Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles rapid barrel cooling

We have cooled with water down the bore since 1987 using 788's, 700's, Sako's all chrome moly, and the finest SS barrels made. We had access to private p. dog towns, the shooting was simply beyond imagination with 650-1200 rounds of center fire being fired per person per day.

Any attempt to air cool a barrel by rotating in 90* heat is a pipe dream. What will work slowly is a mixture of 50/50 water and rubbing alcohol rubbed on the barrel, let the fluid drip off the bottom of the barrel.

Cooling with water is NOT messy at all!

What really works and works well is running water down the bore. You will need a good rod guide that seals off the chamber, and cleaning rod, a jag that will fit the bore tight with the patch, Swab of the size to dry chamber, and an oil can attachment that is about $3 from Wal Mart or a parts store.









Water will NOT warp the barrel as the change in temp is not fast enough.

Also, when you use 4 tight fitting patches to "clean" the barrel, you get the water OUT, and also remove a lot of carbon in the process allowing you to shoot longer strings.

***Few think of this issue, gases that are thousands of degrees proceed the bullet in the bore, and any tiny amount of water is evaporated.



IN this rifle caddy, the rear is higher than the front, tipping the muzzle down. My hunting partner also had a rifle caddy,

We dumped out a box of 50 rounds and fired as fast as we could acquire targets. Some rifles were fired 50 times some were fired up to 300, depending on the caliber, barrels and stocks got hot.

Procedure we used

I like Neil Jones and Lucas bore guides, they seal off the back of the chamber. The bore guide in the picture is a Sinclair.

Insert bore guide in the chamber
insert hose in the back of the bore guide
let water gravity feed down the bore, it will take about 6 oz of water...that is all
pull Oil can adapter off the bore guide when finished running water down the bore
Run 4 dry patched down the bore
Dry the chamber-I use a 45 caliber brush and shot gun patch with lighter fluid on it
insert bolt, go back to shooting
Takes 3 Minutes

A rotation system does not work, you have a lot of down time. We even tried it with 10 guns each with my hunting partner and I.

Load development at the rifle range is very quick when you can cool the barrel this way.

We would push a very light oil patch down the bore when the barrel had been cleaned that night. I never have seen rust in the bore scope.

Good luck