Barrel cooling

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Dirt farmer

Dirt farmer

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Twiddling my thumbs and watching the clouds blow by while waiting for my rifle barrel to cool between shots, I was wondering why not use a $15 Coleman QuickPump 12V rechargeable air mattress pump to cool the rifle barrel "quicker"? I searched the Internet and see other barrel cooling fans at $50+ for sale. Any reasons why not use the Coleman version, as I already have one with all the misc. nozzle sizes?
 
You could even get some pieces of gradually-smaller tubing to neck the air down to bore-size if you were looking to shorten cooling time.
 
Nothing wrong with using air to cool. I know Layne Simpson and John Barsness both use water. If you poke around a bit you should be able to find some info on it. One of them, maybe both, pumps water thru the barrel.
 
@Dirt farmer

I tried the same thing with plastic tubing and it did not work. The pump doesn't have enough power to force air through a hose and into the barrel so i either pull the bolt and leave the rifle sit on the rest or pull the bolt and stand it upright out of the sun and go check and change targets or shoot another rifle or handgun.
 
I may try that tomorrow if we go shooting. Ive got a pile of silicone and pvc tubing from cast offs at work i can rig up, and some gave me a battery powered blower thingy.....personally i usually just shoot 5 or 10 shots then put the gun up for a while, and shoot something else, admittedly i dislike waiting for guns to cool. 10 shots from my 7mm and the barrels too hot to touch.

you could rig up a small battery powered pump, hose, and a bucket to run water thru your bore then back into the pail. that would probably work faster than air, but youd want to dry the bore.
Id say trickle co2 down the bore might be another option, but that might cool the steel too quickly, and cause warping?
 
Well, about a year ago, I saw a man at the range who was shooting a .243 put a tube in the receiver end of the barrel, and on the other end of the tube was a threaded bracket attachment. He attached a Crossman CO2 cartridge for a BB/pellet gun. Tightened the bracket much like you would on a pellet pistol, while holding the tube in the receiver, which pierced the cartridge. The pressure release blew the CO2 right through the barrel. Used 2 or 3 cartridges, took him about a minute or two from start to finish.
A few minutes after that, he was shooting his next grouping. He repeated this at least twice more while I was there. I can't say if this was really effective, but he seemed satisfied with the results.

I don't know if this was something he crafted on his own, or something that's commercially available. I've never seen it before or since. I don't know if he was experimenting, or this is common practice for him.

Has anybody else seen this? I don't know the physics of rapidly cooling a barrel, if it's safe for the barrel (I would think warping would be a danger), if such a small amount of cold CO2 can even do the job, etc.
I've always been content to wait 15 minutes or so and shoot one of my other guns while I wait.
 
Why not just buy a can of the compressed air folks use for keyboards, turn it upside down and give the barrel a blast of that cold propellant?
 
I always take at least 2 rifles and one is always a 22. By the time I shoot a few rounds through the others the one I started with is cool.

I'd not have a problem with a fan blowing air over, or through a barrel to speed things up, but I'd be concerned with a CO2 cartridge. That is very cold and I'd be afraid of uneven cooling. Plus it would leave condensation inside the barrel.
 
Jerseykris said:
Well, about a year ago, I saw a man at the range who was shooting a .243 put a tube in the receiver end of the barrel, and on the other end of the tube was a threaded bracket attachment. He attached a Crossman CO2 cartridge for a BB/pellet gun. Tightened the bracket much like you would on a pellet pistol, while holding the tube in the receiver, which pierced the cartridge. The pressure release blew the CO2 right through the barrel. Used 2 or 3 cartridges, took him about a minute or two from start to finish.
A few minutes after that, he was shooting his next grouping. He repeated this at least twice more while I was there. I can't say if this was really effective, but he seemed satisfied with the results.

I don't know if this was something he crafted on his own, or something that's commercially available. I've never seen it before or since. I don't know if he was experimenting, or this is common practice for him.

