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Water-Cooled PD Rifles?

Rick in Oregon

Rick in Oregon

Gold $$ Contributor
When we think "water-cooled", we usualy conjur up thoughts of water-cooled machine guns. But back around 2000, I was invited to a prairie dog shoot in WY by a benevolent and generous sponsor. This fellow worked up his "war wagon" with four shooting stations using custom Hall actioned, custom-stocked water-cooled 223's and 6.5mm-284's using Pac-Nor barrels with stainless water jackets.

The War Wagon trailer had a 200 gallon water tank up front, the pump was powered by a large solor cell ground matt, with the coolant supplied to each rifle station via a manifold with individual water pressure and temp regulators. Quite the setup, and one could shoot PD's with wanton abandon without fear of barrel heating, as the rig kept barrel temps right at 46*F all day. Amazing, yes. fun....you bet!

I've posted this some years ago, but doing it again just to keep the place interesting. Here's some pics of that adventure.....



It was a hot day in the rat patch, so the braked barrel jackets displayed condensation from the water cooling:



The large ground matt solor cell for pump power:



Yours truly working over some 500+ yard dogs with one of the 6.5-284's....the dogs were out in grand numbers:



The trailer was completely self-equipped with ammo storage, rifle rack up front, stools, everything for a great day of dog shooting in style:



Barnes Bullets supplied all the loaded ammo for the shoot, and we shot to our hearts content without worry of either running out of ammo or overheating the barrels. Only the prairie dogs had a bad day, and it was indeed quite the bad day for them.

Almost all days spent in the rat patch are good days, this outing was a number of those good days that I'll always remember. A good time was had by all....except the dogs of course. While we packed up each day, the raptors were out in full force having a meal on us. ;)

Right now it's a very hot August, our squirrels and rockchucks are down for the season. I'm already looking forward to next spring when the adventure starts all over again. I for one am glad for the AS forum to pass the time during the summer doldrums while pondering the upcoming season with favorite rifles and good friends. Now it's time for brass prep in the gun room enjoying the A/C while it's almost 100*F outside. :o

(Please excuse the poor photo quality, as these were scans from film prints.)
 
Rick in Oregon said:
When we think "water-cooled", we usualy conjur up thoughts of water-cooled machine guns. But back around 2000, I was invited to a prairie dog shoot in WY by a benevolent and generous sponsor. This fellow worked up his "war wagon" with four shooting stations using custom Hall actioned, custom-stocked water-cooled 223's and 6.5mm-284's using Pac-Nor barrels with stainless water jackets.

The War Wagon trailer had a 200 gallon water tank up front, the pump was powered by a large solor cell ground matt, with the coolant supplied to each rifle station via a manifold with individual water pressure and temp regulators. Quite the setup, and one could shoot PD's with wanton abandon without fear of barrel heating, as the rig kept barrel temps right at 46*F all day. Amazing, yes. fun....you bet!

I've posted this some years ago, but doing it again just to keep the place interesting. Here's some pics of that adventure.....



It was a hot day in the rat patch, so the braked barrel jackets displayed condensation from the water cooling:



The large ground matt solor cell for pump power:



Yours truly working over some 500+ yard dogs with one of the 6.5-284's....the dogs were out in grand numbers:



The trailer was completely self-equipped with ammo storage, rifle rack up front, stools, everything for a great day of dog shooting in style:



Barnes Bullets supplied all the loaded ammo for the shoot, and we shot to our hearts content without worry of either running out of ammo or overheating the barrels. Only the prairie dogs had a bad day, and it was indeed quite the bad day for them.

Almost all days spent in the rat patch are good days, this outing was a number of those good days that I'll always remember. A good time was had by all....except the dogs of course. While we packed up each day, the raptors were out in full force having a meal on us. ;)

Right now it's a very hot August, our squirrels and rockchucks are down for the season. I'm already looking forward to next spring when the adventure starts all over again. I for one am glad for the AS forum to pass the time during the summer doldrums while pondering the upcoming season with favorite rifles and good friends. Now it's time for brass prep in the gun room enjoying the A/C while it's almost 100*F outside. :o

(Please excuse the poor photo quality, as these were scans from film prints.)
Click to expand...
I feel like I’ve seen this before in the varmint hunter magazine.
 
Mfitz717 said:
I recently got almost all the issues in an auction. Love the articles in them
Click to expand...
I was a member for the last couple of years of their existence. Loved the mag. visited their range and building a couple of times when we were out shooting pd. I was very sad to see them go under. My buddy and I made it into the 2000 yd club but it was to late to get in the mag.:(
 
Mfitz717 said:
I feel like I’ve seen this before in the varmint hunter magazine.
Click to expand...
Actually it was posted here some number of years ago. It did not appear in TVHM.

I was a contributor to the magazine, wrote three pieces for them over the years. The last was one on the 20 Vartarg titled "The Paradigm Has Shifted".

It's a real shame bogus management sunk the Varmint Hunter Magazine. Small Caliber News is very much missed too, but it went away for different reasons.

There's just something about being able to sit back in your favorite chair with the beverage of choice and thumb through a good magazine or book that's not the same experience sitting in front of a monitor. I miss those two magazines.

The War Wagon was put together by a very successful gentleman from the east for the use of his guests on a working cattle ranch in WY. It was both a joy and a learning experience to get invited to the PD shoots he put on for friends at the ranch. I met some great folks there enjoying what we do with rifles.
 
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Knotwild said:
So, exactly how did it work, as in the plumbing and how/where was the water applied?
Click to expand...
It's all explained in my post, but for brevitys sake, the water was distributed through a manifold to each shooting station that had regulators at each rifle for the coolant, pressure and volume. Each rifle had a water jacket surrounding the SS barrel liner to keep the barrel at a constant 46*F.

Elaborate? Maybe. Effective? Very much so. Might be a bit much for we mere mortals, but this guy had unlimited funds and likes to entertain his guests in a big way. If you've ever flown on a commercial airliner, you can thank him for the great turbine jet engines that kept you air-worthy. He's "one of those guys".

Again.....he used PEX tubing for running the water lines to each station. Regulators to keep things constant and even, each barrel had a fitting on the bottom for water to enter and surround the SS barrel inside the water jacket, just like the M1919 Browning .30 cal water-cooled machine gun. In the below photo you can see the fittings on the bottom of the stock on the left that allows water to enter the jacket which is all concealed by the stock.



The front tongue of the trailer contains a 200 gallon water tank, pumped through the manifold by a 12V fish tank pump, powered by the solar matt to each shooting station. Pretty cool, and I've never seen anything like it since.
 
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5spd said:
Here and I thought my homemade water sleeve was tits up. I can shoot steady all day, just have to do wet downs a lot
Nice set up w pumped water jackets like youve shown us.
View attachment 1685371
Click to expand...

5spd, my method is even more primitive than yours....it's just a wet towel laid over the hot barrel in the shade. The setup shown was not mine, as I'm still in the peasent catagory to this day.

But when the rats are up, the peasents rejoice! ;)
 
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