Hammer Forged Barrel - Pros and Cons?

[Raythemanroe]

sleepygator,

I understand (kind of) where you fellas are coming from..I would think a company wouldn't invest large amount of capital in something if it were junk! That being said, I also think it would be much cheaper to hammer out barrels for law enforcement and military alike then say a cut barrel and button. I guess if the hammered barrels are cheaper to manufacture and if they were better or very close to a custom why would the military use anything else? Is it cause the button barrels are produced much faster or am I missing some of the other things Phil?

 

[Ing. Michael W. Mayerl]

Why would the military purchase it's sniper rifle barrels from small non hammer forged barrel makers?

In europe nearly every police and military sniper rifle has a hammer forged barrel - and they also hit their targets:

SIG SSG 3000 / STR
Steyr SSG 69
Steyr SSG 04
Steyr SSG 04
Heckler + Koch
Sako TRG
Blaser
FN
CZ

Most of them have a hammer forged chamber and throat. It`s hammer forged in one step so every chamber, throat and groove / land is the same - that guarantie a very high regularity.

You will find a lot of tests in the internet with this sniper rifles and it`s "out of the box" accuracy:

http://www.outdoorlife.com/videos/outdoorlife/guns/rifles/2013/05/gun-test-sig-sauer-ssg-3000

http://www.6mmbr.com/gunweek069.html


I`ve anyone here want to compare a hammer forged barrel against a cut or buttoned, I suggest to buy good hammer forged blanks in 308 Win / 12" twist in europe. That`s a good basic to make identical barrels in different manufacturing methods in a prooven caliber and twist length.

 

[Ing. Michael W. Mayerl]

I guess if the hammered barrels are cheaper to manufacture

Hammer forged barrels are not cheaper.
They must first be drilled and honned like a button or cut rifled barrel.
To get the grooves in the barrel, button rifling is the fastest - much faster than hammer forging. But a hammer forged barrel need less prework and won`t shift it`s inner diameter dramatically when the contour is turned so less danger of bad barrels and no lapping etc - and that safe money.
With hammer forging it`s much easier to get a safe and accurate manufacturing process - and thats the reason why big manufacturer prever this method.

 

[Steve Blair]

sleepygator,

I understand (kind of) where you fellas are coming from..I would think a company wouldn't invest large amount of capital in something if it were junk! That being said, I also think it would be much cheaper to hammer out barrels for law enforcement and military alike then say a cut barrel and button. I guess if the hammered barrels are cheaper to manufacture and if they were better or very close to a custom why would the military use anything else? Is it cause the button barrels are produced much faster or am I missing some of the other things Phil?

[br]
The slowest and most expensive way to rifle is single point cut. It also provides the highest degree of control. Broach rifled barrels (like Ernie Stallman made at Badger) are faster, but the tooling is expensive and are limited to twist based upon the broach. Button rifling is the cheapest way to rifle. The button itself is relatively inexpensive and the process is fast. ECM is also reasonably fast, but equipment is expensive. The advantage of ECM is that it can rifle electrically conductive materials, regardless of hardness. Hammer forging is reasonably fast, but equipment is expensive. It can use materials, that by reason of alloy or hardness, are difficult to rifle except by ECM. [br]
Barrels are purchased for a variety of reasons and some processes are better suited to a given set of criteria than others. Prior to Ernie's barrels, most people would have said that broaching is only good for production. He proved that wrong. As Michael noted, some military sniper rifles with hammer forged barrels do shoot very well. My Steyr SSG, purchased new in 1979, shot very well up to ~8,000 rounds.

 

[Raythemanroe]

I suppose I will see these on all the European leader boards then right?
SIG SSG 3000 / STR
Steyr SSG 69
Steyr SSG 04
Steyr SSG 04
Heckler + Koch
Sako TRG
Blaser
FN
CZ

 

[Raythemanroe]

I guess if the hammered barrels are cheaper to manufacture

Hammer forged barrels are not cheaper.
They must first be drilled and honned like a button or cut rifled barrel.
To get the grooves in the barrel, button rifling is the fastest - much faster than hammer forging. But a hammer forged barrel need less prework and won`t shift it`s inner diameter dramatically when the contour is turned so less danger of bad barrels and no lapping etc - and that safe money.
With hammer forging it`s much easier to get a safe and accurate manufacturing process - and thats the reason why big manufacturer prever this method.