Has anybody else seen this? I don't know the physics of rapidly cooling a barrel, if it's safe for the barrel (I would think warping would be a danger), if such a small amount of cold CO2 can even do the job, etc.
I've always been content to wait 15 minutes or so and shoot one of my other guns while I wait.
Click to expand...

I've never seen it, but I started wondering if going from hot to a blast of CO2 that's frosty cold (and back to hot and then cold again as he keeps shooting) may somehow goof up the barrel metal's temper/grain structure like you were saying? I guess if he hasn't seen any damage to his own guns the answer is no.

Folks are pretty ingenious, sounds like that guy is one of them...My wife's friends take their UTV on long desert trips. They rigged up an air pump/clear tubing-hose contraption that pulls air in, routes the air through a hose coiled up in an ice chest mounted on the rear of their rig and then pumps it into their helmets as an AC unit. They swear it makes a 200 mile run through the Mojave comfy...
 
Dirt farmer said:
Twiddling my thumbs and watching the clouds blow by while waiting for my rifle barrel to cool between shots, I was wondering why not use a $15 Coleman QuickPump 12V rechargeable air mattress pump to cool the rifle barrel "quicker"? I searched the Internet and see other barrel cooling fans at $50+ for sale. Any reasons why not use the Coleman version, as I already have one with all the misc. nozzle sizes?
Click to expand...
I have used a 12v air compressor with the little nozzle screwed in. It does help if it's hot out. Most of the time I am trying to relax.
 
My shooting pals and I have tested a variety of ways cool hot barrels, and ways to keep them cool during intense shooting sessions, including alcohol "radiators." One system that has worked great is the Winter Breeze barrel cooler, which provides a quick blast of CO2 down the barrel. The smaller tank is good for a busy day in the PD patch, and the larger tank (Both shown in attached photo) lasts for a week. I never go PD shooting without them. As for barrel damage, furguddaboutit, it doesn't make the barrel that cold DSC05770.JPG and it's the heat that's hard on barrels anyway.
 
Riomouse911 said:
My wife's friends take their UTV on long desert trips. They rigged up an air pump/clear tubing-hose contraption that pulls air in, routes the air through a hose coiled up in an ice chest mounted on the rear of their rig and then pumps it into their helmets as an AC unit. They swear it makes a 200 mile run through the Mojave comfy...
Click to expand...

Now that's ingenious.
 
I've been thinking about the same thing. Temps are running in the 90s here in central TX, so barrels heat up fast! I've been thinking about a battery-powered pump to push air through a hose, but ohihunter2014's post is giving me second thoughts. At minimum, I'm thinking about taking a bucket of ice water with me and an old hand towel. I'll try soaking the towel, ringing it out well, and draping it over the barrel for a few minutes after a string, and use a laser/infrared thermometer gun to check barrel/chamber temperature.
 
Jerseykris said:
Now that's ingenious.
Click to expand...
It really is a neat idea ...they first tried dry ice, but feared a crack in the hoses would let in CO2 and put them to sleep. So they stayed with drilling holes to let the hoses in/out, and silicone sealing the holes around the hoses to keep it watertight. They fill the 10 qt ice chest with water and freeze it in a chest freezer with the hoses in place and it's a solid block when they start out. They've said that by the time they're at their destination it's almost all turned to water.

I didn't think to take a picture of their set up, but it's not too hard to imagine how it would work.
 
Dirt Farmer said:
Twiddling my thumbs and watching the clouds blow by while waiting for my rifle barrel to cool between shots
Click to expand...

Are you shooting for groups? What happens if you don't let the barrel cool between shots? I was shooting a 6.5 PRC the other day and saw no difference in bullet velocity from the first group starting out with the barrel around 65°F (ambient temp) and ending with the last group (same load) where I couldn't keep my hand on the barrel for more than a second or two. According to NASA, the barrel could have been around 100°F hotter or more by the end of the last group. The current consensus is that we start to feel pain when our skin reaches a temperature of 110°F and that takes about 1 second for steel that's at 160°F, 2 seconds for steel at 150°F and three seconds for steel at 140°F. These are rule of thumb values (ha! ha!) since heat transfer from a barrel to a hand is a very complex issue.

