I see the thread on Brian Litz and tuners is raging on and is now up to 7 pages. But I do not see much that is being accomplished to learn why and how they work. Brian seems willing to do a technical evaluation of tuners so why not help him design a meaningful test that would help us to understand why and how they work? This would be more productive than calling his baby ugly. Many do not care how or why as long as they get the results they want and that is ok. Many believe that thay have obtained positive results and do not care about the how or why and that is ok. But others enjoy learning the why and how of technical aspects of our sport. So why not take advantage of Brians willingness to do the testing and data evaluation?
Tunner Test Design
- Thread starter chkunz
- Start date
It has been offered multiple times and by multiple people. I simply don't know what else to say. I share my method on here freely and often but he has not tried it nor reached out for any input. All this mess could have been avoided if that was what he wanted.
In plain english, by moving a weight near the muzzle forwards or backwards, it changes the harmonics. You want the bullet to exit at a certain point in the barrels sinusoidal movement.
I ahve been using tuners for over 35 years. The earliest I remember, was a rubber doughnut you put in the barrel and tried to move it towards or away from the barrel. Then came Browing and the BOSS. I love this one because if you were using factory ammo, Browing/Winchester gave you starting points for various choices. If you handloaded, you could still these as a starting point.
My question is, WHAT did Litz and EC say about the BOSS when it came out? I am willing to bet they were loud opponents untill well after the patent expired.
I ahve been using tuners for over 35 years. The earliest I remember, was a rubber doughnut you put in the barrel and tried to move it towards or away from the barrel. Then came Browing and the BOSS. I love this one because if you were using factory ammo, Browing/Winchester gave you starting points for various choices. If you handloaded, you could still these as a starting point.
My question is, WHAT did Litz and EC say about the BOSS when it came out? I am willing to bet they were loud opponents untill well after the patent expired.
Both acknowledged the Boss but I did not hear either of them say anything detrimental concerning it.
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
Bryan needs to pretend that he knows nothing and speak with some top Benchrest or F class shooters, who are winning with tuners, and learn why they decided to use them (as Erik did) and how they set them up.
IMO if we limit ourselves to what we already understand, we will never discover anything completely new. Sometimes we need to just try things and see what happens. If it works we learned something. If it does not, we still learned something. The important thing to understand is that just because we do not understand why, does not mean it does or does not work.
My old friend Del Bishop once told me that when testing a load change, that I needed to make a change that was large enough to be seen, and that even that changing something made accuracy worse, he learned that it mattered.
I would say that Bryan may be under the impression that he knows how everything related to ballistics works, and he may, but strictly speaking, this is not that.
IMO changing the position of a weight on the muzzle of a barrel effects the point in the muzzles travel where the bullets that will form a group on the target are released within that cycle.
As far as test design goes, I think that he needs to work with a winning benchrest shooter, supplying barrel bullets and powder, and let the shooter demonstrate what he has seen in his own testing. Then he needs to use the same equipment and shooting technique to duplicate those results. At that point he will be a lot more qualified to comment on and test tuners.
IMO if we limit ourselves to what we already understand, we will never discover anything completely new. Sometimes we need to just try things and see what happens. If it works we learned something. If it does not, we still learned something. The important thing to understand is that just because we do not understand why, does not mean it does or does not work.
My old friend Del Bishop once told me that when testing a load change, that I needed to make a change that was large enough to be seen, and that even that changing something made accuracy worse, he learned that it mattered.
I would say that Bryan may be under the impression that he knows how everything related to ballistics works, and he may, but strictly speaking, this is not that.
IMO changing the position of a weight on the muzzle of a barrel effects the point in the muzzles travel where the bullets that will form a group on the target are released within that cycle.
As far as test design goes, I think that he needs to work with a winning benchrest shooter, supplying barrel bullets and powder, and let the shooter demonstrate what he has seen in his own testing. Then he needs to use the same equipment and shooting technique to duplicate those results. At that point he will be a lot more qualified to comment on and test tuners.
Probably the best info and direction Bryan could follow going foward.
Absolutely right Boyd. Clearly, Bryan is not dumb but there's a huge difference in being dumb vs ignorant of a very specific subject. Just as clearly to many, he published a book with a chapter dedicated to a subject to which he is just as clearly ignorant of. I'm just a ky hillbilly but I'm not dumb and on this very specific subject, I've taken the time to NOT be ignorant on. What I publish has been thoroughly tested BEFORE I post it unless I clearly state it as opinion or untested. And I had the help of extremely qualified people in this specific field to help and do the testing because I recognize that there is benefit to knowledge and education on this subject. I had simply done testing and seen on target that they were worth while. My more scientific testing has been in depth and not alone, as I don't consider myself qualified to do everything we have done. But ultimately, the results of vibration testing did yield good info but it mostly just supported what this hillbilly had already seen. You don't need to be an engineer to use a tuner but you can't make wrong assumptions in how you go about it, expecting good data to come from it...nor good results.
