Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Ain't cryogenic stress relieving just a bunch of voodoo??

Ain't trying to be a smart arse, I gots an open mind. I just have to be frank and honest, I always thought it was just a bunch of voodoo.

Really truly you guys believe in this? Real world results?

So...

How much does it cost? Do some folks do it better than others? Where do you send em? Do you relieve em after they are mated to an action or before?

And blah blah blah... lots of other dumb questions...

Thanks for any replies.

Any before and after stories that you can really point to and attribute it to the process?

I have had it done to several of my rifles.
I pay somewhere between 50 80 smacks whole rifle.

What I have observed is for the most part is the cleaning is much easier, and on one rifle (a 22/250)it did much better in the accuracy debt, cant say that for the others.

It is not voodo in that there is a solid scietific basis for doing it, and there is no doubt that it improves the life of cutting tools. It was all the rage in BR shooting maybe 10 years ago; I had several done. It appears that it is of limited value for barrels and has kinda died away.

I'm a cryo fan and fluted stuff generally gets it by default..............

Had it done twice to completed rifles, one fluted, one regular. No change in accuracy but they seemed to clean easier.Rick.

I haven't seen a test report by an independent test activity concluding that cryogenic quenching, after a barrel is delivered to a customer, actually does any good.
I think that during the manufacture of the barrel, that quenching according to the heat treat recipe for the steel used would be appropriate, whether it be cryogenic, or otherwise.
I have the heat treat programs for all of the steels I use in knife making, but not for rifle barrel steels.

who knows. i had a remington that someone supposedly had cryo'ed. didn't shoot for me.

i know that doesn't mean anything, statistically. but that's the only experience i have had with it.

I believe the only advantage is the ease of machining. I believe they can drill a straighter hole. It also seems to chamber better. Bill Hull, Shilen Barrel shop boss, brought me 2 barrels. One was cryo and the other was not. I was able to tell by the way they machined.
Butch

That's the one advantage they all seem to agree upon

Dixie,
A machining instructor once said, "Some tools are made to be used, and other tools are made to be sold."
Take that for what it's worth.
whelennut

whelennut,
What is your opinion?
Butch

Not whelenut. I will say this though. I've been a toolmaker for 20 years and a gun builder for much longer. It is a fact that cryo will do absolutely NOTHING for stress relieving a firearm in anyway or any other metal for that matter. What it will do is alow the metal to move or warp after treatment. DON'T DO IT! Any one saying it works clearly hasn't researched it and is going off of "hear say", and uninformed opinions. I tested many different stress relieving methods (my job as a toolmaker), and only one truly worked with out any movement of the steel. That was Metalax. My tools (mostly Husky stack molds) were built with service cycles of 1.5-5 million cycles at a min of 150 tons or more (some was as high as 1500 tons). In many cases I was able to get up to 15 million cycles after the Metalax treatment. A bud of mine up North from me has a machine to do this and it takes about 1-5 hrs. Most large cities or even some welding shops has it available. You just have to look around. Do a little research on it. www.Metalax.com

On edit; You get a print out from the machine on how much stress was in the component before treatment and what little is left if any after. From what I've experienced, it's always pretty significant.

So you are a metalurgist?
Butch

Tool Maker. I built many tools for Husky, Tradesco, HP, Motorola, and many others as well as for the medical industries for 12 of those years in which the components were used in medical room operations (folks lives depended on it). I was involved in every aspect of the process including heat treatment, as well as tool failure analysis and trouble shooting. I never need to be a metalurgist to see the the measurable life cycle and performance differences. Why do you ask?

So you're telling me from a scientific way that Kreiger, Bartlein, and other barrel makers are ruining their barrels? I'm also glad that you are smarter than a metalurgist. I guess that we just don't need them. Next time I talk to John Kreiger and Frank Green, I will tell them superdiesel said they are wasting time and money.
Butch

Butch,

They do it during the heat treat cycle of their barrels, not after it's been machined, and sold.

Nice Tact. Do what you feel is best for you. So sorry to step on your feelers here. I'm telling you only what I found with tool steels (which are used in the fire arms industries as you should very well know).

