Tuners

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Thats right. I find it very hard to argue with their success. It certainly has a poi stabilizing effect. I think thats where the notion of the wider tune comes in. I dont look at the tune as being wider as the nodes are still the same distance apart, but rather as they go out of tune they are not as bad because of the mass. Long range testing has shown me that the poi stabilizing is less desirable for us than it is at sr. So you dont see a lot on the line at a lr br match. But they are popular in F class with the guys that travel and preload.

It takes an open mind unless you're willing to do the vibration testing I have done but frankly, I have proven your view posted above to be wrong in virtually every aspect. It is what it is, so I welcome others to do the actual testing to quantify these kinda things for themselves...it's eye opening.
The nodes are measurably further apart because the bbl vibrates at a lower frequency with a weight on the end than without. The amplitude is INCREASED DURING THE TIME THE BULLET IS IN THE BORE, due to the weight at the end. This typically shows on target as POI changes, ie, sine wave testing. Yes, that defies physics but only over time. The notion that a weight on the end of a cantilevered beam reducing amplitude is true over time, but not in the very short period that the bullet is in the bore. Again, this is not me pulling it out of my backside but rather, I've tested and quantified it. I encourage anyone to do the same or similar testing. Not personal at all Alex. Just telling you what we saw and measured. Nothing subjective about it. This gets us deep into the weeds that even if I posted actual graphs, no one outside of the tests could interpret them. So I'm telling you the results now, as much as I can. Testing is how we know stuff but ultimately, the target tells us what we need to know if we are very methodical and assume nothing beforehand. There really is a methodical process to this and I'm happy to go over the procedure that I use by phone. It's a 20 minute conversation so I don't even try to type everything out. I've had this discussion with literally thousands of customers, as I only do tuner orders by phone so that we can cover it in detail, where I predict group shapes, poi, marks between sweet spots etc...before they shoot the test. I usually follow that conversation up with interpreting the customer's test results with them by phone. I've done this thousands of times now and the results I look for are virtually always there, on their target, shot by them. The list of shooters and their accomplishments with this method is a long one. I personally know of multiple shooters that win matches with this method and my tuners that you have built multiple guns for and installed the tuner because they wouldn't be without it. Am I lying?

 

[Bc'z]

running your mouf like a clapper on a ducks ass.

This is getting stashed in the memory banks of redneck wit.
I will be using this in the future.

 

[Bill Norris]

This is getting stashed in the memory banks of redneck wit.
I will be using this in the future.

Yea, an old common saying down south for sure.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Lets stay on subject

 

[tom]

Mike, I will need to look, but I'm pretty sure my "nodes" were still a grain apart in a BRA whether a tuner is attached or not. On paper of course, which is what counts.

Tom

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Mike, I will need to look, but I'm pretty sure my "nodes" were still a grain apart in a BRA whether a tuner is attached or not. On paper of course, which is what counts.

Tom

Ahh, then we actually agree more than you might think. I said previously that the node width is only very slightly widened. This is because it's true and while it's quantifiable doing vibration testing, the difference may not be seen on the target. Go back a few posts to see where I said, pretty much just that as a reason why I don't think using a tuner for the wider node is worthwhile. At least, I think I covered something to that affect a few posts prior. Lol!

I'll give a very common example that I see most every day from others' test targets....
Now, this is MY tuner. Not saying it's better or worse than others. Only that I see many, many test targets shot and sent to me using my tuner.

How many tuner marks difference, would you guess, from completely in tune to all the way out on both a 22" LV bbl and a 30" 1.250 straight? I'll tell ya...1 mark... .001 of an inch of tuner travel!

Point being, it does change, but not as much as ya might think. I don't use a tuner for added node width.

Oh, and the node width does not increase the same amount as frequency changes. Considerably less.

 

[D Coots]

The misconception is that the group guys are not turning the tuner during the day that they are only changing powder.

I for one, won't be telling all the SR Hall of Fame Shooters they're doing it all wrong.

Later

Dave

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

I for one, won't be telling all the SR Hall of Fame Shooters they're doing it all wrong.

Later

Dave

Lol!
I said a long time ago, maybe around 15 or so years ago, now. I said then that I think it's a matter of time before you either use a tuner or get beat by someone that does. I didn't say it'd happen overnight...and didn't expect it to. But it's happening pretty regularly now.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Ahh, then we actually agree more than you might think. I said previously that the node width is only very slightly widened. This is because it's true and while it's quantifiable doing vibration testing, the difference may not be seen on the target. Go back a few posts to see where I said, pretty much just that as a reason why I don't think using a tuner for the wider node is worthwhile. At least, I think I covered something to that affect a few posts prior. Lol!

I'll give a very common example that I see most every day from others' test targets....
Now, this is MY tuner. Not saying it's better or worse than others. Only that I see many, many test targets shot and sent to me using my tuner.

How many tuner marks difference, would you guess, from completely in tune to all the way out on both a 22" LV bbl and a 30" 1.250 straight? I'll tell ya...1 mark... .001 of an inch of tuner travel!

