Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Water Cooling ?

Anybody use water down the barrel to cool their rifle ?

I'm doing load development in my 7RM and it heats up after just 3 rounds. Makes testing a little slow

I don't pour it down the tube. But I do pour water onto the tube when shooting PD's in the heat.


Travis

Cant help on the 7 mag, but Travis, and proper rifle looney takes two rifles ( same caliber) to the PD killing fields, so he has one to shoot while the other cools....sheesh...

I have not used water, but in Texas to cool the barrel at the range I used a can of air. It is the regular canned air duster used to dust computer keyboards and stuff. If you turn it upside down the stream coming out is extremely cold and will give you frostbite if sprayed on your skin.

I put the straw in the chamber, and spray while pulling the straw out of the rifle. Then do the same thing from the muzzle. This is a spray of 3 to 4 seconds at each end of the barrel. Remember this was in Texas where the shade temperature was 100 degrees so you may not need as much cooling. Next I push a dry patch through the bore to make sure there is no condensation inside.

There is/was a commercial system called Winter Breeze that used carbon dioxide to cool the barrel in the same fashion. As far as I know it worked fine.

This has worked for me but you will hear a lot of comments about micro cracks, fatigue cracking, etc. due to the rapid temperature change. The idea is just to cool the barrel not freeze it and for any structural changes to occur in the steel the barrel temperature would have to be above 1300 �F anyway.

This method has worked for me and I didn't see any changes in point of impact or accuracy. Good luck and as always YMMV.

Who said I don't?


Travis

Get a small battery operated fan, if power is not available at your range.

Just let the air flow over the barrel. Even on a hot summer day, it will lower the temperature of the steel quickly to the point where you feel comfortable in shooting again. Especially if you can lay the rifle down in shade.

there is an article on accurateshooter, build a battery powered computer fan in a box, fan blows air out into a plastic tube, tube goes into barrel.

I have used both extra guns AND cold water on really good shooting days at rodents or at the range. IMO, cold water does not hurt a thing, but I am careful to try to cool the whole barrel equally as best I can.

Me too. I pop the cap on the cooler and run the rifle underneath as the ice water flows off the tailgate. Works like a charm.


Travis

Works really well. Get one of those tube things that screws onto a motor oil bottle. The thread also fits a plastic water bottle. The other end goes into a cleaning rod guide.....an o-ring guide keeps the chamber dry. It only takes a couple oz of water and about 15 seconds to cool a sporter weight barrel. Doesn't have to be ice water either, air temp is fine. A couple dry patches and you're back shooting.

Awesome guys. I appreciate the tips, info and help.

I thought I had read of cooling with water in a USA magazine some time ago.

I will definantly patch out the chamber and bore before proceeding.

Someone used to sell a CO2 kit for cooling rifle barrels. Just a medium size CO2 bottle with a regulator, valve, and hose.

Personally, I always figured a pint of water was easier and cheaper, if not less messy.

So far, I have always administered the water to the exterior of the barrel.

My tap water is fairly hard and also leaves silicate deposits which are nearly impossible to remove from glass shower doors and aquarium walls. I really would not want those deposits on the inside of a decent rifle barrel.

Thats a good tip too. Our town water is treated Artesian bore water and full of minerals etc.. Typical of the outback.

I have access to filtered Rain Water and will use that.

You can be a lot less drastic with damp towel strips. If you have room under the scope bell, you can just lay the towel strip over the top and spritz it down with a spray bottle of water.
That said, I've dumped water down the bore with a funnel and tube a number of times with no ill effects. Usually, it's when the barrel is filthy and needs cleaning anyway.

We have been cooling our barrels with water Down the bore since the mid 80's on dog towns. We rigged up quart and two quart water bottles with a hose that comes from them(parts available from Home Depot). IV bottles work great if you have access to them. We chose a hose dia that fits tight in the rear of our Bore guides. Also, Bore guides have an o ring on the front of them to keep water from getting down in the action. Use Neil Jones Rod GuidesPhone 814-763-2769 EST)

Remove the bolt from the rifle, insert the bore guide, run The hose into the back of the rod guide, with a tight fit, incline the muzzle downward position, hold the water bottle up. Gravity feed the water through the bore, 6 oz of water will cool the bore dead cool.

Rockwell's #1 engineer came up with this idea as he was aware that barrels do not really cool down on p. dog shooting, even if you rotate between 6 rifles.

Next we use a tight punch type jag and push 4 tight patches down the barrel, dry the chamber, back to shooting in 3 minutes!

We use this method on the very finest custom varmint, big game, and deer rifles...never has hurt a thing.

Also, seems like shooting strings are longer due to the fact that there is some cleaning going on.

This worked very fine on p. dog towns. We had a rifle cradle made up that stood on 4 legs, we rotated rifles into the cradle, then ran water down all the barrels at one time. It saved a lot of wear and tear on the barrels and we got to shoot a lot more.

At times we ran out of water and used mountain dew, pepsi, and beer on a couple of occasions. Rifles seem to shoot better when cooled with beer. We were shooting 1000 rounds of centerfire each per day on those long dog towns.

The only scary thing about this deal is if you do not use a tight punch type jag down the barrel...this ain't rocket science at all!

Remember, 4 dry patches down the barrel on a tight fitting jag, dry the chamber, back to shooting in 3 minutes

Back at the turn of the last century, lots of people were afraid of moving the toilet indoors instead of going out side to the "Outhouse", don't be afraid of using water down the bore. Barrel steel would have to get to be 800* before the water would have any affect on it, besides we have a long history of it's use.

Have fun!

I've amalgamated a few ideas into very simple and cheap system that works. I would also like to thank the members who PM'd me with ideas, info and support.

The funnel was A$3.95 and the 10mm O.D. plastic hose was already in the shed.

The tube stops in the shoulder of the chamber and I have no back wash into the action.
I slowly pour half the bottle of filtered rain water through after three rounds and the barrel is well back to air temperature. I patch out the chamber with a large piece of felt and patch the barrel twice.

The cradle is an empty beer carton with a brick in the bottom to stablise it on the tray of my truck..