Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Barrel Fluting

Not hardly- removing metal will make it LESS stiff. A fluted barrel allows you to use a larger DIAMETER barrel of EQUAL weight, thus, a theoretical advantage in stiffness. This means that if you take a #5 and flute it, it may weigh the same as a #4 and being potentially stiffer. I saw an article on it one time where they actually measure the deflection and then fluted it and checked again. The fluted barrel deflected more. I would like to see this done again to debunk this myth.

This misconception is perpetuated about as much and the bullet rising after the shot myth!

Fluting doesn't make a barrel stiffer. It actually makes it less stiff. You can't cut away the part of the barrel that provides the stiffness and expect it NOT become less stiff.

HOWEVER, a fluted barrel is stiffer than a non-fluted barrelof the same length and weight. IE, a #4 fluted is stiffer than a #3 unfluted, even though they weigh about the same.

Also, it takes very long and very deep flutes--not the kind that can are done on a hunting barrel--to get any significant increase in cooling.

I have an actual experiences to back up both my assertations. My record setting 1000 yd BR rifle was supposed to have a barrel on the plus side of an heavy varmint taper, and then fluted so it could make weight. The barrel was to have a 1.45" shank for 4", then a straight taper to .950 at 30." This would have made it an 8+ lb barrel, and I needed the barrel to be around 7.5 lbs.

Well, there was a mix up and though the shank was right, the barrel wound up tapereing to .900. That wasn't so big a deal as it was still the equivanlent of an HV taper, but it wound up with NINE flutes, .25" x .25" and 24" long. Those are HUGE flutes and the barrel wound up weighing about 6 lbs.

I was irritated and almost sent the rifle back, but I really wanted to shoot competition so I decided to give it a try. It turned out to be a screamer barrel for FIVE shot groups. However, the 10-shot groups it shot weren't so good. I finally had a buddy mark my shots during a 10 shot group. The first five were excellent, but six through 10 printed in an ever-increasing arc.

Now a good HV contour barrel is usually stiff enough that it shoots conmpetitive 5 AND 10-shot groups. If fluting really stiffened a barrel, then my barrel wouldn't have shot screamer 5-shot groups and mediocre 10-shot groups. However, a less stiff barrel will certainly heat up and open up its groups, and that is what mine did.

As to cooling. I had shot several fluted barrels before and not noticed any lessened time for barrel cooling. However, my heavily fluted 1K BR barrel did seem to cool a little more quickly during load development. However, during a match it would get so hot you could not touch it and stay that way for a while, just like everyone else's barreles, fluted or not.

dennisinaz & Blaine - your comments are in line with my feelings as to what happens when a barrel is fluted. I wish we could get an engineer to chime in here and give us their opinion based on engineering principles.

I only own one rifle with fluting and it was just purchased this week and so cannot comment as to whether cooling is improved by the fluting. My feeling is that any change would be minimal.

With regard to stiffness it just doesn't seem possible to me to be able to remove material and for the barrel to become stiffer. To me fluting is simply a cosmetic change. Some will like it, some will not.

Jim

So when all is said and done fluting is a marketing gimmick that has little value if any.

I wouldn't say that. Fluting is an excellent way to get a barrel to make weight in a competition rifle if the rifle is a little overweight.

Also, a fluted #4 is stiffer than a non-fluted #3 of the same weight. However, I just can't justify the cost of fluting in anything but a competition rifle, so I usually opt for the lesser contour and save the $125.

All 12 of my hunting rifles are fluted in 1 way or another,I just like the way they look after they have been cerakoted.
I talked to Karl at Kampfeld Custom and he told me he would only cosmetically flute a #3,he said very light grooves for flutes.He has done several barrels with his spiral flutes,and I have several Kreiger barrels with their straight flutes.I like Karls the best.

Flutes DO look cool, especially when the flutes are painted black.........

Well I guess that solves that problem seeing as how I don't have to make any weight on my target/varmint rifle. I might shoot a couple of egg shoots for our local club but that's it. We always make the rules loose as a goose so everyone can shoot.

If I was building a sheep rifle, I'd be using a barrel light enough where fluting wasn't an option... But maybe that's just me.

I think a fluted #4 will be easier to load for and more forgiving than an unfluted #3 but that is speculation only. I have always found that heavier barrels are easier to get to shoot.

I'm guessing a #3 will put him at about an 8 1/2# rifle scoped? Sounds like pure mountain hunting bliss....(grin)

Hart's #3 contour is smaller than my .308 Tikka. And I went with a 1" shank at 1.200" diameter, instead of 1.25". The Bansner stock is lighter than my Tikka's.

The Tikka weighs 7-1/4# scoped. I doubt if it will come in 1-1/4# heavier.

It's been forever since I took Strength of Materials, and I became an EE anyway, so I'm sure this will get tuned up by an ME or CivE soon enough. But here goes....

If you have two cross sections of equal mass per length, for discussion purposes say a fluted #4 and a standard #3, the fluted #4 will be stiffer because the its cross section has a greater moment of inertia around the bending axis. It isn't about surface area, it is about having more of the cross section distributed farther away from its centroid.

This article seems to do a good job of explaining flutes & stiffening (or not).

http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/RealBenefitsBarrelFluting.asp

Ian

mathman & ijl123 - This is the kind of information I wanted to see. The problem with the blanket statements made by many that fluted barrels are stiffer fail to contain the necessary qualifiers relating to diameter.

This seems to be another case where efforts to condense by leaving out necessary information leads to misconceptions. In my opinion anyway.

Jim

For real?

Okay I think I got this. Bare with the engineering dummy.

If I have two barrels of equal diameter say .900 but one is fluted and one is not than the fluted barrel will be less stiff than the unfluted barrel because they both are of the same diameter.

On the other hand, If I have two barrels of equal weight say 6 pounds but one is fluted and one is not than the fluted barrel will be more stiff than the unfluted barrel because they both are of the same weight.

The heat thingy I've got figured out.

Tom,

To me, the flutes seem to attract more dust than a non-fluted barrel. I have not physically quantified this by tare weighing soiled cloths, etc, but with the greater surface area it seems intuitive that there is more dust.

As well, my practice is to always clean my rifle after use and then wipe my it down with an oiled cloth before storage - whether overnight or 3 months. Accordingly the slightly oily surface seems to attract more dust than a dry surface.

And finally, due to the width and depth of the flutes and the diameter of my fingers I find it finicky and time consuming to clean this fluted barrel when compared to my other rifles with unfluted barrels.

You are correct sir!!!

No- because the fluted barrel is larger in diameter and the cross sectional area is greater. It just happens to be the same weight because we set it up that way.