Gunsmith for barrel fluting?

I had Terry at Black Art Rifles, build a few rifles for me, including a fluted barrel. He did very nice work. I just did a quick google search though and didn't find him quickly, so I'm not sure if he is still doing stuff or not.
 
Another terry vote, he did a barrel chop, fluted and cerakote on a tikka of mine, the fella does some fine work.
 
Recommendation: don’t. At best you’ll spend a bunch of money and save ounces, and far fewer ounces than just shortening the barrel. At worst, the barrel will be destroyed and never print decent groups ever again. Don’t risk it.
 
Corlanes sporting goods in Dawson Creek BC. Sometimes their turnaround time can be a little slow but that’s only because they’re busy. A company thats busy usually means a company that’s doing good work.
 
Just watched a video on the process benchmark barrel uses building barrels. They do not stress relieved after flutting. And I would put a average benchmark barrel up against any factory barrel anyday. It would be interesting to hear the theory on why you could not remove and flute a barrel after it was installed? To play devils advocate some people say you can improve accuracy from a fluted barrel because it triangulate and add rigidity.
 
Killbillc68 said:
Just watched a video on the process benchmark barrel uses building barrels. They do not stress relieved after flutting. And I would put a average benchmark barrel up against any factory barrel anyday. It would be interesting to hear the theory on why you could not remove and flute a barrel after it was installed? To play devils advocate some people say you can improve accuracy from a fluted barrel because it triangulate and add rigidity.
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Stress relieving definitely helps, but there are always stresses that remain in steels that distort the shape of a piece when sections are removed. There are certain parts that I run at work that require a pre-turn operation with stock left on the diameters, then they sit for a day or two, and are finished after. Granted the parts have A TON of material coming off of them (They're about 6 feet long, on one end they start at ~7" dia. and finish at ~3" dia.), but the principle is the same. Especially when a few thousandths could make a difference.

That being said, the stress in a piece of steel tends to release abruptly when material is removed, once it settles down it's not like it will move again. So little is removed from a barrel that has already been stress relieved that the amount of deformation might be completely negligible anyways.
 
I have shot a couple or three fluted barrels that a buddy has and have the opinion that fluting doesn't affect the performance noticeably. The barrels are all Ron Smith barrels and I think Ron has all his product stress relieved after drilling, reaming and rifling but before contouring or fluting. The one rifle I have shot I think was the first foray into fluting for Ron... and being a farmer, he called it a PTO shaft rifle.

Personally I have a couple of octagon'd barrels, one done by myself and another done by another "hobby" machinist, both were done with light slow cuts so as to not generate a lot of heat build-up in the barrel blank, neither one has been heat relieved after machining and both shoot P.C.'d cast into almost an inch.

My point being is that a commercial shop that has to get a job out as fast as possible might generate enough heat in a blank to cause heat warp but if a barrel is done slow & easy then I doubt it will make any difference to normalize the steel. Another fact not mentioned here is that 1000's of barrel blanks have been bought from manufacturers and contoured at gunsmith's around the world without any thought of stress relieving after contouring and fluting is just another "removing metal"machining process the same as contouring.
 
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