On the Savage site they use the term "button-rifled barrel". Can someone please tell me what this means?
They way the barrel hole is made...
BUTTON RIFLING.
"Any fool can pull a button through a barrel!" Boots Obermeyer.
Up until WW2 rifling was the most time consuming operation in making a rifle barrel and so a lot of effort was put into finding a way to speed up this process. Button rifling is a process that has been flirted with on and off by various large ordinance factories since the end of the 19th century. Today, button rifling is a cold forming process in which a Tungsten Carbide former, which is ground to have the rifling form in high relief upon it, is pulled through the drilled and reamed barrel blank. The lands on the button engrave grooves in the barrel as it is pulled through.
The machinery is quite simple. The button is mounted on a long rod of high tensile steel which is passed through the barrel blank and attached to a large hydraulic ram. The button is mounted in a "rifling head" that rotates the button at the desired pitch or twist as the button is pulled through the barrel. The process takes about a minute to complete.
Breaking the pull-rod or pulling the button off the pull rod is a constant danger in "pull" button rifling, so there are several manufacturers like Hart, for example, who prefer to push the button through the barrel. In this version of the method the button is not attached to the rod, which simply pushes the button up the barrel under the influence of a large hydraulic ram. The trick here is to support the push-rod as it enters the barrel to stop it buckling from the huge forces involved.
There is much opinion that "pull" button rifling is best because the button is kept straight and true as it is pulled through, whereas when pushing the button though the barrel there is an inevitable tendency for the button to tip and yaw so leading to variable bore dimensions. Push-buttoning protagonists deny that this is a problem however - as of course, they would!
Whilst the process is simple, the technology required to get good results is quite advanced which is why it was not until the middle of this century that it became a generally used technique. It was perfected in the late 1940's at the Remington factory at Ilion largely due to the efforts of Mike Walker, who used the workshop of Clyde Hart in nearby Lafayette for some of the experimental work. The button must be very hard and also tough enough not the break up under the stresses involved as it is pulled through the barrel. The lubricants used to keep the button from getting stuck in the barrel must not break down under the very high pressures involved - it takes around 10,000 pounds of force to pull a button down a barrel. The sort of lubricants used in the press moulding business are what button barrel makers pick through to see what suits, though most makers of button rifled barrels are very secretive about lubricant they use!
Button rifling in its common form is an American development and the overwhelming majority of barrels made in the US are rifled this way. Custom shops such as Hart, Lilja, Shilen and the large high production barrel makers like Douglas and Wilson Arms use the buttoning method to rifle their barrels. The technology has spread and there are a few other small custom barrel makers around the world who do button rifling. Neville Madden (Maddco) and Dennis Tobler in Australia. Anshutz in Germany, better known for their .22 target rifles but also a large producer of hunting rifles also button their barrels.
In Europe, where larger more centralised armament factories predominate, the cold forging method of making "hammered" barrels is generally preferred.
On the Remington web site....they only refer to their barrels being bedded on plastic (excuse me, I meant to say "synthetic") stock models. None of the wood stocks are said to be bedded. Why would you not bed a barrel in a wood stock?
Must people do bed wood stocks. Bedding the barrel from the shank to the front lug. They free float the barrel. Bed the real and front lug to the shank.
