Can you make a barrel a Hummer?

[BoydAllen]

Recently someone asked a respected cut barrel maker if slugging would show things that an air gauge would not, and he said that it would. I do not think that they are going to carefully slug their barrel inventories.

 

[johara1]

I remember Jack sutton saying there is no such thing as a hummer barrel. I don't thing you can check or gage anything that will with out a doubt say it is going to be a hummer. I know one barrel that was taken out of a garbage can and it looked bad and it was a hummer. The only way to tell is the way Tony does it get a bunch and shoot them and hope you find best, and sell off the one's you don't use. I did get into slugging the barrels and i for the most part have a bunch information on dimensions and nothing other than that……. jim

 

[Bart B.]

Perhaps the barrel mentioned in the following thread:

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3831950.msg36325442#msg36325442

... replies 13 and 20, are worthwhile in this thread. That Hart barrel used as well as the bullets may well have been "hummers." Ten sub-1.5 inch groups in a row at 600 yards has to mean everything was about as perfect as possible. Maybe it was subtle horizontal air currents and muzzle velocity spread that made the big ones the size they were.

 

[1shot]

This may drift a little off topic, and if it does my apologies in advance as that is a big pet peeve of mine. I recently removed a Shilen barrel that was installed as one of a group of three rifles for a tactical unit to remain un-named. This barrel was chambered in 308 with a 1-12" twist and 26" long, Remington contour. This bbl. digested over 7,000 rounds mostly of factory 168 gr. Federal match ammo, as well as several hundred factory Hornady 110 TAP ammo before it was sent to "cold storage". I acquired said rifle as it had been issued to me in 1988 and I was charged with transforming it to the above mentioned specs from a 243. To this day, the rifle will hold sub 1/2 MOA groups with this bbl. My gun plumber and friend Greg Walley that works for Kelbly's Inc. was at my residence when I unscrewed the bbl. for the 1st time since it's original installation. I told Greg that I wanted to bore scope it and he cautioned that I might not like what I see. To both of our amazement the bbl. looked like it had 1,500-2,000 rounds through it, both at the chamber end through the freebore to the crown. I've looked at lots of bbls. of mine and for friends, Greg easily 100x that many. I stand by my statement that EVERYTHING must be right to have a "hummer". In closing, I will say that in the game I used to play, winning amongst friends during re-qualification was always fun, and having a great bbl. had won me a lot of free beer over the years . That said, using a superior tool to do what it was intended for is priceless, not to mention a lot easier to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning.
Lloyd

 

[Bart B.]

1shot, that's incredible for a .308 Win barrel to do that well at 7K rounds.

Sierra Bullets tests virtually all of their 30 caliber bullets 180-gr. and lighter in .308 Win. barrels clamped in their rail guns. In their indoor 200-yard test range, the best 30 caliber match bullets shoot into 1/4 MOA. Those test barrels have typically been replaced at about 3000 rounds. That's when they opened up with accuracy reference bullets (called "standards" by Sierra) about 1/3rd over what they started with.

I've been trying to find an on line link explaining how a commercial match ammo company's .308 Win. ammo started out shooting about 1/4 MOA at 100 yards, then every hundred or so rounds later listed what the average series of three or so 5-shot test groups went to. At 3000 rounds, groups were about 4/10ths MOA; around 8,000 rounds, the groups had opened up to over 3/4 MOA. Or something like that. It may have been Black Hills or Hornady.

 

[1shot]

Bart,
I couldn't agree with you more on the round count. Had I not done it myself as well as having others from the team shoot it, I would be calling BS. The truth is, it did it, and all of the rounds are documented in our shot plot books, so it is what it is. In defense of the bbl. it was never fired so as to get it smoking hot, and the cleaning was very regular and regimented. I just consider myself blessed to having had that bbl. Oh yeah, I STILL DO! ;D
Lloyd

 

[LHSmith]

It would be interesting to know what powder was used in the factory rounds.

 

[johara1]

I think gov. target 308 is loaded with RL-15. i did get some pull down powder and thats what it was. For some reason they don't keep match ammo loaded very long anymore……… jim

 

[savagedasher]

Rim fire bench rest do more work to make a barrel a hummer then any other shooting sport. They shoot fixed or factory made ammo at sub sonic speed. The good shooters spend $22.00 for a box of 50, that amount to $2.200 a case. The ammo mite made off of machine 4 at the date of 5/20/2013. They never buy one or two boxes always case lots. Every gun take a different lot and date along with what machine it is made on. A friend of mine spent $60.000 on ammo last year. He worked all winter to get his guns shooting. They have some shoot in what they call the barn. He said all the work he had done the bullets were junk in the barn. What the work with is tuners and blob tubes .It is not on common to see a mid barrel tuner with a de resonator along with a front tuner and different length blob tube. If the can do it in fixed ammo we can do the same with center fire. Larry

 

[BoydAllen]

Do you know of anybody that is shooting a centerfire barrel with all of the stuff that you mentioned on it? I don't. Tuners work on CF. I have tested several, and some of the very top short range benchrest competitors use them, but the rest of the kit, has not made it into CF, so I would rank your statement about what can be done, at least for short range benchrest, as unproven conjecture.

