Cooling Rifle Barrel With Water???

P

Point Blank

New member
I read on another forum (varminthunters??) that it is safe to cool your barrel by pouring water down a barrel.Several of them carried squirt bottles filled with water and after shooting enough where barrel was hot they take bolt out,point gun down, and trickle water down barrel.Some of them claimed to be sub moa shooters,with $$$$$ rifles and said water wouldnt warp/ruin barrel.Anyone do this,does this sound right???
 
I've seen blackpowder rifle shooters do this at competitions, and follow it with a patch or two.

Has two benefits, I guess -- cooling the barrel when shooting a lot on a hot day, and getting the powder fouling out of the bore.

My guess is that the barrel simply isn't hot enough to really want to warp when hit with a small amount of cold water.
 
I was advised by an old Palma Shooter that this can warp a barrel.
In the .338, we went to two minute spacing between shots and moly bullets. This worked wonders......
Dan
 
Sam,

I'd say that's a different situation entirely.

The barrel is surrounded by cool water when the barrel is cool, so as the barrel heats up, the heat is bled off equally in all directions at the same time, preventing warping.

It's the uneven cooling effect that causes warping, where one area of the item cools at a faster or slower rate than another.
 
Clarification.

Aside from the .30 WC machine gun. Some folks use a pump to flow water through their rifle barrels to bring the temp down. Then a patch and shoot some more.

Easiest on the barrel is to shoot slowly enough so that it never gets too hot to grab.

Sam
 
metallic silhouette shooters, chiefly in hot sunny days, cool their barrels - XP 100s and the like - with water soaked cloth - handkerchiefs, bandanas or whatelse they may be wearing around tne neck, applied to the outside of their barrels. It's a common usage, with no harm ever reported.
 
I wouldn't do it. A barrel can get very hot. Does anyone know what can happen if you pour some nice cold water in your overheated car engine? It can crack. I wouldn't take the chance with any of my rifles.
 
PF, I have to agree. Besides, some barrel makers have special heat treating processes that allow for gradual heating and cooling. To rapid cool a barrel with a unknown inside temp could result in warping and cracking, at least undue stress on the steel.

Here is another theory. If water is added to a hot and fouled barrel, as it is cooled water can be trapped under the fouling. Next shot the water is quickly heated and the fouling spalls off. What is the next shot going to do. I would say that it would be less accurate. There is a lot to consider before doing this.

If I were going to try it, I would only on SS barrels. Steel at higher hempatures tends to react quicker with oxygen (water).
 
A cars engine would be cast iron or aluminum,i think.But even if it was safe i wouldnt do it to my $300 Savage 30-06,although while testing loads (40-50) in the summer it sure would speed things up some.I did forget to add that after "cooling" their barrels they would "field clean",dry patch-solvent-light oil.Guess i was just wondering if more target shooters/benchresters here done this.Thanks for the replies though.
 
Not advocating the idea. Haven't seen nor tried it.

Sometime in the last decade one of the gunzines did a test on a commercially marketed water cooling system. Bucket of water, pump, hose and adaptor to fit to one end or tuther of the barrel. High power rifle........X number of shots........run water through barrel till temp down to target level........X number of shots.....etc etc. They reported that there were no adverse effects and there were some positive effects.

Would I trust this system on a Lilja barreled Lapua.......Not without a heck of a lot more info.

Sam
 
Preserve,

An car's engine block isn't anything like a gun barrel.

Most engine blocks are cast iron or aluminum, and have none of the elasticity or tensile strength that an ordnance steel rifle barrel has.

The stress created by firing a bullet down the barrel is far in excess of what an engine block takes.
 
Some more anecdotal evidence here...I've seen Ma Deuce shooters and M1919 shooters at full auto shoots using WD40 or some sort of light oil in spray bottles on their barrels. They said that it wouldn't damage the barrels, but did have a cooling effect as it steamed off.
 
I'm with Mike--a rifle barrel doesn't get nearly as hot as an overheated car motor, plus it's one heckuva lot stronger. Sustained combustion temperatures of 2,200 degrees are a lot different situation than the intermittent heat flashes in a rifle's chamber.

Off-topic: We got curious about the effect of water on a running Corvair engine, when I worked at Chev Test Lab some four decades ago. So, engine on dyno at full throttle and max rpm. I poured five gallons of water down the fan. Result? A flash increase of some 15 foot-pounds of torque. Anti-climactic...

:), Art
 
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