Infrared Thermometer for Barrel temp?

[lpreddick]

another possibility: many years ago i bought an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer from radio shack that had a sensor that i taped to my barrel just in front of the chamber. the temp was recorded every few min or so and i could watch it rise to whatever level i chose as the max for load testing. when that max was reached, i stopped shooting, waited until the temp came down to the desired temp, then resume shooting. ther are probably newer such devices that record temp instantly. the thing i bought cost very little and was of some use for load development,especially during the summer. [/quote] if i can see you, i can touch you. BANG!

 

[shootingsight]

One of the first lessons you learn in using an industrial IR camera is that reflective metal surfaces cannot be read with accuracy. If you think of it, this thing is basically a camera, and is trying to tell what color the object is you are looking at. If you point the camera at a mirror, you will not see the color of the mirror, you will see the color of whatever object is being reflected by the mirror. Metal surfaces reflect IR like a mirror reflects light.

Get some black electrcal tape and put that on your barrel, then take the reading on the tape.

Art

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

One of the first lessons you learn in using an industrial IR camera is that reflective metal surfaces cannot be read with accuracy. If you think of it, this thing is basically a camera, and is trying to tell what color the object is you are looking at. If you point the camera at a mirror, you will not see the color of the mirror, you will see the color of whatever object is being reflected by the mirror. Metal surfaces reflect IR like a mirror reflects light.

Get some black electrcal tape and put that on your barrel, then take the reading on the tape.

Art

I'm certainly not arguing, but I've seen some pretty high temps on chrome bumpers in the summer. I don't know enough about them to doubt what you say, but one that I remember, in particular, was on a truck that had just pulled into the garage and it was shaded from outside heat. I would have to suspect that whatever it was reflecting was near room temperature. I used to sell tools for a few years, but honestly, too many to know all of the details to every one of them. What you say does interest me.--Mike

 

[shootingsight]

To be clear, it is not impossible to read on metal surfaces, just very prone to error. If you are looking at a mirror, and reading exactly the spot that is reflecting the camera lens - ie a spot that is perfectly perpendicular to the lens, you might have less error than if you were seeing the reflection of a heat source.

The black tape is just to make the surface non-reflective, so you are reading the true radiant heat source, versus any reflections.

I also seem to recall that to get really accurate readings, you need to do a black body calibration to adjust for the specific emissivity of a surface you are reading. I suspect low end cameras do not do this, however I also do not recall if this was a major error, or just a fine tuning type of thing. It's been several years since I used this equipment.

Art