Hammer forged cut rifling combination?

[ireload2]

No its not irrelevant. Part and parcel to all manufacturing processes are the economics.
You are missing part of the story of barrel making. You have never mentioned lapping the barrel.
I think you will find that lapping is the secret sauce that provides the last bit of uniformity in a barrel.
Remington laps or at least used to lap their 40X BR barrels. Badger lapped his barrels. I am pretty sure that Pope lapped his barrels.
I used to work with a guy that had made barrels for Bill Wiseman and those barrels were lapped.
You just admitted that not all of Steyr barrels were of top quality so for the price some of them are mediocre too.
Steyr barrels might be better if they were lapped but they would cost even more.

[QUOTE="Hopkins, post: 36755814, member: 1282698"
The fact that Ruger, Winchester and Remington are using hammer forging to mass produce mediocre barrels is irrelevant.[/QUOTE]

 

[jonbearman]

In the end you are probably better served by bartlein being number 1 then brux which edged kreiger out this year and last for the most used barrel for F-Class. They are all around the same price so pick one and have it made, you will be very happy you did in the end.

 

[shortgrass]

You could maybe drag a broach thru if you had some sort of lead on it to align with the rifling.

Man,,,, it'd take a load of horse power to drive or drag a broach through 28" of barrel steel. And think of the tooling cost! Even the cost of a good, USA made key way broach will shock the daylights out of most folks,,,,,, and an imported one isn't a whole lot cheaper.....

 

[hoz53]

Man,,,, it'd take a load of horse power to drive or drag a broach through 28" of barrel steel. And think of the tooling cost! Even the cost of a good, USA made key way broach will shock the daylights out of most folks,,,,,, and an imported one isn't a whole lot cheaper.....

Ok I'm asking cause I no machinist and am just trying to learn something. Could they pull a cutter through the hammer forged barrel similar to one used to rifle a button rifled barrel?

 

[SBS]

Button rifling does not use cutters; it forms the rifling with a carbide button. You can broach cut rifling; Winchester went from cut rifling to broached rifling to save costs around 1952 for sporter barrels and these have some of the worst machining marks of any barrels. They used a series of staggered broaches on a rod that were progressively taller with the last set determining the final groove diameter. All the chips were dragged along, resulting in a much rougher barrel.

 

[hoz53]

Button rifling does not use cutters; it forms the rifling with a carbide button. You can broach cut rifling; Winchester went from cut rifling to broached rifling to save costs around 1952 for sporter barrels and these have some of the worst machining marks of any barrels. They used a series of staggered broaches on a rod that were progressively taller with the last set determining the final groove diameter. All the chips were dragged along, resulting in a much rougher barrel.

Thanks for that info SBS.

 

[Zero333]

I was a retail gun dealer then and Steyr had guaranteed accuracy for a 3 shot group 1cm @ 100m 30 years ago for all of its bolt guns. I know they stood behind it because we exercised the guarantee and used it to have some rifles replaced that failed it. The SSG's we sold at that time were much better than the other Steyr rifles.
Hammer forged barrels are being disqualified for inaccuracy because they don't post sub .100" 10 shot strings from bench competition. Damned few cut rifle barrels do either no matter how carefully crafted they are. I don't think I have ever seen 1.25" diameter 6mm hammer forged barrel. The fact that Ruger, Winchester and Remington are using hammer forging to mass produce mediocre barrels is irrelevant.

You realize that 1cm at 100 meters translates to 0.36 moa ??? Regardless if it's true or not, it's hard to swallow that kind of claim.

 

[BoydAllen]

Following the OP's questions, I get the sense that he thinks that there would be some advantage from starting with hammer forging before cutting. Perhaps this is because of the extreme level of BS relating to "cold hammer forging" that seems to have permeated the black rifle part of the internet. IMO there would be absolutely no advantage to combining that process with cut rifling, particularly for the purpose of producing the highest quality.

 

[Hopkins]

Tired of being accused of being in the thrall of black gun lore. I have a couple of hammer forged barrels that will shoot 5 shot groups in the 1/2 MOA at 100 yards or better. I have a krieger barrel that will shoot in the 1/4 MOA at the same distance so I am not discounting quality cut rifle barrels and their performance.
I respect Steyr and their ability produce an accurate rifle barrel with cold hammer forging. I have seen the FNH test targets for their version of the SSG and those are also in the 1cm@ 100m parameter.
My initial post was to frame the question if any member was aware of any additional procedures to hammer forging rifling that could improve performance. One member responded that lapping was the answer.

 

[GerryM]

I can only imagine what stresses are induced with hammer forging.
The amount of stresses and where they are have a lot to do with consistent accuracy.
Quality barrels need several thing here are a few stress relief quality reaming , quality rifling.
Makes no difference what type of rifling, Lapping to finish and uniformity.