There not cheaper? So the only reason to invest in the equipment over button rifling (just read it's the cheapest) is quality? Man, I need to get some investors in my new HF equipment, I'm gonna take over the custom business! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

[Raythemanroe]

I can think of four deciding factors in purchasing a barrel! 1. Cost 2. Quality 3.availability (production)4.Custom needs (twist, length and contour). I associate the leader boards of most shooting sports with quality products. I don't associate production with quality or cost with quality! I guess unless you guy's can show me a majority of events in the precision shooting world (bench rest) are being won by HF barrels I guess I will have to go through life drinking my home made juice!

 

[Raythemanroe]

Do you all think Hammer Forging came about for the thought of precision?

 

[Kermit in Va.]

I wander if Ray likes HF bbls... LOL


Kermit

 

[Raythemanroe]

I do, but I don't believe there better and I haven't heard a argument to make me think different other then opinion..Is custom cut and button barrels worth the money, depends on the use!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrmWN0igJY0

 

[barnesuser28]

That bottom line is that, all attributes considered, there are no competitive barrels that are hammer forged.

We can get them from different barrel smiths. We can get them button rifled or cut rifled. There is even one maker that doesn't hand lap.

But none are hammer forged.

Who doesnt lap their barrels?

 

[Raythemanroe]

I have heard CM shilen barrels are not lapped

 

[CatShooter]

I have heard CM Shilen barrels are not lapped

The can be lapped if you request it.

 

[Ing. Michael W. Mayerl]

There not cheaper? So the only reason to invest in the equipment over button rifling (just read it's the cheapest) is quality? Man, I need to get some investors in my new HF equipment, I'm gonna take over the custom business! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

When you want to start with hammer forging barrels, an investment of about 1,75 Mio € will be necessary for forging machine, mandrels, cnc lathe, deep hole drilling machines and honing machines. An oven will be good too for tempering.
You must realy make a lot of barrels get back the money for this investment

Someone has talked about ECR rifling. I have also experience with this technology but this method is not industrial used for rifle barrels - only for pistols - because the lifetime of the copper tool is not high enough for rifle barrels.
Well made it`s cheaper to produce pistol barrels than using hammer forged blanks. First the barrel is 100% made in one step from long steel rods on one CNC machine and the next step is the erosion of the grooves and lands. The result is a very accurate and cheap pistol barrel.
The tool lifetime is about 300-500 pistol barrels and the tool is tricky to make.

 

[LHSmith]

In Benchrest Competition it's all about the AGG (aggregate)..... minimum of 6 rounds typically in one short-range MATCH with the days yardage agg contesting a total of 5 matches....... ain't ever going to win or even place with a barrel with inherent stress demons that show themselves after the barrel heats up ..... and , as said, the hammer forging process is hands-down winner in inducing barrel stress.
BR success is measured to the ten thousandth's of an inch @ 100 & 200 yards.......I don't think the LE community holds that stringent of a standard.

BTW add Green Mountain to the list of UNlapped barrels.

 

[LHSmith]

I am pretty sure Shilen laps all their SS bbls, both match, and select match. As said lapping a Shilen CM is optional at extra cost.

 

[barnesuser28]

Who doesn't lap their barrels??? Savage, Remington, Winchester, Douglas, Howa, and most other manufacturers. Shilen laps its Select Match and any other grades at extra cost. Good shooting....James

I meant after market barrels. Thanks guys.

 

[Ing. Michael W. Mayerl]

Here is a very nice article:

http://www.vsms.org/Forum/Seite_34_forget-barrels/S34.htm

 

[Phil3]

Very informative! Well worth the time to read. Interesting info like, "...Oddly enough, most hammer forgers don’t stress relieve the blanks after forging. Many tests have been run, and no significant accuracy difference has been noted between stress relieved and non-stress relieved barrels, at least not in factory sporter or varmint rifles...". The authors are well qualified, probably forgetting more about hammer forging than I will ever know in my life time.

More fascinating stuff.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117177767/Notes-on-Hammer-Forged-Barrels

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117177535/Cold-Forging-Book

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117177603/ExperimentswithHammerForgedBarrelsonAR-15s

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117177687/Experiments-With-Hammer-Forged-Barrels-on-AR-15s-Part-II

Phil

 

[D-mon]

So, who is up to doing a test with 6mm HF blank chambered in 6 ppc or 6 mmbr and mounted on a BR rig?
And where would you get such a blank? Ruger? Steyr ?

Nd