Point being, it does change, but not as much as ya might think. I don't use a tuner for added node width.

Oh, and the node width does not increase the same amount as frequency changes. Considerably less.

All I care about is what I can see on target. I dont have a preferred way to use a tuner, so your way or any other way makes no difference to me. Guys can do what they want. I am just commenting on the best sr and lr shooters I know and what feedback I get from them on target. I have always been a real world on target testing kind of guy. I like to see large samples of trends as well. I can say in my career I cant think of one time I made a guy a more successful competitor by installing a tuner. I have cured a lot by taking them off though. I think the discussion will never end. But like racing, guys will always look at what the winners doing and for good reason.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

All I care about is what I can see on target. I dont have a preferred way to use a tuner, so your way or any other way makes no difference to me. Guys can do what they want. I am just commenting on the best sr and lr shooters I know and what feedback I get from them on target. I have always been a real world on target testing kind of guy. I like to see large samples of trends as well. I can say in my career I cant think of one time I made a guy a more successful competitor by installing a tuner. I have cured a lot by taking them off though. I think the discussion will never end. But like racing, guys will always look at what the winners doing and for good reason.

Alex, I consider my testing very good alone but added to my whole customer base, I consider it a very large sample. It's not just numbers alone though and it's not just what a few top shooters do, or not. Rather, as you said, it's also about large sample sizes giving predictable and repeatable results.

 

[richard]

I guess this conversation has about gone full circle. I got a chuckle about you can never win a match using a tuner only. I'll repeat one more time. If you really learn how to use one it's the best thing since sliced bread.
They work, period. What Mike has said in on the money, I see basically the same results. Others that I have worked with are seeing the same results. I will stay with a tuner, best thing I ever did to up my game.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

I guess this conversation has about gone full circle. I got a chuckle about you can never win a match using a tuner only. I'll repeat one more time. If you really learn how to use one it's the best thing since sliced bread.
They work, period. What Mike has said in on the money, I see basically the same results. Others that I have worked with are seeing the same results. I will stay with a tuner, best thing I ever did to up my game.

I probably agree. Once people start changing the subject or taking the subject of tuners off in the weeds as opposed to what matters...how to make them work...these threads have typically run their course. Nothing really wrong with wanting to know more details but it never ends well when people that haven't tested things tell those that have..they are wrong. Lol!! It can be done but it's not what we typically see on a forum. Those things are often best done in person or at least by phone. Things on both sides of the subject just get lost in the noise. Most people don't get irate when on the phone or in person about this kinda thing but are quite opinionated online....justifiably and not.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

My experience with tuners started in 2007ish. I tested a couple of stupid ideas, like a brass ring slid down the bbl. It changed to gun and it was obvious. I had seen that they did "something" but I wasn't sure what or much less, how. A very short while later, I started testing different commercially available tuners....but not soon enough...

I went to the 2008 IBS Score nats shooting a 30 with a load that seemingly always shot great. I mean, I thought I had something for those guys! Like I said, I had just been toying with tuners until then.
Welp...Hurricane Ike came through north Ohio and all the way to the Great Lakes the weekend of the Nats and the load that had shot so well everywhere, wouldn't shoot in a bucket up there. Long story short, all I had to tune with was a seater die that for whatever reason, was set to puch the bullet back a lot. Like, from a hard jam to .030 off the lands.

Guess what! I seated about 20 or so rounds back with that die and the gun came alive, but on the last target at 100 yards. Blind luck, mostly! Remember, we're literally shooting in a hurricane. Saturday at 100 was mostly rain and Sunday at 200 was 40-45mph winds. But also remember, barometric pressure in a major storm like that is likely to be extremely low!

Anyway, a couple of things...One, the winner ran a tuner, while they were very rare in cf br.. Two, I had seen enough, between my prior testing and the bbl I had cut down that I mentioned earlier in the thread, that that was I think the last match I shot without a tuner, or very close.

Since then, I learned a tremendous amount about tuners, much of which was counter to what the instructions with those commercial tuners came with! That itself is what really set me on the path to vibration testing and learning as much as I could about this sliver of physics and what they really do. Learned a WHOLE lot but there's still more to learn. I plan to do testing soon on barrels that are pre and post cryo treated. I can say that it changes harmonics and that's the kinda place I am now and moving forward with testing. I'm still open to learning anything I can but I'm really surprised that tuners are still doubted by anyone in the shooting community. I thought that was mostly over with...Lol! When I first started, they were almost voodoo but they are quite common today and in many areas and disciplines, are now the norm on the firing line. Not everywhere, but many places. There are several factors to that.

Certainly, everyone should do what they believe in. If ya wanna use a tuner, fine. If ya don't...that's fine too.

I think this is a subject that should be discussed more rather than less. I truly believe that if everyone on here could see what I have seen, it'd be the most popular subject on every forum and at matches. I'm still pretty amazed!

 

[ELR LVR]

Alex, I consider my testing very good alone but added to my whole customer base, I consider it a very large sample. It's not just numbers alone though and it's not just what a few top shooters do, or not. Rather, as you said, it's also about large sample sizes giving predictable and repeatable results.