 

[BoydAllen]

I am also an admirer of Steyr, and have nothing negative to say about their barrels. The truth is that proper evaluation of a top level hammer forged barrel would require a rifle to be built in the style, and caliber that is used for benchrest competition. This is because fine accuracy is a weakest link thing. If a rifle performs at a certain level of accuracy, it may NOT be because of the method by which the barrel is manufactured. It may be because a number of other significant factors. Stock design, action design, action bedding, chamber design, caliber, trigger weight, the ability of a rest system to deliver shot to shot consistency in how the rifle is supported, based on how the stock interfaces with the sand bags, barrel weight and contour, caliber selection, rifling twist....these all effect accuracy independently of barrel quality. On the subject of barrel lapping, this is best done by the manufacturer, and yes, I believe that it puts the final edge on the accuracy of the best performing barrels. Back in the day, when I was doing all of my shooting with factory Remington rifles in varmint calibers, that had been bedded (to the best of my ability, which would have been less than perfect) I was able to shoot five shot groups that were in the 3/8" range, with the best of them, and under half inch with all of them. I believe that these barrels would have been hammer forged. None of those rifles had the advantage of a proper benchrest stock or trigger,or had had their actions blueprinted, and the barrels were sporter weight. At the time, I was not loading at the range, or using wind flags, so these were not aggregates, but rather lucky occurrences that became "wallet groups" Later, when I started loading at the range, and using flags, my results became more consistent. Recently, I have become friends with a fellow that has done some successful lapping of finished barrels, it is a tricky business, requiring much skill, that is obtained by making expensive mistakes. For most of us, including gunsmiths, I believe that it should be avoided.

 

[Hopkins]

I would imagine lapping a finished barrel is a recipe for disaster more often than the opposite.
I'm not aware a source for "top level hammer forged" barrels that can be used to build a rifle that would support a fair test of their possible performance. I would welcome one.

 

[ireload2]

Lapping is really one of the processes used to finish a quality barrel. The variations at end of the lapping strokes are usually removed by the chamber on one end and cutting off a couple of inches at the muzzle. Probably one of the first things a person should do with some new barrels is to run a lead slug through it to feel for tight and loose spots. I had a used but like new rifle with a banded front sight and a banded sling swivel base that would not keep more than about 2 shots out of 5 on a 24" X 24" target at 100 yards. The tight spot at the band was .001" smaller than the groove dia at the breech and was about 1" long. The tight spot at the muzzle was about .0015" by 1" long. I thought about lapping the sling band location and leaving the choke at the muzzle. However if I messed it up I would own it. As it was it cost me $15 to ship the rifle back to the manufacturer and they installed a new barrel at no cost. They also tested it and sent the test target back.
Lapping a finished barrel would not be a big deal if you only view it as a means to keep the barrel out of the tomato vines. But I would recommend that you practice on a dozen expendable barrels first. If you are thinking about lapping a serious barrel you either need a lot of skill and practice or you need to buy your barrels from someone that does the lapping on the product that you buy.

Pedersoli laps their lead bullet barrels. It is shown on this video.
The barrels are rifled by broaching. Pedersoli is not a boutique barrel maker but they do have well engineered manufacturing processes.

Recently, I have become friends with a fellow that has done some successful lapping of finished barrels, it is a tricky business, requiring much skill, that is obtained by making expensive mistakes. For most of us, including gunsmiths, I believe that it should be avoided.

 

[GerryM]

I believe that some people are missing the point I have talked about.
Stress in the barrel blanks raise havoc to the quality of the barrels
To make those guilt edge barrels the blanks need to be as stress free as possible.
That,s the culprit. If the finished barrel is not stress free it is going to walk''
What i mean by walk is as it heats up the impact point will change.
It can be partially solved b being drawn{heat treat}
Thats one of the barrel makers biggest problems.
The problem lies at the mills where the bars are rolled. The handelng of the white hot bars is
poor. Ive seen them picked up and bent from handeling. Those bends have to be cut off the bar stock at cutting to length.
Now here we go hammering the heck out of the bar stock to make it longer .
It would be fine if we were making SWARDS.
It pretty crude. I know there have been some pretty fair results with the hammer forge process........
I believe it the exception and not the rule for a high quality barrel.

 

[Hopkins]

I'm not disputing the stress point but I would think that a rapid fired hammer forged machine gun barrel would walk more than it does if the issue was that clearly demonstrable.

 

[Concha]

Sounds like we need to make barrels out of 1144 SP

 

[Raythemanroe]

AI find all of this fascination for hammer forged barrels to be interesting, given the fact that Ruger's, Remington's, and Winchester's ordinary barrels are made that way. As far as I am aware, cut rifling is way too slow and expensive for any production rifle. If you are aiming at large volume, and low cost per barrel, for production rifles, hammer forging is the way to go. That is its sole advantage. If you are saturated with the lore from tactical and/or black rifle sites, you may be under the false impression that the process imparts some sort of magic. It does not. On the other hand, with proper attention to quality control, they can be perfectly serviceable barrels, just understand that top quality cut barrels pretty much own the benchrest accuracy games, with a few button barrels thrown in.

I know this is an older post Boyd, but my thought would be like the OP but with button rifling.. A hammer forged barrel blank (zero rifling) then lapped or honed before a button is pushed or pulled through.. I feel this could make for some high precision mass produced production barrels.. Just a thought, sorry I didn't read the entire thread..

Ray

 

[BoydAllen]

I would imagine that barrel makers, and rifle manufacturers are well aware of their barrel making options and the associated costs, and time constraints.

This came from an earlier post in this thread.
"Hammer forged barrels are being disqualified for inaccuracy because they don't post sub .100" 10 shot strings from bench competition."
Actually, no one said that. To me it seems to be an exaggeration for the purpose of argument.

 

[Raythemanroe]

Button rifling may not work with hammer forging, the stress relieving may be to timely..

Ray

 

[butchlambert]

People with too much time on their hands. Let's see, have you loaded bullets backward? How did they shoot?