The following is an excerpt from the 2 page answer John Krieger gave to the questions, "Stainless or chrome-moly barrels - which do you usually recommend to your customers? What are the advantages of stainless? Will a stainless barrel always last longer due to less erosion?"
I thought this was from the Krieger article in PS magazine, but it was in fact printed in "A Varmint Hunter's Odyssey - I was reading both at the same time.
John Krieger -
"For light to medium weight sporter barrels I only recommend chrome-moly. The physical properties of stainless steel drops off much more than chrome-moly. Ductility, yield and tensile are reduced much more than chrome-moly, creating a condition where it is both weaker and more brittle."
So what does this mean to those of us who shoot in the cold. For a start I guess those of us with stainless barrels should be careful not to drop them on a rock when it's cold out.
In the cold however, I doubt if we could come to any conclusion concerning which barrel is more accurate. The clothing you are forced to wear in the cold generally interferes with things like consistent cheek weld, and being able to feel the trigger. This is particularly a problem for me as I find my fingers freeze very quickly now, even when wearing light gloves suitable for shooting. If you were able to say that rifle "A" showed a drop in accuracy at low temperatures compared to rifle "B", how would you know what you were measuring?
Even if the same ammo was being fired in both rifles, the rifles themselves would have to be absolutely identical other than the barrel material, and even then small differences in bedding or even the comfort level of the shooter could interfere with the test results. It is not likely that anyone with a switch barrel rifle would have two high grade barrels of the same contour, from the same maker, in the same caliber, with the same round count, but one stainless and the other CM. Of course if anyone out there is so equipped - inquiring minds want to know.
