Fluted Stainless Barrels

[Buffalobob]

34 inch stainless steel fluted barrel

I decide that once I retired I would take back up elk hunting so naturally I would need a new elk rifle. This gun should be capable of killing an elk cleanly at 1500 yards. Factory cartridges that filled this bill were the 30-378Wby and the 338-378. A guy in Montana was building long range rifles and had just developed a 7mm wildcat cartridge by radically “improving” the 338 Lapua magnum case and necking it down. The improved case was mated to an equally radical 200 grain rebated boattail hollow pointed bullet with a ballistic coefficient that was reported to be somewhere in the high 0.8s to low 0.9s. With a 30 inch barrel velocities were being obtained of about 3300 fps. This all worked out to enough killing power to kill elk at 1500 yards. However there were two flies in the ointment. The 338 LM like the 30-378 needs a very large bolt face action and when you seat a very long bullet it needs a very long action. Secondly, barrel life was going to be short burning 100+ grains of powder in a 0.284 bore. Two benchrest actions were suitable: Nesika Bay and Bat.

As luck would have it a guy had a Nesika M single shot action and wanted to sell it so I bought that and shipped it to the gunsmith with detailed instructions on the stock and the barrel. Despite his objections, I insisted upon a 34 inch barrel instead of the normal 30 inch barrels most people use and I wanted a #7 contour which is the usual with a 30 inch barrel. Dan Lilja just happens to make a 34 inch 1-9 twist four groove barrel and so it was decided to use that. Fortunately the Nesika action is extremely strong and would have no problem holding up a 34 inch barrel but the smith believed the #7 taper would be too flexible and wanted a #8. After he talked to Dan Lilja the two of them decided that the #8 with small flutes would work just fine and that is how I came to have a fluted barrel. I was out-voted by the barrel maker and the gunsmith. The reason I chose a 34 inch length barrel was that it would allow for at least one and maybe two setbacks if the throat got cooked faster than expected from burning all of that powder. Fluting has nothing to do with cooling the barrel of such a gun. If you ever let the barrel on such an over bore gun get hot enough to need cooling you might as well just grab a pipe wrench and screw it off because you have ruined it.

So we see in the above build that a large strong benchrest action can hold a long barrel and the fluting is more to control barrel stiffness and not needed for action flex.

Of passing note here is that Dan Lilja also makes the 50 cal barrels for the Canadian Special Forces snipers and one was used by the guy in Afghanistan to make the kill at 2,430 meters. Long fluted barrels are good for something it would appear. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, the story is posted on Dan’s website under “50 Caliber”.


I drove out to Montana in September and picked up the gun, drove over to Idaho and did a little elk scouting and then dropped back to Wyoming and met up with my partners and shot five antelope with the other gun and then drove back to Idaho. To make a long story short, after about eight days of hunting, a six point bull elk appeared at 968 yards and I placed a bullet behind his shoulder and he went about ten yards and stopped so I dropped another round in the chamber and lined up on his shoulder bone instead of behind the shoulder and blew his whole shoulder ball socket right into his chest cavity. Below is a picture of his heart and lungs and you can see that the arteries and veins at the top of his heart are just shot to pieces. This is the kind of precision you get from a benchrest action and a benchrest quality chamber and a benchrest quality barrel- 2 rounds through the heart at 968 yards. Whether the flutes are good are bad I don’t know but the elk is sure dead.

[kgoerz]

Never bust a fellow instructor out in front of strangers.

Remember the Camo&Concealment class we had when I worked there. Might still be using it, good class. The PP had a bunch of slides showing wood lines, grassy areas, just basic landscapes. But there were snipers hidden in the pictures. The idea was when one of those slides popped up you had the students attempt to spot the sniper hidden in the photo.
I remember one new instructor giving that class. Every time one of those slides came up he was clueless as to their purpose. He just clicked past them telling the students he wasn't sure why there were pictures of trees in the presentation. "Sorry guys don't know why those are in here" CLICK. Me and DG were sitting in the back of the class in tears trying not to laugh.
We didn't know what to at first. We didn't want to bust him out in front of the students, so we made the students take a break. We explained to him what the slides were for. Classic

[Peregrino]

BB - You've got WAAAAYYYYY too much time/money on your hands. Nice discussion of your unique requirements. It's refreshing to find someone that obviously enjoys their "niche" and can explain the rationale behind the specialized tools (read - toys) to the rest of us. All to often I encounter individuals seeking to acquire similar toys that haven't got a clue other than "I saw it in a magazine". I do envy you the opportunity to play at your hobby though I think you're bragging - course it can't be bragging if it's true (can it? ). Peregrino

[kachingchingpow]

Great post BB. I spend a lot of time in the woods chasing whitetailed deer, and turkey. On my 2000ac lease we have several peanut fields that we can get some long range shots over, but nothing like what you're doing. Not that the shots aren't there, just that I'm not good enough to take a 600+ yard shot on a whitetail and drop it in it's tracks, and they have a reputation of being able to run forever with anything but a "boiler-room" shot.

Those pictures were nice too. Sweet hardware. Makes my 7mm-08 Mountain Rifle look kinda y. My wife was complaining that my biceps were getting too big, so I decided to down-size to something light and fast

[Buffalobob]

A dead possum on the trigger

In the world of rifles, there are a very few truly skillful individuals. It is always good to remember the difference between a dead possum shooting a precision rifle and a truly skillful individual.

