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Barrel Stress

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Category: Firearms, Bows, and Ammunition
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Topic: Barrel Stress
Posted By: Sgt. D
Subject: Barrel Stress
Date Posted: October/27/2008 at 21:58
A friend recently bought a stainless Rem 700 and out of the box it shoots sub MOA, BUT We have determined that it does not shoot well cold. After the first shot which may be up to 1.5 in any direction it will shoot consistant 1/2 at 100yds. The barrel is factory free floated to the button in the forarm as is standard. I suspect that the barrel may not have been properly relieved after the rifling was cut. If this is true, does anyone know of any means of relieving cut stress. Or does Rem hammer forge their barrels. Either way the only thing I could think of to relieve stress was Cryo. Anyone have a reasonable or simple solution?

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Take care of Soldiers, Show em how its done and do it with em, Run to the Fight & and hold your ground! I die my men go home! If you're a NCO and this ain't you. GET OUT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!



Replies:
Posted By: Mike McDonald
Date Posted: October/27/2008 at 22:06
Rems are hammer forged.
It's kinda strange for a poorly relieved barrel to throw random shots, usually it's to about the same point in space, up&left, down&right, etc.  You'd have to have it re-heat treated, waste of money for a factory tube.  Cheap money could be cryo.  I think that's still about $50.00 or so with a decent turnaround time.
 
My money would be on that stress point on the stock and poor action to stock fit.


Posted By: Sgt. D
Date Posted: October/27/2008 at 22:19
My money would be on that stress point on the stock and poor action to stock fit.
 
I thought so too, but factory pillar bed and floated. It looks real good. I told him to loose the button and see if it helped. It's easy to put back if he wants it.
I agree, Cryo for the money is an option. Does Rem hammer forge their stainless also? There is also conflicting scuttle on the benefit of Cryo'd stainless. Has anybody been down that road?


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Take care of Soldiers, Show em how its done and do it with em, Run to the Fight & and hold your ground! I die my men go home! If you're a NCO and this ain't you. GET OUT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!


Posted By: Roy Finn
Date Posted: October/27/2008 at 23:37
I have some questions about your friend's rifle. Does your friend clean the barrel after range sessions? It is not uncommon at all for a rifle to need a fouling shot to settle down. That is why a lot of folks recommend that you should sight in prior to the hunt and leave well enough alone till after your done hunting. Unless you are hunting in an area that has ALOT of rainfall for an extended period, not oiling during hunting poses no problem of rust/corrosion. And yes, Remington uses hammer forged barrels on all center fire rifles with the exception being Custom Shop rifles and rifles with 5R rifling which is not the case here. I don't believe that "Cryoing" is the issue or solution here. Without more info, we would probably just be guessing.


Posted By: 8shots
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 05:10
If the barrel is still new it may settle down. I have a remington fluted barrel. In the beginning (first 100 rounds or so) it also threw the cold barrel shot, but lately it shoots all in an inch group. It does not matter if the barrel is clean or fouled in my particular case.


Posted By: pyro6999
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 06:22
Originally posted by Roy Finn Roy Finn wrote:

I have some questions about your friend's rifle. Does your friend clean the barrel after range sessions? It is not uncommon at all for a rifle to need a fouling shot to settle down. That is why a lot of folks recommend that you should sight in prior to the hunt and leave well enough alone till after your done hunting. Unless you are hunting in an area that has ALOT of rainfall for an extended period, not oiling during hunting poses no problem of rust/corrosion. And yes, Remington uses hammer forged barrels on all center fire rifles with the exception being Custom Shop rifles and rifles with 5R rifling which is not the case here. I don't believe that "Cryoing" is the issue or solution here. Without more info, we would probably just be guessing.
i do this with my rifles just to make sure and it seems to help, i too took the "hump" out of my stock and it didnt really shoot any different


-------------
They call me "Boots"
375H&H Mag: Yeah, it kills stuff "extra dead"

343 we will never forget

God Bless Chris Ledoux
"good ride cowboy"


Posted By: mike650
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 07:26
Originally posted by pyro6999 pyro6999 wrote:

Originally posted by Roy Finn Roy Finn wrote:

I have some questions about your friend's rifle. Does your friend clean the barrel after range sessions? It is not uncommon at all for a rifle to need a fouling shot to settle down. That is why a lot of folks recommend that you should sight in prior to the hunt and leave well enough alone till after your done hunting. Unless you are hunting in an area that has ALOT of rainfall for an extended period, not oiling during hunting poses no problem of rust/corrosion. And yes, Remington uses hammer forged barrels on all center fire rifles with the exception being Custom Shop rifles and rifles with 5R rifling which is not the case here. I don't believe that "Cryoing" is the issue or solution here. Without more info, we would probably just be guessing.
i do this with my rifles just to make sure and it seems to help, i too took the "hump" out of my stock and it didnt really shoot any different


