Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Melvin Forbes and full-length bedding

Some barrel-makers just hoot and sneer at it.

I quit thumping drums and tooting tubas for one of my favorite barrel-makers for that very reason (plus the fact that he denied having done so in the presence of the guy who'd heard 'im do it repeatedly. Canceled my orders for barrels that he wouldn't make the way that I'd specified). He makes super-fine barrels if you let 'im do 'em his way in all respects.

Question for Ken.

How much influence does the shank length and taper have? I can see that a straight taper might be less prone to unusual vibrations or harmonics but no idea on the shank portion.

I like the radius step Douglas contour and have a tapered barrel I was thinking of having the straight tapered shank modified this way.

This barrel is very similar to your contour but with a long taper from the shank then straight to the muzzle at .600 for a .25 caliber blank.

Thanks

The chamber reinforce � which I assume that you're referring-to as the "shank" � that portion immediately ahead of the threaded tenon � is usually a right cylinder to accommodate the barrel vise. I see no advantage or reason to taper it or to make it shorter than the body-and-shoulder section of the chamber.

It has to be bigger in diameter to be sure that it safely and consistently contains the average peak pressures produced by the powder charge while the bullet is just beginning to move. Then, as the internal pressure decreases, it's safe enough to let the farther-forward diameters decrease. The customary contour � with the concave radius suddenly reducing the diameters � adequately accommodates the first sweeping decrease in internal pressures.

But my contour design is about the stiffness of the barrel itself, not its ability to contain the internal pressures.

The muzzle of a cantilevered barrel droops. How far down it droops affects the consistency of the bullets' exits, which in turn affects the repeatability of the bullets' trajectories and ultimately where each bullet penetrates the target.

That's why the "stiffness" of the barrel is important. The less the muzzle droops, the more consistently the bullets exit the muzzle on the shorter up-sweep.

This deserves its own thread....