Having an engineering degree and having studied things like harmonics I am very interested in the science of this. And in a way am talking myself into a tuner if anything for R&D on my loads & Academic Research.
I know that every little teensie tiny thing affects how the rifle behaves even down to a 6-48 scope screw hole
Have you ever connected a transducer/O-scope of any sort and measured frequency change in any manner?

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Having an engineering degree and having studied things like harmonics I am very interested in the science of this. And in a way am talking myself into a tuner if anything for R&D on my loads.
I know that every little teensie tiny thing affects how the rifle behaves even down to a 6-48 scope screw hole
Have you ever connected a transducer/O-scope of any sort and measured frequency change in any manner?

That's exactly what kind of testing we did...twice. Vibration analysis, pressure and bullet exit timing, both in a lab and live fire. But transducers were extremely too slow to use...at the time. Not sure about now. That kinda tech changes fast.

 

[ELR LVR]

That's exactly what kind of testing we did...twice. Vibration analysis, pressure and bullet exit timing, both in a lab and live fire. But transducers were extremely too slow to use...at the time. Not sure about now. That kinda tech changes fast.

Thats good stuff
So the transducers did not allow high enough real time resolution and frequency response?
Was there noise/distortion present skewing the results?

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Not good enough real time resolution and frequency response?

Not even close, from what I recall. I was not in charge of that, though. I leave equipment for this kinda thing to people like you may be, that are more qualified than I am in setting up the testing. We were able to use a pressure trace and laser accelerometers(maybe more lol) to track bullet exit with muzzle position...and same with tuner adjustments. The latter test proved that we aren't tuning with frequency but phase time. You will likely understand but that explains why such tiny adjustments matter. The math vs angular change on target for a frequency change in a few thou of tuner travel did NOT equate. If you wanna discuss it more by phone, I can, but that gets deep in the weeds and that causes threads like this to get sideways. It's still a good thread.

 

[ELR LVR]

Not even close, from what I recall. I was not in charge of that, though. I leave equipment for this kinda things to people like you may be, that are more qualified than I am in setting up the testing. We were able to use a pressure trace and laser accelerometers(maybe more lol) to track bullet exit with muzzle position...and same with tuner adjustments. The latter test proved that we aren't tuning with frequency but phase time. You will likely understand. If you wanna discuss it more by phone, I can, but that gets deep in the weeds and that causes threads like this to get sideways. It's still a good thread.

No phone calls yet, but we're narrowing it down
By "phase time" do you mean
The Phases of different harmonics? Such as tuning the higher harmonics in to the fundamental?
Which is what I see as the biggest hurdle to tuning... is the harmonics causing standing waves
I have even felt this difference when I have a load completely WRONG, the recoil feels different.
--------------------
But when you say "not tuning with Frequency but with phase time" ... that could also mean phase time of the bullet exit in relation to the Frequency, as opposed to phase timing of the harmonics.
I could see the tuner not doing much to the Fundamental Frequency, but possibly do more to altering the harmonics since they are lower in amplitude, and possibly reducing their amplitude to the point a harmonic does not affect the fundamental frequency as much.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

No phone calls yet, but we're narrowing it down
By "phase time" do you mean
The Phases of different harmonics? Such as tuning the higher harmonics in to the fundamental?
Which is what I see as the biggest hurdle to tuning... is the harmonics causing standing waves
Because when you say not tuning with Frequency but with phase time that could also mean phase time of the bullet exit to the Frequency, as opposed to phase timing of the harmonics.
I could see the tuner not doing much to the Fundamental Frequency, but possibly altering the harmonics since they are lower in amplitude, and possibly reducing their amplitude to the point a harmonic does not affect the fundamental frequency as much.

There is a standing wave but it's not what we see on target because we tend to think in terms of frequency and that change in wave form. https://people.eecs.ku.edu/~callen58/501/Phase_and_Frequency.pdf

It's ugly, with sharp, narrow peaks and valleys. That's why a "node"(incorrect terminology" does not get proportionally wider in area as frequency is lowered.

Imagine a single waveform and a tuner shifting the top of the sine wave left or right to coincide with exit timing. We we able to view that happening as well as altering that timing with small tuner adjustments that were also apparent on target.

 

[ELR LVR]

There is a standing wave but it's not what we see on target because we tend to think in terms of frequency and that change in wave form. https://people.eecs.ku.edu/~callen58/501/Phase_and_Frequency.pdf

Imagine a single waveform and a tuner shifting the top of the sine wave left or right to coincide with exit timing. We we able to view that happening as well as altering that timing with small tuner adjustments that were also apparent on target.

Awesome man, thanks so much for your time in explaining further.
Very cool stuff
One other thing, I always figured but never proved to myself
The end of a barrel usually does not vibrate in a perfect circle, but more in an oval correct?
Also, Did you ever witness the barrel suddenly or even slightly dampen by itself,
....then go back to vibrating at full amplitude again