In the last 40 years there have been many advances in metallurgy. One can reads the thread down in edged weapons and get a reasonable idea of some of the advances in alloys and the uniformity and quality of those alloys. In the world of metal chipping devices such as lathes the improvements in the tolerances to which these machine will cut a piece of metal is simply phenomenal. The world of CNC machining has moved into the local gunshop. About three months ago I went to my gunsmith for a one of a kind gun and the need for special one of a kind base for the scope. I stand there as an engineer with a masters degree talking to a guy wearing overalls and looking like he is fixing to go out to the barn and hitch up a mule and plow the lower forty. After listening to me describe the problem with eye relief and the special cuts that need to be made in the base he remarked that it will cost a little extra because he will have to “spend an hour programming the computer”. He will take a piece of bar stock and make a totally one of a kind base just to fit my barrel which will be a one of a kind also. He once told me that the reason he bought the CNC machine and spent the time going to the programming classes was because he could not hire and keep employees who would meet the tolerances his customers wanted and needed.
I asked him how much deposit he wanted and he said what ever I wanted that he wouldn’t know what the price would be until he got to working on it. I wrote him a deposit check that was enough to prove that I wanted the gun built. I tell this story to illustrate that a really good gunsmith believes in old fashioned quality by using the most modern technology to achieve the ultimate craftsmanship.

Now then, an elk at 1K has a target kill zone of very nearly a 2MOA. An ultimate technology no expense spared gun and equipment costing about $10K is capable of say 0.3 -0.5 MOA. Even a dead possum should be able to kill an elk at that range with such a gun.

True skill is a different subject. I had perhaps 10 snipers in my platoon at one time or another. Of those, there were only two that were notable for their ability and of those two only one who was truly skilled. The one made perhaps 90% of the sniper kills. The rifle they used is best described as a National Match M-14 with a 3X-9X scope. The rifle used Lake City Match 308 and was set up to shoot out to 900 yards. Scopes were mounted in quick release rings and bases so they could be taken off easily. After years of searching I finally managed to find the Chu Lai sniper school records only to find that the records only contain the 1600 yard shoot made by an earlier rotation sniper. There is no record of the shot my sniper made that broke that record because when the marines rotated Home and the 196th Bde moved to DaNang, the sniper school was closed and only a couple of armorers were kept to maintain the weapons of the existing snipers. Nonetheless, one can consider the ballistic trajectory of a 308 round as it clears the one mile mark and the knowledge and skill required to hit a walking NVA soldier with the fourth round and to kill him with the fifth round. When the shooting was over he turned to me with a big smile on his face and said he had just broken the record Division record. All of this is with a semiautomatic rifle, factory ammo, 3X-9X scope in a quick release base.

So, in the world of long range shooting there are dead possums like me shooting state of the art guns and then there are the truly skillful shooting what they have got. It is always good to know the difference.

[HOLLiS]

BB, great post. and a enjoyable read. Elk is a very tasty animal. I live in a area where there is very little opportunity for the "long shot". Most of it is heavily wooded. I have been meaning to get to Eastern Oregon for some 1000M shooting, but with Sharps rifles using black powder.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by HOLLiS

I have been meaning to get to Eastern Oregon for some 1000M shooting, but with Sharps rifles using black powder.

Now that sounds like fun.

[HOLLiS]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Now that sounds like fun.

Most affirmative Team Sergeant. I am currently looking for a 45/90 Sharps, I have a 45/70 Sharps. I also have a combustible cartridge Sharps. Black powder is a blast. I have done some competition with black powder in cowboy action shooting. The most fun was from a Colt Walker and a 10 Gauge 1 1/2 oz of black powder with 2 1/2 oz of shot. The 10 Gauge made me feel like a scrawny 10 year old with his daddy's 12 gauge. It will rattle your teeth, also other shooters enjoyed the show(lots of smoke and flame).

[Buffalobob]

Hollis

If you could smack a hog or something with one of those guns out at a range of 600 to 700 yards or even to 1K that would be a really great feat. I would enjoy reading about it and seeing some pictures.

[Gene Econ]

Originally Posted by Buffalobob

Hollis If you could smack a hog or something with one of those guns out at a range of 600 to 700 yards or even to 1K that would be a really great feat. I would enjoy reading about it and seeing some pictures.

BB:

Sure would. I have owned a 45-90 for 25 years now. Shilo Sharps Long Range Express with traditional target sights (aperature rear / globe front). Bought it from Shilo when they were in New York and when I could get the top of their line for under $1K and have it delivered in about three weeks. Have a couple of them in different calibers.

That shot on the hog would be interesting. My best load pushes a 500 grain bore rider at about 1200 fps using a load of 80 grains of 2F (all you can fit into a case with a wad). I have duplexed and straight BP was more consistent. The TOF to 700 yards is a little over 2 seconds so one best be real good at figuring out where the animal is going to move while the bullet is in flight, then dope about a minute plus per MPH of wind. Danger space is plus or minus about five yards for a decent hit on something the size of a hog with one of these blasters at those ranges. Of course you won't see the animal with traditional iron sights unless there is a great amount of contrast between the animal and background.

I have shot this rifle from a bench at steel located at 400 meters and have had time to lean over and look through my spotting scope to see the bullet impact.

I wouldn't hunt with it as it has a 30 inch octagon barrel and target sights. I have a 50-110 Sharps that I hunt with when ever I hunt, which isn't often. That 50-110 is a real blaster. Haven't shot either for years.

Gene