess so. The ribs give a larger outside diameter, which makes for a stiffer column.

Trouble is, for most shooting, the improvement doesn't appear to be enough to matter. The increase in surface area for radiation of the heat doesn't appear to be much larger, and barrel stiffness is (IMO) less of a factor than harmonics.

Which gets us back to "coolth".

[fisherman66]

That is, with respect to cooling, the idea is to function as do the fins on the cylinder head of a motorcycle.

I have had my air cooled, aluminum engined Kawasaki moving pretty fast which keeps it cool running. I over heated at a long red light and lost fire on one of the three cylinders (piston ring damaged). I might be able to run a little over 10 miles an hour with a rifle. I wonder if that enough to take advantage of the cooling "fins".

[sureshots]

Another of my thoughts is this. Does Fluting only work on Stainless???? Its funny to me the only fluted guns(in the stores) that I see are the nice shinny stainless. Does fluting not work on the plain old Blued ones??? I think I smell A RAT.

[johnwilliamson062]

I think the stainless is harder so the previously mentioned problem of hitting soft spots is not as critical.

Did anyone look at my helical fluted, threaded, stainless, 10/22 barrel. It is so cute. I'll bet it shoots like crap, but I didn't buy a semi-auto 22lr to shoot off a bench. In fact I didn't buy any of my rifles for that.

[garryc]

I think the stainless is harder so the previously mentioned problem of hitting soft spots is not as critical.

No, stainless is not harder than steel when we speak of barrels. In fact it's a little softer. Stainless doesn't machine as well as steel, it doesn't chip as well.

There is no reason mechanically why a steel barrel can't be fluted. There is a reason economically. A steel barrel has to be polished to some extent and degreased before blueing, that takes time which costs money. It also requires processes during the blueing process. You can imagine the greater time it would take with a fluted barrel rather than a cylinder. Then also polishing the barrel in any time of good time, while trying to maintain the definition of the flute edges, would be difficult . With stainless it's fluted and then it's pretty much done.
Then you have to consider rust. That flute will tend to collect contamination that will cause rust. Then the edges of the flutes will wear. You'll end up with silver lines at the edges. Note that when blueing wears it always wears on the edges first. When it wears on a cylinder it tends to wear evenly across the item.

[223 shooter]

Its funny to me the only fluted guns(in the stores) that I see are the nice shinny stainless. Does fluting not work on the plain old Blued ones??? I think I smell A RAT.

My 700LTR is not stainless and has three fairly wide barrel flutes. Green Mountain produces blued fluted 10/22 barrels.
I believe the current 700VS series has a blued barrel with flutes.

[garryc]

My 700LTR is not stainless and has three fairly wide barrel flutes. Green Mountain produces blued fluted 10/22 barrels.
I believe the current 700VS series has a blued barrel with flutes.

I didn't tak into account those blued rifles that are bead blasted and matte blued, I was thinking more along the lines of a BDL finnish

[sureshots]

I know that there are Blue Fluted barrels out there. I just saying that most of the barrels that one sees in the Gun Stores are Stainless,fluted. These are very nice looking guns and I think they are produced mainly to catch the customers EYE. It has yet to be proved that there is A definable advantage to fluting.

[Slamfire]

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

Agree with the statement. Flutes were common on military barrels, but in the end the transfer of heat from the metal surface to air becomes the limiting factor. I think it is called the heat transfer coefficient. There is lots of data showing that the more barrel weight you have, the longer it takes to heat the barrel up. Flutes don't really keep the barrel cooler, and they don't really add to the heat transfer. And that is why you don't see flutes on new light machine guns. The military went the route of rapid barrel replacement.

The Lewis gun had lots of flutes, and the jacket was designed with the thought of drawing air through the flutes as rounds were fired. Was not worth the machining effort and was an evolutionary dead end.

I don't want flutes on a match rifle, don't want the barrel walking as it heats up, and flutes are just another thing that could cause that.

[hodaka]

Theories aside, I have some first hand experience with one barrel on an AR-15. It started as a one inch diameter Model 1 stainless. It shot good, with some loads making one hole, 5 shot groups at 100yds. It was very front heavy though. A machinist friend put 5, pretty deep flutes in it. This made a big difference in balance and weight and it still shoots with the same great accuracy. Just FWIW.