I take it you have never research on the effects of these treatments and just follow blindly because he said, she said? Sorry, I'm not a subscriber to this. I try to make informed decisions not based on this theology. I've also learned to get my own hard fact over the years as well (cant always count on the internet info).

Any one worth there salt will take BEFORE and AFTER measurement when a steel is subject to a treatment as well as service life under given stress. I would be surprised if this is a common practice performed by these these companies with what is know today (after research and experiences with what it actually does).

Also, I was unaware that metalurgist where into measuring warpage of different steels after treatment. I was also unaware that they were into to measuring stress levels in steels after the machining processes. Truly you MUST be a metalurgist to be speaking up for them. Sometimes you need to use real world testing instead of theories for final product production (as these manufactures should surly know already). I do have a company that produces high performance diesel products from steels and aluminum. I have to create products that not only hold up to extreme punishment but also don't act like an anode with the given environment they will be enduring.

Don,
I guess that I didn't see where I posted that it was done afterward. I also did not post that I have personally seen an improvement in accuracy after it was done. The aforementioned barrel makers do it to improve machineability.
Diesel, I can see that you have not had experience with cryo or done any scientific studies. You are entitled to your opinions and I respect that and you should respect mine.
Butch

#1. You jumped on me here Butch. Respect eh?

#2. I'm glad you feel able to speak your mind on what I have and haven't done. Respect again eh?

#3. Just trying to get some informed decision making going on with others experiences.

#4. What have you done in the area of cryo and testing it Butch??? You seem to be so hard against my finding and experience in the area to contest it (you arrogantly state I have no experience). Please don't tell me your just going off of "because Paul, Dick, and Jane had it done, it must be good". Please, let us know your experiences and findings that you would like to share. Truly it must be more than just "I have not personally seen an improvement in accuracy after it was done".

#5. Cryo is most certainly not used as a form of easing machineability in any form during the tool building process or have I ever even herd of it helping. This in no way means that it isn't possible and some may practice it. However, being a tool maker, were ALWAYS looking for easier, quick or more accurate ways to machine the (some time monsterous) tools we build. This is what keeps us in business. So I wonder why, if it does help, this wasn't instituted a while back in this high precision trade.

But then again Butch, I'll leave it up to you to tell me if I'm a Tool Maker or not. There's enough stuff out there already that folks spend there hard earned money on that does nothing for them. Just trying to get out what does work.
Sorry to ruffle your feathers.

The way I understand it, the cyro quench has to be done as a part of the heat-treating cycle for it to work.

Having an object cyro treated a week or a year after it has been heat treated doesn't do anything for the steel.

I read of one test where a knife maker tested some identical blades--some cyro treated and some not, but hardened to the same hardness, as far as possible. Some steels will pick up one or two points of hardness on the Rockwell C scale when it is
cyro quenched after quenching.

The tests show that cyro treated blades were far superior to non cyro quenched blades in cutting test. The cyro blades stayed sharper longer.

That goes for edge holding ability. Lathe bits and milling cutters, or any cutting tool, and also gears like are found in transmissions and rear ends of vehicles will benefit from cyro quenching, if done at -320 F, and done as part of the heat treating cycle and not at a later date, as described above. It makes the gear teeth harder and stronger, and does the same for cutters.

Just how this would apply to an improvement in a rifle barrel, I cannot explain. Maybe make the bore 1 or 2 Rc points harder, although I have read that it makes cleaning easier, but I have no experience with this.

Cyro treating was never intended to be used to stress relieve, and I have no information that it will.

What cyro actually does is aid in the austinite to martinsite transformation of the steel. Austinite will not harden, nor would it make a good knife blade or anything else. When steel is heated to hardening temperature, about 1700 to 2000 degrees F, austinite forms. This is called the austinizing temperature, and the steel is ready to be quenched. The steel is also non-magnetic at this temperature.

Quenching changes the austinite to martinsite, but quenching to room temperature still leaves some austinite. Immediately taking it on down to -320 F transforms more austinite to martinsite, and the more martinsite in a piece of steel, the better it will perform as a cutting tool.

As I mentioned, I do not know how this would make a rifle barrel better, but I am sure it would make a FL sizing die better, if only causing less pressure to be applied to resize the case, but I don't know that, either.