Hot bbl.

[buck1]

Ok its hot outside 105+.[smilie=b: But I still want to shoot and my BBL gets and STAYS hot for a long time. Does anyone have any tricks to cool these blued bbls down a little quicker. I was thinking about that office duster stuff But decided aganst it.
Thanks....Buck

[selmerfan]

Yes, and I'm sure people here will disagree with me, but that fact is, it works, at least in my rifles. Take a 2-liter bottle and drill a hole to accomodate a 3/8" plastic fuel line in the cap. Epoxy a 30" section of fuel line to the cap, making sure that you have enough line to reach near the bottom of the bottle. Now when you're at the range you can run the fuel line into your chamber, hold it up tight against the neck/shoulder area (depending on the chambering) and slowly squeeze the bottle. If you've sealed it well with the epoxy the water will be pushed out and run down the barrel (make sure the barrel is pointed on a DOWN angle!!!). This will cool it down in a couple seconds, run a dry patch through the barrel (you'll remove some carbon fouling) and proceed with shooting. There will be other suggestions as well. If you do this one right, you won't get water in your action, just make sure you run at least an oiled patch down the bore when you're done shooting for the day.

[btroj]

I find it helps some to stand them upright with action open. Gets a bit of a chimney effect going as the air in the barrel heats it rises. Can make a difference.

[geargnasher]

When it's 105 outside I'm parked inside. Shooting is something I do mostly for fun, it ain't fun when the gun blisters me from three minutes in the sun and there's sweat running in my eyes.

But if you must, how about a wet towel wrapped around the whole barrel for a few minutes?

Gear

[barrybrice]

I shoot a 7mm STW bbl. I wrap a cold wet hand towel over the barrel. It does the trick.

[buck1]

Water had crossed my mind, But I was spooked of finding it speckled with rust :shock: at some future date. But I guess a good oil wipe down would keep the red away.

[noylj]

And exactly how much hotter do you think a barrel is when fired at 105 vs being fired at 85? I would expect to see almost no difference in the number of shots over a fixed period of time to reach 400F.
You are fighting heat capacity and not original temperature.
What is hot to you is not anything to steel.
I suspect that you are over thinking and looking for problems.
Run a patch with #9 and a dry patch and watch for the barrel glowing a dull red.
I let barrels cool naturally and never have shot so many rounds so fast that water would boil hitting the barrel (and 212F is not hot to steel).

[44man]

The IHMSA shooters would spray the gun with what I think was alcohol. Some had little fans to blow down the barrel between relays.
Personally I like it the other way when while hunting my glove would freeze to the barrel! :D

[Hickory]

Yes, and I'm sure people here will disagree with me, but that fact is, it works, at least in my rifles. Take a 2-liter bottle and drill a hole to accomodate a 3/8" plastic fuel line in the cap. Epoxy a 30" section of fuel line to the cap, making sure that you have enough line to reach near the bottom of the bottle. Now when you're at the range you can run the fuel line into your chamber, hold it up tight against the neck/shoulder area (depending on the chambering) and slowly squeeze the bottle. If you've sealed it well with the epoxy the water will be pushed out and run down the barrel (make sure the barrel is pointed on a DOWN angle!!!). This will cool it down in a couple seconds, run a dry patch through the barrel (you'll remove some carbon fouling) and proceed with shooting. There will be other suggestions as well. If you do this one right, you won't get water in your action, just make sure you run at least an oiled patch down the bore when you're done shooting for the day.


I have used this very same method while shooting prairie dogs on a hot day.

I leave the barrel hot enough to evaporate any water in the barrel and like selmerfan said, I run a patch through the barrel also.

[BruceB]

It's very true, saying that the boiling point of water is meaningless to steel. However, I have noted that a "hot" barrel (to my fingers) can show a change in point of impact from where that same barrel shoots when cool.

Here in Nevada, when shooting in summer temps of 100 degrees or more, the barrels will NEVER cool quickly-enough for my purposes. I carry an insulated 1-gallon jug of ice and water, and have adapted a plastic hose to it, with a valve on the end. I put the jug on top of my van to gravity-feed the water to the benchrest in the truck. Fifteen seconds of ice-water through the bore and the barrel is COLD. A dry patch then readies the rifle for some more shooting.