+1


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“A hunt based only on trophies taken falls far short of what the ultimate goal should be.” – Fred Bear


Posted By: Sgt. D
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 09:24
Originally posted by Roy Finn Roy Finn wrote:

I have some questions about your friend's rifle. Does your friend clean the barrel after range sessions? It is not uncommon at all for a rifle to need a fouling shot to settle down. That is why a lot of folks recommend that you should sight in prior to the hunt and leave well enough alone till after your done hunting. Unless you are hunting in an area that has ALOT of rainfall for an extended period, not oiling during hunting poses no problem of rust/corrosion. And yes, Remington uses hammer forged barrels on all center fire rifles with the exception being Custom Shop rifles and rifles with 5R rifling which is not the case here. I don't believe that "Cryoing" is the issue or solution here. Without more info, we would probably just be guessing.
 
Does your friend clean the barrel after range sessions?
 
We have tried both and get the same result. 8shots mentioned that his settled some after 100 rds. so I'm not ready to do anything major yet. I think there has been about 50rds. thru it so far. Plus we know from experience that after running a fouling cleaner thru any rifle requires several rounds to settle back in, so I'm sure this new rifle is no different having no fouling.
 
What other info can I provide to help find the possible cause. Knowing that it will shoot consistant clover leaf after the first round tells me this should be something we can figure out.
The rifle is scoped with a Ziess D ?x?x50, being shot from a lead sled by one of the better marksman that I know. I didn't look at the rings but I'm sure they are Leupold high because that is his preferred for a 50 obj. The bolt and action appear clean and function above average for factory. He has the trigger set at 2.5lb. and it is crisp. The rifle doesn't rattle and has a good cheek weld set.
He hasn't shot it in temps above 70 so we can't tell if barrel temp is the cause. But that is what leads me to question proper stress relief because what else changes after the first rd. more than temp?


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Take care of Soldiers, Show em how its done and do it with em, Run to the Fight & and hold your ground! I die my men go home! If you're a NCO and this ain't you. GET OUT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!


Posted By: 8shots
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 09:31
One round hardly raises the temp enough to cause heat stress changes in my opinion. If the shots "walks" across the target when 5 or so succesive quick shots are fired then I think heat related stress comes into play.
Maybe the barrel just needs a few rounds through it to break it in???
 
Have you tried shooting 3 rounds, have two cups of coffee (let the barrel cool down totally) and then shoot 3 rounds again? Does the first shot in each case fly??


Posted By: Sgt. D
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 09:39
I've only seen it throw the first shot after the rifle has set over night. I haven't been able to go to the range with him more than once in a day. I believe this is something simple. We just have to identify it. Like you say, after another 10 to 50 rds. there may be no problem.

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Take care of Soldiers, Show em how its done and do it with em, Run to the Fight & and hold your ground! I die my men go home! If you're a NCO and this ain't you. GET OUT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!


Posted By: Roy Finn
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 09:41
So I understand this corectly, it does this between range sessions clean or fouled, cold or warm barrel?


Posted By: 8shots
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 09:41
I'll swop you. You can have my 1inch group without any first shot flyers and I will take your clover leaf with first shot flyer !!!


Posted By: Roy Finn
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 09:46
There ya go..........


Posted By: Graysteel
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 11:16
I have to agree with 8Shots. It seems curious that 15 minutes isn't enough to let the barrel reset but 8 hours seems to be. In 15 minutes the barrel should be fairly equalized in temp. I would want to determine if an hour is long enough or not to allow 'settling.'

If an hour is not enough time to recreate the issue then I would suggest that there is some issue other than the barrel temperature/stress. Perhaps your friend is storing the rifle barrel down and bumping the scope mount into one position then the first round bumps it back, or some such.

I think there is some other issue at play. Just my two cents.



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http://www.whitesounddefense.com/pages/Tech-Articles.html - http://www.whitesounddefense.com/pages/Tech-Articles.html


Posted By: Roy Finn
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 13:36
Perhaps someone like RifleDude or Dale Clifford could better explain barrel stress to me. Sounds like this rifle is doing just the opposite of what I would expect from a barrel with induced stress. To me, if the barrel had induced stress, it would be acting strange as it heated up. One or two shots from cold is not enough to heat up even a lightweight barrel, much less a Remington sporter weight barrel.


Posted By: Sgt. D
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 19:59
Originally posted by Roy Finn Roy Finn wrote:

So I understand this corectly, it does this between range sessions clean or fouled, cold or warm barrel?
 
Pretty much execpt we haven't had a warm day where the temp was above 70. I thought about leaving it in the truck with the heat on and see if that made any difference but haven't had oppertunuty.
 