So back to my original question, what are we trying to avoid by keeping the barrel cool? What is cool? How does this relate to real-world use of a rifle/load e.g. hunting?

56.5gr_h1000_test.jpg
 
Wow, thanks for all the responses.
For those asking why I don't just relax, I have a reloading bench in the house, a shooting bench with 15 yard to 180 yard shooting range out the back of the house, and when I'm working up loads I want to shoot a string of 3 to 5 shots of each load and continue developing loads. Yes, I go change targets sometimes, or go feed the horses, or go collect eggs, whatever... but I always get back to waiting for the barrel to be "cool to the touch" between each shot.
I see nothing in the responses to prevent me from using the Coleman blower, so I'll see how quickly that reduces the "barrel cooling time". Thanks again
 
MCMXI said:
So back to my original question, what are we trying to avoid by keeping the barrel cool? What is cool? How does this relate to real-world use of a rifle/load e.g. hunting?
Click to expand...
Easy answer, and here's just one example: When getting a barrel hot, I mean really HOT!, like shooting PDs in a busy town, at a rate of 4-7 shots per min for stretches, there can be a noticeable loss of accuracy (IE, missing easy shots and seeing bullet impact way off target) you know it's time to cool the barrel or switch rifles. I've seen it many times over the years when shooting high velocity varmint rifles that were normally accurate when cool.
 
Offfhand said:
Easy answer, and here's just one example: When getting a barrel hot, I mean really HOT!, like shooting PDs in a busy town, at a rate of 4-7 shots per min for stretches, there can be a noticeable loss of accuracy (IE, missing easy shots and seeing bullet impact way off target) you know it's time to cool the barrel or switch rifles. I've seen it many times over the years when shooting high velocity varmint rifles that were normally accurate when cool.
Click to expand...

It would be interesting to see some data on velocity and or accuracy/precision as a function of barrel temperature. Maybe taliv has something along those lines. I don't shoot PDs but I see that it would be a problem if the barrel temp is affecting accuracy/precision. I used to shoot a fair amount of F-Class matches in Hawaii with the ambient temperature in the 90s and never saw an issue as the barrel got really hot on 22 shot strings. I had Krieger barreled rifles that are single point cut so maybe that's part of it.
 
taliv said:
http://barrelcool.com/product/barrelcool/
Click to expand...

I have a couple of these to take with me on my prairie dog shoot this summer. We will see if they work. The put out a fair jet of ambient air directly into the barrel.

Riomouse911 said:
Folks are pretty ingenious, sounds like that guy is one of them...My wife's friends take their UTV on long desert trips. They rigged up an air pump/clear tubing-hose contraption that pulls air in, routes the air through a hose coiled up in an ice chest mounted on the rear of their rig and then pumps it into their helmets as an AC unit. They swear it makes a 200 mile run through the Mojave comfy...
Click to expand...

In the race car, we run a Cool Shirt system. It has a tee shirt with a matrix of tubes sewn it it. It attaches to a cooler in the car that pumps cold water through the tubes to keep the driver cool. The cooler is filled with ice and water. Keeps the body core cool under the heavy driver suit and high ambient temperatures. Once you see the Cool Shirt system, it is not rocket science and a home brew set up would be easy to make.

Cool Shirt used to have a portable cooling system that used disposable cans with some kind of refrigerant in it that would have been good for barrel cooling. Unfortunately, I see they do not offer that system any more. They do have a system that uses refillable liquid CO2 tanks, probably similar to the ones mentioned above.
 
I like the idea of running a coil of plastic tubing through an ice-filled cooler, but it would need a pump powerful enough to push or pull a long column of air.
 
Nature Boy said:
Now I use this USB rechargeable pump I got on Amazon. I took the straw part of an empty soap dispenser to better direct the flow of air down the barrel, but otherwise it works great. Only $29 bucks
Click to expand...

@Nature Boy , are you using the fan during F-Class matches? Have you seen accuracy/precision issues as your barrel heats up?

Thanks.
 
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