If serious load-development work is underway then a round or two to warm might not be a bad idea. So far, I haven't needed to do this.

I have an electronic probe-type thermometer which reaches six inches inside the muzzle. A "hot" barrel usually indicates about 180 degrees...again, not much in the world of steel.

[Char-Gar]

I belong to the open the action and relax for a while, school of thought. If that is too slow, then it is too hot to shoot.

[44man]

I belong to the open the action and relax for a while, school of thought. If that is too slow, then it is too hot to shoot.
Best way. If you want HOT, load a .357 with Lil'gun and shoot six on a cold day. Great if you need to solder some duct work! :bigsmyl2:

[btroj]

I belong to the open the action and relax for a while, school of thought. If that is too slow, then it is too hot to shoot.

Yep. Shooting is supposed to be fun, not an endurance contest.

[supersonic]

Ok its hot outside 105+.[smilie=b: But I still want to shoot and my BBL gets and STAYS hot for a long time. Does anyone have any tricks to cool these blued bbls down a little quicker. I was thinking about that office duster stuff But decided aganst it.
Thanks....Buck

Wet towel on bench works.

[BruceB]

Yep. Shooting is supposed to be fun, not an endurance contest.

That's a good thought....except that, where I live and shoot, there'd be NO shooting from about July through September.

And believe me, for a feller who came here after 35 years in the Arctic, sometimes it IS an endurance contest. It's still enjoyable, but it's not very comfortable. My usual range trips involve perhaps three to six rifles, and cool-down time is a factor even with that many guns.

[btroj]

I understand Bruce. I just don't like to sweat. I don't know if your hot, dry enviornment would be better than out warm to hot, muggy enviornment. 95 degrees and 75% or more humidity are great for growing corn but I sure don't like it.

I suppose that sometimes we just have to do what we have to do.

[buck1]

Down here if your not willing to do it wile its hot and or windy, then you are not going to do it much.
Wer have both kinds of weather here, real dam hot , and real dam cold. But its always windy.

[giz189]

I have put mine in the truck in front of the a/c. Only takes a few minutes.

[Centaur 1]

About a month ago at the range a friend of mine pulled out a battery operated air mattress inflator. He rigged up a length of clear tygon tubing from the pump outlet to the breach of his rifle. He started with a piece that matched the diameter of the pump outlet, then inserted a piece of smaller diameter tubing that fit the chamber of his rifle. It cooled the barrel in a matter of minutes. I will be making one of these for myself in the future.

http://www.camping-gear-outlet.com/camping-gear-323880.html

[Von Gruff]

I am with Charger on this one. Shooting is a pleasureable exercise and if I have to worry about overheating or freezing the pleasure factor goes downhill real quick.
I worked outside all my working life and now that I dont have to be out in all weathers unless I want to be I am inclined to give it a miss if there are extremes.
Hpt rifles get stood upright in the shade of the truck for the chimney cooling and I nearly always take a book to the range. I am not in that much of a hurry nowadays that I cant wait five minutes to get the barrel back down to the temperature I consider undamaging to the barrel. Whether I could shoot it much hotter is neither here nor there as this is a relaxing day out for me.

Von Gruff.

[XWrench3]

