carbon fiber barrel sleeves

cody c

cody c

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so first some pictures, cause the best threads have pictures:









So, basically I decided to build some aluminum pucks to slide over the small pencil sized barrel on my savage B mag 17 WSM (mounted in an AICS airsoft knockoff stock with millet LRS, aftermarket knock off bipod and vector 35mm rings), I had bought some 30mm carbon fiber tube a while ago, two pieces were around $80 to the door from china via the interwebs.

A friend of a friend has a small shop north of Calgary and let me play on his little lathe and milling machine as long as I didn't get blood on anything, the rear aluminum end has basically a bedding block piece which provides a better/connected surface to mount the action to the AICS airsoft chassis, the tube and aluminum ends got epoxied together last night and epoxied to the barrel with a little bit of hesitance.

I also put a lakefield mk II in a boyds evolution forest laminate stock, it got the same treatment but I haven't taken pictures yet, will be waiting for slightly taller scope mounts to show up in the mail for it, also have quite a bit more work to do with the B Mag, Modified a .22 mag magazine to feed .17 and need to weld a bit of metal on it and get it feeding the .17 plus lots of other little stuff on it.

We can all speculate as to wether the barrel sleeves will have positive or negative effects on accuracy, I can see it allowing to stiffen things ever so minorly, yet also prevent heat dissipation and perhaps make the accuracy shift more after a few rounds, I will post my findings later to show what this tinkering does to accuracy, obviously the basis of this tinkering is more about cosmetic balance then function, but I had fun doing this so it pays back in that way as well.

Just thought I'd post some pictures for those who have also run the idea through their head.

Cody.
 
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The lakefield, doesn't look much like a lakefield anymore either. Can't wait to get the new mounts for it.

I had a look at it yesterday, the front plug hasn't been epoxied yet as I have to cut down the carbon sleeve a bit, but I was able to see how stiff the sleeve was by squeezing the barrel and one side of the sleeve between my thumb and forefinger, it's actually much more solid then I thought, basically I could feel some deflection of the barrel at the point where I was pressing hard enough to deflect the carbon, so off the cuff I would say that despite this not being made to conventional modern methods, it should still provide a more rigid overall barrel, off the cuff I'd guess 20-40% maybe.
 
weasel1 said:
Hope it works, cause it sure looks good!
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Thanks, I'll run at least 20 or 30 consecutive shots out of them to see if there is any significant heat deflection, when I get them finished.

edit: got the front puck on the lakefield JB welded on last night, will mask and repaint the aluminum bits soon, back to the .17 now, gonna try and epoxy bed the action to the inner alloy frame on that stock and get the modified magazine fitted next.

Does anyone have experience with JB weld as a bedding compound? What is a good product to use for a release agent with it?
 
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cody. LOL. An AICS BMAG, thats pretty creative. And I gotta say, the carbon looks pretty cool. And the lakefield, can you say "integrally suppressed?", sure, i knew ya could. (j/k)

and yeah, ive used JB Weld as a bedding compound many times, and use a thin film of grease as a release agent. Messy, but thats a small price to pay to keep it from permanently "welding" it together. As a matter of fact, I just got my Boyds thumbhole stock for my stainless heavy barreled BMAG today, and plan on pillar bedding it and bedding the front 2-3" of the barrel, right where the groves are machined in the rear part of the barrel just in front of the receiver. I'd imagine vaseline would work just as well as grease. I aslo use modeling clay for areas that i want built up, or to fill in screw heads, to prevent the JB weld from getting in there. Its also easy to form to serve as a mold, or dam. Cleans up easy too.
 
ginnz said:
cody. LOL. An AICS BMAG, thats pretty creative. And I gotta say, the carbon looks pretty cool. And the lakefield, can you say "integrally suppressed?", sure, i knew ya could. (j/k)

and yeah, ive used JB Weld as a bedding compound many times, and use a thin film of grease as a release agent. Messy, but thats a small price to pay to keep it from permanently "welding" it together. As a matter of fact, I just got my Boyds thumbhole stock for my stainless heavy barreled BMAG today, and plan on pillar bedding it and bedding the front 2-3" of the barrel, right where the groves are machined in the rear part of the barrel just in front of the receiver. I'd imagine vaseline would work just as well as grease. I aslo use modeling clay for areas that i want built up, or to fill in screw heads, to prevent the JB weld from getting in there. Its also easy to form to serve as a mold, or dam. Cleans up easy too.
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Thanks for the info, looking forward to see some pics of your heavy barrel B mag in a boyds
 
Took the two rifles out this morning, light wind, really hot and there were a few horse flies out today, but it shot alright, a picture of the 17 now with the aluminum painted and the barrel sleeve epoxied on, I'm quite happy with it but I need to get it out shooting more, I blasted off three 5 round groups at 50 yards, 20 grain winchester, 20 grain american eagle and 25 grain winchester left to right just to see what shoots better of the three.

The .22 also shot ok but not quite as nice as the 17, and I left the magazine at home so it was a little slow to feed.



I shot a decent 5 round group at 100 yards but the last round hit the metal behind it and exploded leaving shrapnel holes through the group, when I get it tuned up a bit more I'll post some more results, but I think it should easily do 1 MOA.

edit: added a short video.
 
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TAC PRO said:
Did you tension the barrel between the aluminum pucks?
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Nope, probably would be smarter performance wise but I'd have to thread the end of the barrel.

When I put the Millet LRS on it with it's big 35mm tube it made the barrel look silly small, most of this came about for aesthetic value, though I could see that being the next step with the next rifle I do.

I fired about 30 shots with it in about 5-10 minutes, didn't really notice any significant heat deflection, the 3 five shot groups were shot within about 5 minutes right after getting it roughly sighted in, so it doesn't seem to be hurting it in that aspect.
 
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