Can you make a barrel a Hummer?

[Terry]

I was discussing Hummer barrels with a friend who thinks Hummer barrels can be made by taper lapping a good barrel. His concept is to lap a taper into the barrel making it tighter at the muzzle that at the breech. He says this has been done for years.

Is it possible to make a good barrel a Hummer?

 

[Alex Wheeler]

They do that with rimfire. I don't know of anyone in CF doing it. You dont want the bore to open up at the muzzle thats for sure. I think if it was that simple, everyone would be making hummers.

 

[mysticplayer]

If anyone knows, they are not making them on a day to day basis.

Jerry

 

[LHSmith]

In a PS mag article on Krieger bbls. John Krieger claimed the lap procedure they used resulted in a very slight choke in the muzzle end. I have never heard anymore confirmation from anyone else that this is still being done.
From what I know, a TRUE hummer is so rare, that I am not sure anyone knows a single common characteristic that each one possess. In his book, Tony Boyer claims to only ever had 2 true hummers in all the hundreds barrels he shot. He broke barrel ratings into 4 classes, and saved the next best bbls he called a great bbl. for the major tournaments like Nat'l's and FISS.

 

[1shot]

I believe that a "hummer" barrel is that one of xxx(insert a large number here) that everything is perfect from the time the steel was mixed that eventually became the bar that the barrel came from. All the processes from beginning to end were perfect in the machining AND the shooter was capable of driving it to it's full extent. There very well be more hummer barrels out there than we will ever know simply because the driver isn't up to it, or it was used for some non-competitive application.
I hope this helps,
Lloyd

 

[LHSmith]

1shot.....that may very well be true, but talking to competitors that have had a"hummer" or even a "great" barrel, ANYONE with a clue will know their wind doping skills did not just come as in instant revelation.

 

[johara1]

If you know how you can find out at 100 yds. and it will carry out. The first thing is learn to make them shoot small then see if the quality is there or to what degree. I had great luck with two average barrels this year and they shot smaller than my hummer ever did. When the wind blows the hummer will eat them for lunch……… jim

 

[LCazador]

I've had one in my lifetime of shooting, 45+ years. A hummer seems to shoot right thru a tough condition, such as mirage and wind. I know it wasn't me just having a good day doping the wind and mirage either.

 

[johara1]

Till you learn how to tell a hummer, is to hold into a pick up and thats where the bullet goes. But where it quits is the killer ……. jim

 

[1shot]

LHSmith,
You are entirely correct. I have one now in 6.5 that does everything others have spoken of. I took it off after the Nationals 2 years ago, as it was shooting so good, I was scared it was about to go south. It shot good right from the start, but when it hit 200 rds. everything just started to go in the middle. ???
Lloyd

 

[ballistic64]

B Calfee wrote a series of articles years ago in Precision Shooting and had quite a lengthy thread going on BR Central about hummer barrels and how to evaluate the potential of a barrel. This included ringing a barrel (hanging the barrel and tapping along its length, listening for certain tone variances) and slugging the barrel with lead to assure internal dimensions along its length, among other things. Of course all the things Bill claimed he found pertained directly to rimfire and some of the threads on BR Central got kinda heated. In the end Bill was basically wanting someone relate his findings in rimfire to centerfire. It was all very interesting, but not too many people have the kind of spare time Bill does.

 

[Killshot]

Two of the shooters in our Club BR matches are deep,deep,deep into Rimfire Benchrest....talk about going down the rabbit-hole, and I thought Centerfire had a claim to mumbo-jumbo!

As to OPs question, I'd concur with LH's 2nd post, they can be made, but not at the point they reach us.

 

[BoydAllen]

IMO there are a couple of things that are involved here that need more attention. One is how a barrel is stress relieved, during manufacturing. The other is the rareness of smiths slugging barrels. I have a friend who has done quite a bit of experimenting, and in the course of this, he has become quite proficient in using a cast lap, without abrasive, to evaluate the internal dimensions of barrels throughout their lengths. I think that if more of this was done, that a knowledge base would be established, that might prove to be quite useful. As it stands, there is a lot of guessing going on about what works best, and why.

 

[johara1]

The question is can you make a hummer and the answer is ….. no. Can you tell the quality of the barrels you have yes and at 100 yds. simply set up at a 100yds when the wind is switching and set your impact below your line of sight and fire holding the same point of aim, a few from a right condition and some from the left. I like a wind speed of 7-10 mph and if it shoots in a hole or gives you a weather report will tell you what you have. My first Brux barrel i had was from Donovan and it would shoot around a tenth in that test it would shoot in a 1/4 min. 180 degree conditions are extreme but it give you a message. To this day and being set back 3 times it still shoots in a hole. I always was told the person lapping could tell you but that is BS. also. I have a barrel now that will do what the Brux did and maybe better, It is a Douglas and they aren't lapped, but it quit making copper in 9 rounds. and it shot like it had eyes. The first shot with a clean barrels is in the group .070 for five and i repeated it and shot the same. The rounds i was shooting were left over from the other guns, all were loaded the same. All have the same chamber, and shoot the same load. I tried the above test and it shoots in a smaller hole than the Brux did. I have a new new Kreiger and it gives you a weather report of almost an inch in the same test. So what makes a hummer? beats me but i found you can pick them out and grade them, this one may be my last but you never know. I don't get a 80 barrels a year to try to find one but i do try to find the one's that are the best of what i have,and they are frozen. Some don't believe in it but those who shoot against them may be changing there mind…. jim

 

[Bart B.]