 

[savagedasher]

We never seen tuners till a few years ago Now look . The other things is just a matter of time.
Larry

 

[LHSmith]

savagedasher- Two entirely different phenomena .....hummer vs. tuning
A hummer is a barrel with an intrinsic quality that for unknown reasons allows a shooter to shoot small in greater wind direction and velocity changes than with an average barrel ( It won't prevent a shot out of group in a switch).
Tuning is what a shooter does to adjust a load , or make a mechanical change to the bbl to arrive at barrel harmonics that will net the best accuracy.

 

[LHSmith]

We never seen tuners till a few years ago Now look . The other things is just a matter of time.
Larry

From what I have observed in short range BR (score) in the North East, tuners where the rage several years ago, but I see a trend where competitors are going back to either tuning loads at the match...or pre-loading at home where you have constant temp/ humidity. I have seen success using all 3 methods.

 

[BoydAllen]

One thing that many do not understand is that one of the most successful tuner users in the world (in short range benchrest) does not move his tuner during a match, but sets it up once for the widest node and then tunes conventionally after that. In my short experience with tuners, it has been my experience that having a properly adjusted weight at the end of a barrel can significantly widen ones tuning node, which is a real advantage in situations where one shoots several targets throughout the day. I think that a lot more shooters might use tuners if they realized that they are an advantage even if you find their best setting and adjust loads from there. You may also note that the shooter that I spoke of, and several other top shooters who use tuners, have a rubber, vibration damping component as part of their tuners. I have tried this as well, and believe it to be an added advantage. The bottom line is that the weight distribution of a barrel and its attachment has a significant effect on overall accuracy performance, and the traditional barrel shapes can be improved upon by the addition of tunable components, even if they are not adjusted more than once.

 

[savagedasher]

savagedasher- Two entirely different phenomena .....hummer vs. tuning
A hummer is a barrel with an intrinsic quality that for unknown reasons allows a shooter to shoot small in greater wind direction and velocity changes than with an average barrel ( It won't prevent a shot out of group in a switch).
Tuning is what a shooter does to adjust a load , or make a mechanical change to the bbl to arrive at barrel harmonics that will net the best accuracy.

Guess I never herd of or ever seen a hummer I never seen anyone dominate the shoot sport where he won every thing . Sorry I was wrong. Larry

 

[M14AMU]

Lapping a barrel is done in BPCR quite often! But in the finality 'hummer' barrels are FOUND....not BOUGHT!!

 

[M99]

OK, I'm at a loss here. I have never heard the expression "Hummer" barrel before. Of course I understand that some barrels are much better than others for many reason, and some break in far better and faster than others. However, assuming two barrels fire the same bullet at the same muzzle velocity, why would one "shoot through the wind" any better than the other would? One would certainly be more accurate than the other under no wind conditions, but what would the condition of the barrel have to do with shooting better in windy conditions, if the other barrel was "more accurate" at other times?

 

[6BRinNZ]

Assuming the concept of a "hummer" means that for a given accurate load the bullet will move less in the wind than another rifle that shoots the same bullet to the same level of precision.

Are there ballistic theories that support the concept of a "hummer" barrel?

I am a firm believer in having a science/scientific/ballistic theory being able to support an outcome. I can't see too many areas of full bore ballistics being in the uncharted category with respect to the theoretical.

If the definition is correct then I can't help but wonder if there is more theory to support the uniqueness of the bullet dimensions being the greater contributor than a barrel to handling the wind. For instance bullets of vastly different BC can be shot to the same level of precision but will have a significant difference in wind handling characteristics over distance.

 

[Terry]

A "hummer barrel" is a barrel that is extremely accurate. I tends to shoot far better that other barrels and may be more load tolerant.

 

[6BRinNZ]

Interesting - I'm not sure that is a definition a lot are working on (see below as an example). If that is the case then the theories behind a barrel tuner make more sense than trying to find a hummer barrel. From what I have read a tuner sits in both the "wider node" and "precision" parts of the definition and have the science to support.

I do like what Johara1 wrote earlier with a hummer barrel putting a bullet to sleep early thus it is stable and not affected in the near wind as much.

savagedasher- Two entirely different phenomena .....hummer vs. tuning
A hummer is a barrel with an intrinsic quality that for unknown reasons allows a shooter to shoot small in greater wind direction and velocity changes than with an average barrel ( It won't prevent a shot out of group in a switch).
Tuning is what a shooter does to adjust a load , or make a mechanical change to the bbl to arrive at barrel harmonics that will net the best accuracy.