This guy is very particular about his stuff, how he stores it, how often he cleans and never lets anything stay wet for long after a hunt. If the thing wasn't so consistant after the first shot it wouldn't bother me. It would just be a 1.5 rifle, but it is a -1/2 after the first round of the day. Loco It does make me think that something in the stock fit may be popping in or out after the rifle has sit over night. He has suggested adding some bedding to see if it helps. Since this is unheard of by most of you I'm thinking that is the place to start.
 
Sorry 8! if we could help you that easy you'd already have a shooter in hand. Wink


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Take care of Soldiers, Show em how its done and do it with em, Run to the Fight & and hold your ground! I die my men go home! If you're a NCO and this ain't you. GET OUT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!


Posted By: pyro6999
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 22:12
does he handload?

-------------
They call me "Boots"
375H&H Mag: Yeah, it kills stuff "extra dead"

343 we will never forget

God Bless Chris Ledoux
"good ride cowboy"


Posted By: Sgt. D
Date Posted: October/28/2008 at 23:48
Originally posted by pyro6999 pyro6999 wrote:

does he handload?
 
 
Yes and he is equally pictular about consistant loading, RCBS digital scales $$$$.


-------------
Take care of Soldiers, Show em how its done and do it with em, Run to the Fight & and hold your ground! I die my men go home! If you're a NCO and this ain't you. GET OUT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!


Posted By: 8shots
Date Posted: October/29/2008 at 04:11
I think that something is "popping" on the stock/fit. Maybe a bedding is the answer???


Posted By: pyro6999
Date Posted: October/29/2008 at 06:09
depending on the type of powder he uses and the temp when he not only did the reloading but also the temp when he shoots can have strange effects on results.

-------------
They call me "Boots"
375H&H Mag: Yeah, it kills stuff "extra dead"

343 we will never forget

God Bless Chris Ledoux
"good ride cowboy"


Posted By: RifleDude
Date Posted: October/30/2008 at 11:45
Sgt D,
Based on what has been described, I don't think this is a barrel stress issue at all.  Generally, residual barrel stress from the hammer forging or button rifling process (and standard Rem barrels are hammer forged) will show a progressive group shift as the barrel heats up and warps so that you see group stringing.  According to what you said, this isn't the case.  If you are getting otherwise round shaped groups, except for the flier, then this is probably either caused by the typical first round "fouler," or you have a bedding problem.  I can't think of any other cause.  It isn't at all uncommon for the first round of a group to fall outside the rest of the group.  Once the barrel is fouled from the first shot, the remaining bullets encounter a similar bore condition and pressure from the fouling of the previous shots, so there's more consistency.  This is why benchrest shooters generally fire a fouler round before shooting groups for record.  If you have a bedding problem, usually, you would see random fliers, not always on the first shot of a group, and you would usually see more open groups.  What doesn't make sense here is the first round flier in a fouled bore after waiting for several hours.  I agree with what was said earlier; 15 minutes or so is plenty of time for a barrel to cool down, and if this was a heat related problem, you would probably have group stringing.  Are you absolutely sure you've seen this repeated enough times that you've been able to discern a true correlation between cool down time and the presence of a flier?  What you witnessed could very well have been caused by pure chance.


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Ted


Money can't buy happiness... but it's much more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than on a bicycle.


Posted By: supertool73
Date Posted: October/30/2008 at 11:58
From the data I have gathered from my precision rifle.  Mine always shot 1.5 MOA low and 1 MOA left on a clean cold bore shot.  On a cold bore shot meaning it was fouled but cold it was about 1 moa low and 3/4 moa left.  After that all the shot grouped right together. 

My new barrel appears to be behaving similar but not as extreme.  But I don't have enough data yet to confirm my results.


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Lifetime warranty and excellent customer service don't mean a thing when your gun fails during a zombie attack.

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."


Posted By: Sgt. D
Date Posted: October/30/2008 at 12:34
I agree. The more we have talked this thru the less it appears to be barrel stress. I formed that opinion based on how the action set in the bedded stock. Back to basics, I know better than to take things at first sight. But I did that here. I plan to take out some bedding in less key points and add a layer of bedding to ensure a detailed fit. Then we'll see what we get. Thanks for pointing out every possibility. And Thanks for your patients!

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Take care of Soldiers, Show em how its done and do it with em, Run to the Fight & and hold your ground! I die my men go home! If you're a NCO and this ain't you. GET OUT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!


Posted By: 8shots
Date Posted: November/03/2008 at 06:30
Someone else's observations:
 
Three shots through the barrel within one minute, at one point, raised temperature from 68°F to 85°F which also had no bearing on accuracy or apparent pressure. Finally, three more shots within another minute pushed breech barrel temperature to 92°F. Now that, that...had also no measureable effect on performance.



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