.223 Wylde

OK, so........another question (don't look so shocked!)..........to flute or not to flute?

I have read so many different things....the fluted barrels are lighter, the fluted barrels lose accuracy, the fluted barrels cool faster, the fluted barrels get hot faster too........

Help a sister out. I had sort of ruled the option out but now Tony has one listed in his shop and it is lighter weight than the non-fluted. What's the real deal??
 
Matters very little in the long run. Of the two Tony has I'd get the Satern. That's a pretty sweet barrel.
 
Same as Austin T
Fluting is like buying fishing lures. Its designed to attract the fisherman to buy, and not necessarily the fish to catch.
 
Jennifer S. said:
Tony has one listed in his shop and it is lighter weight than the non-fluted. ??
Click to expand...
Black Nitride version is in transit
 
Who cares as long as it comes from tony it will for sure be the cat ass. On my prairie dog guns I have had the fulted heat up faster on hot days but go out the next day and have my other gun get hot just as fast.
 
A few of us discussed this recently, fluting means faster cooling, and more mirage I would assume. Better to let the barrel cool down after the stage instead of in the middle of it.
 
3gun is shooting relatively big targets and what most rifle shooters would barely call medium-range. POI shift due to heating will still almost always still hit the target
 
gondo said:
I will put a pic if mine up next week for you... Same build parts
Click to expand...

Here is what you are thinking of building... this a psa blem upper, samson 15 handguard, rolling thunder comp, and nordic 17.6 barrel (f'd it up and accurate iron fixed it up real nice for me but lost a half inch of barrel, that comp looks great to me without a crush washer), going to resight in today.... im saving for vortex then last part will be a hyperfire or ar gold (having a tough choice there). After that i think i will build another with LMOS and use the satern fluted barrel.



http://s1139.photobucket.com/user/gondo_2764/media/AR15002_zps5511d04c.jpg.html
 
Jennifer S. said:
OK, so........another question (don't look so shocked!)..........to flute or not to flute?

I have read so many different things....the fluted barrels are lighter, the fluted barrels lose accuracy, the fluted barrels cool faster, the fluted barrels get hot faster too........

Help a sister out. I had sort of ruled the option out but now Tony has one listed in his shop and it is lighter weight than the non-fluted. What's the real deal??
Click to expand...
"the fluted barrels are lighter"
Given all else constant (IE, metal alloy, length, profile); true. If you take a given barrel, and machine metal off, it will be lighter. However, weight reduction is probably a bad reason to flute. If you just want lighter weight, have the barrel turned down to a lighter profile - or just buy a lighter barrel. The "benefit" is that for the same weight you have more rigidity resulting in better accuracy (in theory) and more surface area for cooling. The reality here is that the accuracy benefit for a given weight barrel is much less than the difference between a good match quality barrel and a blaster barrel.

"the fluted barrels lose accuracy"
True, to varying degrees. You ARE removing metal, which means reducing the rigidity of the barrel. The worst possible loss is due to improper machining methods when the fluting is performed. If not done correctly (attachment to mill, tooling, cooling, machining speeds), it can introduce internal stresses to the barrel. This will hurt accuracy. Reality, it should be a negligible difference, but it cannot improve accuracy on its own.

"the fluted barrels cool faster"
More surface area equals faster cooling. Think radiator in your car or the heat sink on a CPU in a computer. However, to really benefit from this you would need to be looking at sustained rate of fire. However, if you notice, the military does not flute weapons. Some of the automatic rifles used for sustained fire used to be finned, but the reality is that without active cooling (water or a big fan moving air over the barrel), neither fins nor flutes have enough difference with passive cooling to significantly increase sustainable rate of fire. This is why most cars are liquid cooled with a fan to move air across the radiator when stopped.

"the fluted barrels get hot faster"
Simply put, true. If you take material off, it will get hot faster. The rate at which a barrel heats up is based on the barrel alloy, cooling surface, and mass of the barrel. As mentioned, without active cooling, mass is the largest controllable factor. Fluting removes mass, so a barrel that has been fluted will heat faster. The flip side is that it will cool faster due to less mass, and more surface area.

In the end, it's mostly a wash. So here's the cliff notes:

Austin T said:
Matters very little in the long run. Of the two Tony has I'd get the Satern. That's a pretty sweet barrel.
Click to expand...
If I had the choice between two barrels of similar quality, weight, and price; one being fluted and one not, I'd take the fluted one due to the minor benefits and it looks cool.
 
gondo said:
Here is what you are thinking of building... this a psa blem upper, samson 15 handguard, rolling thunder comp, and nordic 17.6 barrel (f'd it up and accurate iron fixed it up real nice for me but lost a half inch of barrel, that comp looks great to me without a crush washer), going to resight in today.... im saving for vortex then last part will be a hyperfire or ar gold (having a tough choice there). After that i think i will build another with LMOS and use the satern fluted barrel.




Click to expand...

Got to test it out real quick today, here is a 3 shot at 100 yards with an eotech, my gun will not work with wolf or tula now but fed about 10 other kinds of ammo of various quality just fine.
 
Personally, I might buy a barrel fluted from the factory, but I would not flute a barrel after the fact. For weight savings, as stated above, this is a poor way to do it. After considering very seriously about fluting a barrel, I just decided in the end it was window dressing. There's really no competitive advantage and there lies the potential to really jack up your barrel if done improperly.
 
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