Water-Cooled PD Rifles?

[Shooter13]

Ok, that is excessive to the coolest mostest bestest! A water cooled single shot! God bless America!

You have never seen @BartsBullets "run" a "single shot" rifle before! He and some others need ice packs!!

 

[AndrewB]

I just keep shooting. Barrels are a consumable. I stopped worrying about it. I must not let anything distract me from creating a red mist. Time in the field is too precious.

 

[X Count]

Those are great type of friends to have!

Any idea on what type of barrel life he was getting?

 

[hoz53]

When we think "water-cooled", we usualy conjur up thoughts of water-cooled machine guns. But back around 2000, I was invited to a prairie dog shoot in WY by a benevolent and generous sponsor. This fellow worked up his "war wagon" with four shooting stations using custom Hall actioned, custom-stocked water-cooled 223's and 6.5mm-284's using Pac-Nor barrels with stainless water jackets.

The War Wagon trailer had a 200 gallon water tank up front, the pump was powered by a large solor cell ground matt, with the coolant supplied to each rifle station via a manifold with individual water pressure and temp regulators. Quite the setup, and one could shoot PD's with wanton abandon without fear of barrel heating, as the rig kept barrel temps right at 46*F all day. Amazing, yes. fun....you bet!

I've posted this some years ago, but doing it again just to keep the place interesting. Here's some pics of that adventure.....



It was a hot day in the rat patch, so the braked barrel jackets displayed condensation from the water cooling:



The large ground matt solor cell for pump power:



Yours truly working over some 500+ yard dogs with one of the 6.5-284's....the dogs were out in grand numbers:



The trailer was completely self-equipped with ammo storage, rifle rack up front, stools, everything for a great day of dog shooting in style:



Barnes Bullets supplied all the loaded ammo for the shoot, and we shot to our hearts content without worry of either running out of ammo or overheating the barrels. Only the prairie dogs had a bad day, and it was indeed quite the bad day for them.

Almost all days spent in the rat patch are good days, this outing was a number of those good days that I'll always remember. A good time was had by all....except the dogs of course. While we packed up each day, the raptors were out in full force having a meal on us.

Right now it's a very hot August, our squirrels and rockchucks are down for the season. I'm already looking forward to next spring when the adventure starts all over again. I for one am glad for the AS forum to pass the time during the summer doldrums while pondering the upcoming season with favorite rifles and good friends. Now it's time for brass prep in the gun room enjoying the A/C while it's almost 100*F outside.

(Please excuse the poor photo quality, as these were scans from film prints.)

Rick— that is cool— thanks for the repost!

 

[Rick in Oregon]

Those are great type of friends to have!

Any idea on what type of barrel life he was getting?

No real idea, as this was my first exposure to both the sponser and the water-cooled rifles. But with a constant barrel temp of 46*, the heat factor is almost removed, just leaving friction and the initial hot powder blast to affect the barrels.

I'd have to guess as to the actual barrel life, but would assume it would be longer than 'un-cooled'. (Not sure if that's even a word.) I'll just add that the overall experience was beaucoup fun, and quite different than any other PD shoot I've been on.

 

[Tom Kat]

Thats a new one on me, but makes sense in a good dog town