Pros and cons of fluting barrel

My understanding of the subject:

Pro - Cools faster, lose some weight

Con - Barrel loses some rigidity

My opinion - A rigid barrel is more important unless you are firing multiple shots in quick succession. A varmint gun may benefit from fluting, but if your shooting slow fire bench rest type stuff I would not bother with flutes.

All depends on application.
 
pros and cons

mlehtovaara said:
Pro - Cools faster, lose some weight

Con - Barrel loses some rigidity

My opinion - A rigid barrel is more important unless you are firing multiple shots in quick succession. A varmint gun may benefit from fluting, but if your shooting slow fire bench rest type stuff I would not bother with flutes.

All depends on application.
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Are you sure the barrel loses rigidity ?:confused::confused::confused::confused: :)
 
This has been posted a few times in regards to the topic. Might help. ;)

From Shilen.com (premium barrel manufacturer)

What about "fluting" a barrel?
Fluting is a service we neither offer nor recommend. If you have a Shilen barrel fluted, the warranty is void. Fluting a barrel can induce unrecoverable stresses that will encourage warping when heated and can also swell the bore dimensions, causing loose spots in the bore. A solid (un-fluted) barrel is more rigid than a fluted barrel of equal diameter. A fluted barrel is more rigid than a solid barrel of equal weight. All rifle barrels flex when fired. Accuracy requires that they simply flex the same and return the same each time they are fired, hence the requirement for a pillar bedded action and free floating barrel. The unrecoverable stresses that fluting can induce will cause the barrel to flex differently or not return from the flexing without cooling down a major amount. This is usually longer than a shooter has to wait for the next shot. The claim of the flutes helping to wick heat away faster is true, but the benefit of the flutes is not recognizable in this regard until the barrel is already too hot.
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It's simple physics. Any time you remove material you remove strength and rigidity. Fact, end of story, no exceptions.

A 6"x6" I-beam is far weaker than a 6"x6" solid bar, however significantly stronger than a solid bar with a cross section of equal area. As the Shilen site states, machining flutes into a barrel can cause undue and potentially severe stress into the granular structure of the barrel material, resulting in unpredictable warpage when those stresses try to release. Also, the use of carbide cutting tools and insufficient support can cause the flutes to go awry and deviate in depth, width and position, resulting in eneven strength and unpredictable warpage.
If you're trying to save weight, you'll do vastly better by chopping the muzzle a couple inches. You will remove way more material with much less stress while increasing overall rigidity. Fat short objects break/warp/vibrate far less than long skinny ones.
 
Pro - the barrel will be a bit lighter.

A lighter barrel will heat up more rapidly than a heavier one. Will the slightly greater surface area result in meaningfully more rapid cooling?

Has decorative appeal(?).

If the barrel is properly stress relieved to start with, and if the machining is done well, the barrel shouldn't be warped. If-if.
 
tiriaq said:
Pro - the barrel will be a bit lighter.

A lighter barrel will heat up more rapidly than a heavier one. Will the slightly greater surface area result in meaningfully more rapid cooling?

Has decorative appeal(?).

If the barrel is properly stress relieved to start with, and if the machining is done well, the barrel shouldn't be warped. If-if.
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Correct. I must have had a barrel that wasn't properly stressed relieved as when slugged after fluting, it had tight and loose spots related to the fluted/nonfluted parts and barrel diameter. It was useless as a benchrest barrel BTW... it airgauged well before fluting.

Another Con.... It costs alot.
 
gaff said:
personally I don't agree . if it is done correctly there should be no issues.
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How educated is your opinion? Or is it just a thought...?

Do you know the differences between correctly done cut rifled barrels and correctly done button rifled barrels and how they react to machining after having correctly done heat treatment for stress relief?
 
mlehtovaara said:
An ongoing debate?

I choose to believe Shilen knows what they are talking about.
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Not every barrel maker agrees with Shilen however. Several flute their barrels at their factory. Everybody has an opinion but no one has sufficiently proven that it is a bad or good thing to do.
 
I fluted many barrels with no loss to the accuracy but only the heavy ones (#5 or heavier) and not the ones made with hammer forged rifling method leaving them with lots of internal stress to start with.
 
To be honest if a barrel is properly stess releived it should have no effect , also if a barrel is button rifled or cut rifled could make a difference.

Barrels can do funny things if there are hoop stresses in the steel from the button being pulled through, When they are cut rifled these stresses are not there .
 
One thing is for certain, fluting will never improve accuracy... in the best case scenario you won't notice a loss... usually due to the caliber and how accurate it is to start with...
 
con, 1 more place for crud to build up, trap some moisture if a hunting gun and then possibly the evil orange stuff appears.

pro- may shave a few grams from barrel weight, not that you will notice carrying the gun, but done up right it can sure look pretty.

on a heavy barrel I would do flutes, on a sporter barrel is there enough meat to do anything but scratch the surface without risking the integrity of the tube?
 
Customer wants = customer gets.

Sometimes it's not all about practicality, eh? :)

Until someone actually puts a bunch of barrels on a machine rest or test action and checks their performance before and after fluting, MY opinion of the stuff is that I can save more weight by stepping away from the cookie jar, than I will by fluting the barrel of my rifle. And I don't really care for the way it looks, so I won't pay extra for it.

Be a strange old world if we all liked the same stuff, wouldn't it?

Pro- it'll have grooves on the outside.
Con- it'll have grooves on the outside. And will have cost more.

Cheers
Trev
 
barrel rigidity

dewberry said:
Not every barrel maker agrees with Shilen however. Several flute their barrels at their factory. Everybody has an opinion but no one has sufficiently proven that it is a bad or good thing to do.
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Correct ! There are a lot of good barrel makers and good smiths who flute barrels and SAY there is nothing wrong with it ! Mostly it is for the cosmectic look but it does shave a few ozs off ! But it does not make a barrel less rigid from everything i can read about it ! That is a fact ! RJ :)
 
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