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Chambering and twist question - to set the record straight

Agreed I like choke if we can get it. I like gain for that reason
Both are/were common with Blackpowder and cast bullets.its not uncommon to see them at matches. Mostly smaller manufacturers, but they are catering to a smaller crowd.

Ron Smith, RKS barrels out of Canada does left hand, choked, gain twist. Borchardt Rifle company is another that offers choked barrels.
I know there are others.

Krieger May offer a choked barrel. There was a run of barrels some time ago that were specifically for Blackpowder. Krieger offers “Henry rifling” and some were sold as having a choked bore. I don’t know if the choke was done at Krieger, or after the fact.

As I said before, I have a couple left twist barrels and the biggest problem is switching back and forth. More so off hand, and critically when making windage adjustments/calculations.
 
Both are/were common with Blackpowder and cast bullets.its not uncommon to see them at matches. Mostly smaller manufacturers, but they are catering to a smaller crowd.

Ron Smith, RKS barrels out of Canada does left hand, choked, gain twist. Borchardt Rifle company is another that offers choked barrels.
I know there are others.

Krieger May offer a choked barrel. There was a run of barrels some time ago that were specifically for Blackpowder. Krieger offers “Henry rifling” and some were sold as having a choked bore. I don’t know if the choke was done at Krieger, or after the fact.

As I said before, I have a couple left twist barrels and the biggest problem is switching back and forth. More so off hand, and critically when making windage adjustments/calculations.
Krieger used to have it in their literature that their blanks where within a tenth of being dead straight in the groove diameter, but, if there was any choke present, it would always be tighter toward the muzzle end.
 
Krieger used to have it in their literature that their blanks where within a tenth of being dead straight in the groove diameter, but, if there was any choke present, it would always be tighter toward the muzzle end.
I think they still state that, they also offer limited custom bores catering to cast bullet shooters. Number and width of lands. But I can’t find anything about a choke.

These are the barrel I was referring to, not sure if the choke was done by Krieger, it hard to imagine the vendor losing any chance of a warranty by doing it.

 
This is an area where rimfire and cf are different. I can see value in rf but not in cf. I don't want it belled at the muzzle end but think about it for a minute....Every time you pull the trigger in a cf, the bbl swells and as the bullet traverses the bbl, the pressure drops...A built in choke. Difference between rf and cf is rf uses a dead soft lead slug and only has a couple or maybe a few hundred psi of muzzle pressure. A cf has maybe 5000-8000 psi of muzzle pressure and a jacketed bullet. TIFWIW. If ya don't think the bbl swells...it's the whole premise behind the Pressure Trace systems to measure bbl pressure using strain gauges to measure bbl stretch. It's sensitive enough to faintly see the primer light off in a 1.250 cf bbl. What happens to a lead cored bullet under 5000-8000 psi? It obturates to fit the bore size. Not conjecture.
 
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I have a friend of mine that sold a rifle and the new owner of this rifle has started calling him and making claims...here is the gist of things.....he claims the rifle did not shoot good and when he took it to his gunsmith, the gunsmith told him that the barrel blank had been chambered on the muzzle end of the blank instead of the chamber end of the blank and in doing this, it now turned this right hand twist barrel into a left hand twist and that is the reason that it is supposedly not shooting as good as it should.
This is the honest to god truth...both the guy and the GUNSMITH are claiming that the right hand twist barrel has now become a left hand twist simply by chambering it on the "other" end and that is why it is not shooting well.
I have spoken with some VERY competent gunsmiths and when they quit laughing, they immediately answer "absolutely not"!! I guess I am posing this dilemma here for the "gunsmiths" on here that might chime in and hopefully the individual will read this and maybe learn a little something. Probably the best thing to come of this would be that he looks for another gunsmith.

Your thoughts? Fire away!

Thanks,
Gene
I hate when I assemble a threaded rod the wrong way and I need to buy new nuts.
 
I have a friend of mine that sold a rifle and the new owner of this rifle has started calling him and making claims...here is the gist of things.....he claims the rifle did not shoot good and when he took it to his gunsmith, the gunsmith told him that the barrel blank had been chambered on the muzzle end of the blank instead of the chamber end of the blank and in doing this, it now turned this right hand twist barrel into a left hand twist and that is the reason that it is supposedly not shooting as good as it should.
This is the honest to god truth...both the guy and the GUNSMITH are claiming that the right hand twist barrel has now become a left hand twist simply by chambering it on the "other" end and that is why it is not shooting well.
I have spoken with some VERY competent gunsmiths and when they quit laughing, they immediately answer "absolutely not"!! I guess I am posing this dilemma here for the "gunsmiths" on here that might chime in and hopefully the individual will read this and maybe learn a little something. Probably the best thing to come of this would be that he looks for another gunsmith.