If you had watched the video, you would have heard Erik say that he owned a Browning with BOSS, used it and it worked.
CharlieNC
Gold $$ Contributor
Any research is typically preceeded by a review of the work which was previously done. Engineering theories and calculations abound, Vaughn and Kolbe have instrumented barrels while shooting to document the behavior vs the shot. Kolbe shows why "A" tuner worked via positive compensation. There are numerous potential approaches, and a few months ago I reported using these previous studies to show how the movement of the poi on the target can be used to determine the barrel frequency associated with charge weight tuning. There is no lack of readily available information that can be used to formulate a research plan to understand this for one who has the time and money to do so.
I am nit talking about now, I am talking 20-30 years ago
Do you by any chance have a summary to share?
I'm not sure how old Bryan is but I'd say he was quite young at the time. Browning's patent expired in 2014. No coincidence, that's when I began making tuners after about 7-8 years of testing them.
Not too long ago, I was visciouly attacked on a couple of forums any time I mentioned QL (before GRT was known) or tuners, especially BOSS. I have also observed various makers of components ridicule something untill they either got paid to promote it or made it themselves. That is why I am slow to jump on bandwagons.
Yes, tuners WORK. Yes QL and GRT WORK if you use them as designed.
I am glad now we have so many choices and more people coming out with various options
And now I will get off my soapbox
Yes, tuners WORK. Yes QL and GRT WORK if you use them as designed.
I am glad now we have so many choices and more people coming out with various options
And now I will get off my soapbox
CharlieNC
Gold $$ Contributor
Barrel Harmonics Associated With The Target
The attached report is a bit lengthy! Using principles presented by Kolbe, Vaughn, and Long a method was developed to use the target to decifer the barrel harmonic frequency and amplitude based on conducting an Audette ladder to identify a node. While many vibrations occur, the initial results...
forum.accurateshooter.com
Thanks
Erik Cortina has published several videos showing how to use his tuners. Brian Litz completely ignored those instructions for his test, then claimed he did follow the instructions. Why would he follow your instructions if he won't follow the manufacturer's instructions?
In the Litz/Cortina part 2 interview, Cortina veeeery gently reminds Litz that he tested in "sweeps" even though Cortina never said to do it that way. Cortina should have not let that point go! He should have asked Litz why he didn't use the tuner per the instructions, and outlined the correct way to use his tuners. That's why Litz's test was flawed. As another said, garbage in, garbage out.
Yes, it's a lot but it's doable, within a range of acceptable results. It was the same with the BOSS system. What you have to remember is that tune repeats over and over with frequency. So lets say it's 4 marks from as good to as bad as it will shoot...well, double that and it'll be back in tune moving the same direction and you're never further from shooting small than that amount(8 marks total).
I don't care for the obt thing but I've only seen claims that "it'll get ya close." So, even if 4 marks is from extreme in to extreme out of tune..I think most people would call that close. In that regard, it works, even if where it calculates is completely out of tune, it's still only .004 away from back in tune..in this scenario. I'm using those numbers based on my tuner having 32 marks around it and it's threaded 32tpi. A different tuner and a significantly different bbl contour from BR contours does yield different results though.
The Boss system did this...it got you close and then the instructions told you that it would need to be fine tuned from there in small increments.
But yes, it's doable but you really have to quantify the value of each increment before moving it randomly, if you expect predictable results from it or any tuner.
This is where some tuners really are better than others. They basically all work but the leg work and research to quantify the value of each adjustment and conveying that to the end user is absolutely paramount. Anything less is guessing and guessing yields inconsistent results. Because tune repeats over and over, you can randomly land on a sweet spot but that's when you get lost, adjusting from that point on for ammo or condition changes that affect tune.
I know some people get tired of hearing me say the same things over and over about tuners but clearly, not everyone is on the same page or heard it yet. My system is about breaking things down into small but very methodical adjustments and knowing the expected result of that change before you do it. It's not that complicated at all to do but it takes some work and time to establish some base info that you must have before you can expect predictable results going forward.
Some teachers just can't be taught....or they may even believe you can't teach them anything.
Absolutely true! It didn't go unnoticed here either. I tend to believe Bryan is not intentional in failing to do things right but was so far behind in regard to tuners that he was left making desperate changes. It could also be for a more plausible reason, like if he actually tried to calculate the rate of bbl rise in order to see on target what he had possibly seen, but relative to frequency alone rather than phase time, which IS what we're doing with tuners. In that case, I understand and I made the same initial mistake. But the small changes that work do not add up to the angular changes we do see on target if you only consider tuners to alter frequency. That's not what they do. It's possible he was factoring that in and thought BIG adjustments were needed to get them. Yes...HUGE adjustments would be needed but the fault in that logic is that it's not frequency that tuners are manipulating so much as it is phase time, which only requires a small fraction of movement to see the same angular changes. I might be giving him too much credit but I'll say that was at least a part of his logic. He outsmarted himself if so and he'll have to listen to someone else or do the vibration testing to ever get passed it, more than likely.
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