fire cracking

[nilebartram]

can anybody

explain what fire cracking is to me? A person wants to sell me a barrel. He said that it has fire cracking in the throat. Thanks, nilebartram

 

[FergusBailey]

Fire cracking in the barrel is the gas cutting of the barrel steel from the propellant gasses leaving the cartridge. All barrels that have been fired will have SOME fire cracking at the throat - it starts to add up very quickly. The issue you need to consider when buying a rifle is HOW MUCH fire cracking a barrel has.

As fire cracking in a barrel gets more noticeable, the steel at the chamber end of the barrel begins to resemble the pattern made by the edge of a dam as the water recedes and the ground dries out. It can also be referred to as "alligator skin". The worse the fire cracking becomes, the more accuracy is likely to deteriorate as the bullets going down the barrel can have significant copper stripped from the jacket, and the more of that jacket material is likely to be deposited in the fissures in the bore. Neither of those factors is going to help the rifle shoot well.

Its very difficult to assess the state of a rifle barrel bore externally. You really need to have a bore scope to understand what is going on down the barrel. Though as always what it does on paper is a reasonable indicator.

However I know of some barrels that have been shot to such an extent that the lands of the barrel have been completely washed of by propellant gas cutting. The only rifling left in the barrel is in the last 6 or so inches at the muzzle end, though the rifle still shoots surprisingly well considering the state of the barrel. You will really only get the full story with a bore scope.

 

[Wolfdawg]

OR...

Something we do on the 4th of July.... ;D ;D

I would go with Fergus' explination though

Wolfdawg