Yes, I think a barrel maker can make a hummer. All it takes is a perfectly homonegous stainless steel barrel blank gundrilled, reamed, rifled and lapped to zero tolerances in bore, groove, land shape and twist rate with a uniform finish smoothness. It's perfect in every sense. In my opinion, that's a hummer barrel; at least to start with. They'll deform and unbalance bullets the least.

What the 'smith does chambering, crowning then fitting it to the receiver then the fitting the receiver to the stock as well as what the reloader does making ammo for it and the shooter does holding, aiming and shooting it at a target ends up being, it may well shoot in the sevens instead of the zeros.

On the other hand, the more imperfections there are in the finished barrel to start with, the harder it is to make it shoot like hummer's do regareless of how it's managed thereafter.

Last big issue of such thing's I'm well aware of is when Al Hauser(?) retired from Hart Rifle Barrels in the late 1980's or thereabouts. He made most of the "hummer" 30 caliber barrels used in NRA match rifle competition and they had a long track record of winners and records set with them. I think he made a lot of the smaller caliber ones back then, too. That's when the top ranked competitors switched to Kreiger barrels. But some other good ones came out at the same time.

By the same token, "hummer" ammunition will not shoot in the zeros in a barrel that's not also a hummer (I've heard worst of these types called "shouters") regardless of how it's fit to and shot in an otherwise well built rifle shot by a good marksman.

 

[johara1]

Bart, Douglas isn't lapped, a hummer is when the bullet is asleep when it leaves the muzzle. A bullet is affected by a condition more up close when it is the least stable than at a distance. ….. jim

 

[Bart B.]

Jim, I know Douglas barrels aren't lapped. But in all the conversations I've had with accuracy afficianados in all disciplines, hummers are barrels that shoot the most accurate. I doubt all bullets fired from one are completely and sound asleep when they exit the muzzle. All bullets are not perfectly balanced then, but microscopically so.

By "asleep," do you mean the bullet is spinning on its shape axis and there's no nutation or coning of either end in a circle whatsoever about its trajectory axis?

 

[johara1]

Bart, Yes asleep, means no yaw and spinning on the axis. I spin my bullets on the Juenke machine to insure uniformity. And i trim and point, My necks are turned to a tenth, powder is weighed to the hundredth …….nothing is left to chance. a Hummer will shoot in the wind but are not the most accurate. This years barrels were average but shot very small but i had to be careful of the wind. A hummer will anybody can look good because they shoot through a condition were the a good barrel will give you a weather report….jim

 

[BoydAllen]

Years back, I spoke with a well known short range gunsmith and shooter who was in the process of testing a number of barrels by shooting targets at something like 25 yards, and examining the bullet holes to see which ones were the most round. I never asked him how that worked out. Another thing, I think that the point of asking the fellow who lapped a barrel is about how the barrel feels as he laps it. That was my point earlier. A friend has done some lapping of finished barrels, after using an uncharged lap to evaluate their interior dimensions and taper. He has been able to improve barrels' accuracy this way, both for rimfire and center fire. If we do not know what a hummer feels like when it is slugged, what chance do we have in duplicating it? I think that surveying all barrels in this way before they are chambered would go a long way toward helping to see it hummers are different in this respect, but there seems to be a preference for developing pet theories about why these barrels are better, that are mostly just guesses. It may be that this sort of investigation does not turn up a difference that can be felt with this sort of testing, but we will not know until a lot of barrels are slugged, hopefully including some hummers. Recently I have shot a well worn barrel that a friend took off of one of his rifles, by what I see in the bore scope, he kept it on his rifle longer than is normal for him. Shooting it, with the original chamber, I can see why. It may not be a hummer, but is better than my other barrels, and I will be sorry when it goes away. It has been a real confidence booster for me, seeing what I can do with a better barrel.

 

[LHSmith]

If one could ascertain a barrel will be "hummer" or even a "great bbl" (by Tony B.'s definition) by mere physical inspection (incl. air gauging) then Lester Bruno and Shiraz Balolia would be unbeatable.
To take that one step further, if one could build his own barrels from the best steel available, performed all the machining himself and personally hand lapped the barrels, and cherry pick his best efforts, then Jack Sutton and Dan Lilja would be even more of a threat than the afforementioned competitors.