reading these posts, the concern i have with useing a wet towel is that most barrels are covered on the bottom 1/2 by a stock for the first (and hottest part) of the barrel. so in order to cool the entire barrel to the same temperature, removing the stock would be in order every time. if not, i would be concerned that the barrel being hot on one side, and cold on the other, COULD warp the barrel over time. the water through the barrel is something that i have thought of a couple of times. but that just goes against my grain. water + steel = rust. i know it is only momentary, and i could certainly put an oiled patch through it immediatly following. i just tend to be a bit anal when it comes to my guns. also, if you are going to shoot much @ 105 degrees, your going to need a lot of cold water in order to cool your gun(s) very much. one other idea i had was a co2 fire extinguisher with a reducer on the hose so you could feed it directly inside of the barrel. i think the only place you could get a co2 extinguisher(s) would be at a fire extinguisher servce station. they do not sell them around my area, supposedly because to many people used them to cool off beer. and when an extinguisher was needed, it was empty. ideally, air cooling would be best, but @ 105, it would probably take a half an hour or better, IF you had some shade to stand the gun upright so you would get the chimney effect. there is one more idea i have. that is dry ice. dry ice in a cooler, with a hose coming off the bottom of it so the cold "air" would flow down the tube, and through the barrel. in reality, that would probably be the gentelest on the barrel. but you would also get a wet barrel just from condensation. so you would be back to running an oiled patch down the barrel. the cold water idea is probably by far the most practical. as for a "nozzle" to fit into the chamber, you might be able to fashion one out of an old ink pen housing. cheap and easy to make. i apologize for the length of my ramblings. i was thinking and typing as i went. i also like the air matterss inflator idea. the only problem with that is if you are blowing 105 degree air through the barrel, it is still going to take a while. now, if you put the inflator, inside the cooler with the dry ice. THEN YOU WOULD HAVE SOMETHING!

[BruceB]

In my first post, I neglected to include my current routine after water-cooling the barrel.

There's an "air pig" under the benchrest holding about 20 gallons of 100psi compressed air, and about 15 seconds of air blowing through the barrel removes virtually all the water, Nothing remains visible, anyway. Until I started using compressed air, I did indeed run a dry patch through the bore.

As to the concern about rust, ...there is none. The bore is conditioned (lubed) by the cast bullets, anyway, and residual barrel heat (or ambient air temp) will remove every last molecule of water. When the shooting is done for the day, I don't cool the barrels artificially.

Once the bores are conditioned by firing cast loads, I do NOT clean the barrels until I see visible leading. Since this is very rare, my rifles often go for months and hundreds of rounds without cleaning. Actions, yes...bores, NO. Eventually, I will get to feeling a bit guilty and then do some barrel cleaning.....but, very seldom.

[Reverend Recoil]

I don't worry about hot barrels. A rifle barrel can take ten shots per minute with no harm done to it. That's how I fire my service rifle in competition and practice during the rapid fire stages. I get a 3500 round acurate life between barrel changes.

[35remington]

"Barrel warpage" fears from cooling the barrel are pretty overblown. Won't happen at the temperature shifts that occur from cooling.

Steel conducts heat/cold quite well.

Small cooler, ice, bandanna saturated in cold icy water, apply to barrel, rotate with other rifles......equals no problems with heat.

If sitting and shooting such that barrels get hot, more rifles is good. Not possible? Cool as above and slow rate of fire.

[429421Cowboy]

I know guys that keep a Boresnake in a cooler with ice and they run it in the barrel and leave it for awhile. Using two Boresnakes and two rifles will allow almost constant shooting if that is an issue ie; prairie dog shooting or such.

[Fly-guy]

In my opinion, if it's too hot to hold on too, it's too hot to shoot and that's why I need just one more gun (Honey).

[MBTcustom]

What I do is reload with my Lee style loader (or at least resize and prime my brass) while waiting for the barrel to cool. I am of the thought that you dont want an ice cold barrel because if being too hot changes the point of impact then being too cold will do the same in another way. I have often thought about running water down the barrel but when it's over 100 out side then that just makes me thirstier. Sides, I need it more than the gun does. seriously, anybody shooting outside should invest in a portable, fold up, gazebo. Just getting the sun off your hide increases your endurance tremendously.

[warf73]

About a month ago at the range a friend of mine pulled out a battery operated air mattress inflator. He rigged up a length of clear tygon tubing from the pump outlet to the breach of his rifle. He started with a piece that matched the diameter of the pump outlet, then inserted a piece of smaller diameter tubing that fit the chamber of his rifle. It cooled the barrel in a matter of minutes. I will be making one of these for myself in the future.

http://www.camping-gear-outlet.com/camping-gear-323880.html

+1 this is what I do also.