Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting What happened to cryogenically trreating gun barrels?

I haven't heard about this for awhile. Was it just a fad or do people still do it?
just curious

Fad.

People went cold on the idea.

It does have some merit......but was way over hyped.

Some of the manufacturers do it themselves, obviating the need for you to...................DJ

+1

It has been put on ice for now.

any truth that some velocity is lost with a barrel that's cryo-treated?

Not a fad at all. I have a #1 contour barrel that shoots tighter as it heats up, thanks to cryo treatment. And it's not the only one.

Smoke and mirrors.....

Seems to do great things for Stainless knife blades, almost nothing for stainless steel barrels and maybe something for chrome moly barrels. But not as much as the proper heat stress relief process though.

I know of some people that swear by it. I did it myself to one of my rifles and saw no noticeable difference.

Interesting that some claim it does nothing. I have heard very little bad mouthing of Krieger barrels and all of their top line barrels are treated....

If the process had any real merit, Bartlein would be doing it.

Kenny jarret was interviewed in one of the gun rags about this and said he had 2 labs look at it for him and they found no differance, and said it was "smoke and mirrors" and if I remember correctly something like moving metal with heat not cold.

There are some barrel makers that feel cryo treating the steel BEFORE its machined makes a difference in bore smoothness. But the claim that cryo-ing a barrel after it's manufactured makes a big difference in accuracy, fouling, etc. has pretty much gone belly-up.

I hope those nice folks at 300 Below Inc. aren't reading this thread . They're nice people.

Just a guess, but probably more money in freezing people than barrels.

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How did it work out for you?

The following is by Dan Lilja

http://www.riflebarrels.com/faq_lilja_rifle_barrels.htm#deepcryogenic


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Q. What is your opinion of the deep cryogenic processing of barrels?

A. The cryogenic treating of barrels at a temperature of -300 degrees below zero has been a hot topic of discussion lately. Our short answer is that it will not harm your barrel but we are not completely convinced of all of the benefits claimed by some. The only benefits that we feel are likely to result from the treatment are possibly a longer barrel life and a slight increase in machinability.

Claims for increased accuracy through stress relief are not founded in our opinion. When barrels are button rifled no material is removed, it is just displaced. This causes stresses to be formed in the steel. If these stresses are not removed problems will result. These negative conditions include warping of the barrel during other machining operations, an increase in the bore diameter towards the muzzle end of the barrel during the contouring phase, and in the extreme, lengthwise splitting of the barrel. Also, if there are stresses remaining in the barrel they can be slowly released as a barrel warms up during firing. This causes the barrel to actually move during the course of shooting, causing inaccuracy.

In our testing we have found that the only effective means to completely remove the types of stresses introduced during rifling are with conventional heat treating using elevated temperatures. The -300 degree treatment alone will not remove these stresses. We have been told by a knowledgeable metallurgist that the deep cold treatment will, at best, remove up to 6% of the remaining stresses in the type of steel used for rifle barrels. The key words here are remaining stresses. In other words if the barrel was not stress relieved conventionally, then only 6% of the original stress will be removed. If the barrel has been treated conventionally with heat and then brought through the -300 degree cycle, up to 6% of any remaining stresses could be removed by the cold treatment. We do know through our testing that the cold treatment alone will not remove any significant amount of stress and that the problems outlined above concerning stress will remain in the barrel.

So, because of the very limited amount of stress that could be removed with the cold treatment (if the barrel has been properly stress relieved with heat as our barrels are) we do not believe that there can be much if any accuracy benefit to the -300 degree treatment of our barrels. It is for these reasons that we feel the cold process has very little potential for increasing the accuracy of our barrels. In our opinion, other than the removal of these stresses, there are no other mechanical factors involved that could benefit accuracy in a rifle barrel, resulting from a heat treating operation, either hot or cold.

For reasons not completely understood however there may be an increase in the wear resistance of the steel. This type of wear however does not contribute greatly to barrel erosion. We invite you to read our comments on this type of barrel wear in the question regarding the use of moly coated bullets.

Another possible side benefit to the freezing process is a slight increase in its machinability.

Post Script: Since I originally wrote this an excellent article by Kevin Thomas of Sierra Bullets was printed in the September, 1998 issue of Precision Shooting magazine. Mr. Thomas found, in a controlled test, that there was little benefit to deep freezing match grade barrels. He could see no difference in accuracy but probably a slight increase in useful life. I would encourage anyone interested in this subject to take a look at this article.

Kevin Thomas of Sierra Bullets also found in a controlled test there was no advantage to using MOLY bullets either.


No stress, buy a cut rifled barrel?