Helical fluting....

Grizz Axxemann

Grizz Axxemann

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I haven't seen many helically fluted barrels out there.... Several years ago, I was reading an issue of Shooting Times and they had a little peice on them. Sounds like a smart idea if you ask me. Makes for a larger cooling surface and just plain looks COOL.

Knowing me, I'd probably pic up an untreated heavy varmint or heavy bull barrel blank, and have Dad turn the flutes and threads for the action and muzzle brake if I were so inclined.

Other than the potential for high cost... why don't we see more helical flutes on barrels out there?
 
The flutes have to be pretty deep to realize any significant increase in surface area, and even with very deep flutes you need air to circulate in them to see better cooling.
And I'd think it would be pretty tough to mill out the flutes exactly the same depth and perfectly concentric, otherwise you risk inducing uneven stresses during firing.

Grizz, if your dad is into making muzzle brakes he could make a few bux.
 
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Well if you have a cnc machine in your backyard you can use the 4th axis and cut the flutes. Using a mill and an indexing head is the manual way of doing it, and you can use simple indexing a form cutter, and crank out however many flutes you want, and hook a gear train up to your tables feed with ratios and idlers to cut it. Realisticaly to flute stuff in industry a cnc machine is involved because the costly setup of a mill rigging it up. So what I am trying to say is if you have the goodies go for it, but just the cost of a ####ty indexing head with a gear train to direct index is $$$ so get a proper place to do it for you, and consider it a steal for a one time job. I have never used a gear train just an indexing head because that practice is obsolete.

I dont see any reason from my machining backround how it would affect ballistics haha, but it would be way to cool. With a mill an edge finder and some attention they can be cut on center and the same depth no problem.
 
I don't think the barrel cooling factor would be that great other then the "look cool factor". Straight fluting can be used to reduce barrel weight, but we are talking about onces here. Maybe someone could run it on Inventor or some other program to see what the weight reduction would be?
Helical fluting would cause some harmonic problems even if the fluting twist was the same as rifling twist and timed to it. Any machining operation to a barrel will cause stress and some gunsmith do not recommend it.
As mouse has stated CNC would be the way to go, but it aint cheap.
 
In PS rag there was an article on what cooled best. The only one that made a usable difference was sand blasting with very coarse sand, beadblasting made no difference, as I remember.
 
Yes some of the Timberwolf rifles have helically fluted barrels, and i have been wondering who manufactures their helically fluted barrels, does anyone know?
 
I think PGW makes actions with helically fluted bolts, they could do the fluting on the barrels themselves.
As to who makes their Timberwolf barrels, I've no idea.
 
Yeah thats a good question, but if you want your barrell fluted they have a cnc machine with 4th axis. Money talks bs walks :( And post some pics if you can put the coin together.....
 
Yep... it's plainly obvious that this project is a LONG ways off.

But what my idea was, was to take either a rifled barrel blank and have dad set it up in his mill, or in one of the CNCs where he works, or have him do the same with a chunk of barrel grade stainless bar stock, then take it to a smith for the rifling. Either way I look at it, i'll be dropping a huge chunk of coin on it, but it's still a LONG ways off.
 
There is a really good article on fluting at snipercountry.com
I don't think I would ever bother fluting a barrel.
 
Lilja's web page claims they are making barrels for the Canadian Forces, so perhaps PGW is using their barrels. I thought I saw some where that Lilja was producing helical fluting, but I didn't see mention of it when I looked just now.
 
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