Your thoughts? Fire away!

Thanks,
Gene
Well that absolutely cracks me up!

Guess I'll have to watch this one with a snack!

1717171110056.gif
 
When James Lederer was at Rock Creek, he would do a .0002 choke over the last few inches on the non 5R ;) 17 twist .30 barrels he did for me. Shot like hammers.
Best 30 barrel that I ever had was one he did several years ago when he was at Rock Creek. A skilled person can lap a barrel to have a choke, but how would you do that with a gain twist?
 
Im not upset. Your just in the minority if your intending to put choke in your barrels. Ive handled some of them.
There are lots of unconventional shapes, sizes and designs put into our barrels. These differences is what we believed to help Bernard win the 2023 F Class World Championships by an 8 point gap to second place in F Open, that is twice the amount of point gap that the previous world championship had. Perfectly shaped grooves make for nice social media videos, and those can shoot excellent also, but we strive for making the most accurate barrels possible, not the necessarily prettiest... Bernard also just placed second at the South African Nationals this year with a different barrel of ours as well... We also never stop testing, what we found worked good 4 years ago is now obsolete as we have found different designs work even better. Since we are also competitive shooters that make our barrels in our shop, we get to test all sorts of designs and theories that may or may not make sense on paper, or may or may not work well in real life testing.

We can actually control choke by the amount of oil pressure, depth of cut, etc. when we single point rifle.
 
There are lots of unconventional shapes, sizes and designs put into our barrels. These differences is what we believed to help Bernard win the 2023 F Class World Championships by an 8 point gap to second place in F Open, that is twice the amount of point gap that the previous world championship had. Perfectly shaped grooves make for nice social media videos, and those can shoot excellent also, but we strive for making the most accurate barrels possible, not the necessarily prettiest... Bernard also just placed second at the South African Nationals this year with a different barrel of ours as well... We also never stop testing, what we found worked good 4 years ago is now obsolete as we have found different designs work even better. Since we are also competitive shooters that make our barrels in our shop, we get to test all sorts of designs and theories that may or may not make sense on paper, or may or may not work well in real life testing.

We can actually control choke by the amount of oil pressure, depth of cut, etc. when we single point rifle.
I also do my share of testing here and continue to do so. I base my opinions on results, I dont have a facebook or youtube. I pay very close attention to how every one looks and when they do well or they do poorly I have an idea of how that barrel was shaped and measured. We all try to pay attention so we can gain that advantage. After looking in many thousands of chambered barrels I know what I want to see.

I also dont look at score. I have rifles that have broken year long score agg records that would not come close for group. Some have broken score records that would place in group. Point is, theres no direct correlation between group and score.

Probably the main reason I dont like "shapes" in a barrel is that they dont seem to be consistent. The makers that have shapes seem to have a hard time doing the same thing every time. The ones that have a correct groove radius seem to reproduce that much easier. It would make sense that it would be easier to grind that tool. I like consistency. It allows me to make changes that are predictable. It also allows the shooter to run almost the same load in each barrel.
 
I also do my share of testing here and continue to do so. I base my opinions on results, I dont have a facebook or youtube. I pay very close attention to how every one looks and when they do well or they do poorly I have an idea of how that barrel was shaped and measured. We all try to pay attention so we can gain that advantage. After looking in many thousands of chambered barrels I know what I want to see.

I also dont look at score. I have rifles that have broken year long score agg records that would not come close for group. Some have broken score records that would place in group. Point is, theres no direct correlation between group and score.

Probably the main reason I dont like "shapes" in a barrel is that they dont seem to be consistent. The makers that have shapes seem to have a hard time doing the same thing every time. The ones that have a correct groove radius seem to reproduce that much easier. It would make sense that it would be easier to grind that tool. I like consistency. It allows me to make changes that are predictable. It also allows the shooter to run almost the same load in each barrel.
So if I show you different types of rifling, shapes, sizes, etc you can predict how well they will shoot?
 

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