M6A2 With Spiral Fluted Barrel?

The fluting increases the surface area of the barrel, which helps with cooling.

That's what a Black Rain Ordinance rep told me at a gun show, anyway. I guess it's good if you're running a LOT of rounds downrange or going full-auto for extended periods.
 
fluted barrels are better at dispersing heat, but because they have less metal they will get hotter initially. Also it may be relevant to say that Shilen says the process of fluting can release stress in a barrel and decrease accuracy. Not sure how much truth there is to that, but I do know Shilen makes a good barrel and generally know what they're talking about.
 
Pretty much looks to me like more of a sales gimmick than a solution to any real-world problem. However, I don't see how it can hurt anything, so to me it's unimportant one way or the other--except for Internet jaw-jacking. :D
 
When I was very young my family used to drive across the border to Nuevo Laredo a lot for family vacations and as a pre-teen my friends and I would spend days at a time wandering the back alleys and streets unshaparoned looking at all the small family factory shops where all kinds of hand crafts were produced. At the time wrought iron light fixtures and furniture were all the rage and many shops carried free standing floor lamps where the central stands were twisted and fluted for 4-5 feet. The barrel on the LWRC site reminds me of those lamp stands and brought back pleasant memories. In this day and age no parent with any brains would let their children wander the streets in Mexico as we were allowed. Things sure have changed for the worse.
 
It's completely aesthetic. No one has ever been able to document the cooling effect of fluted barrels. If it was significant, then barrel makers would be advertising the level of cooling their brand of fluting adds - and none of them do this.

On a .223 semi-automatic, it is impossible to damage even the SP1 "pencil" barrels from heat. These heavy barrels are way over engineered for .223 semi-autos. The fluting does nothing................but it can look cool.
 
My understanding of fluting formed back when it first started is that it was done to keep the stiffness of a thick barrel while removing some of the weight. The goals were to make the barrel stiffer and lighter. A fluted barrel would be stiffer than a comparable weight normal barrel.

The concept is similar to an I-beam where the center section of the beam just separates the top and bottom of the beam where the loads are carried. The center section of the I-beam can be cut full of holes as long as it still separates the top and bottom of the beam.

Spiral fluting ruins the stiffness of barrel in much the same way twisting an I-beam would ruin its load bearing capability. A spiral fluted barrel combines the ungainliness of a thick barrel with the stiffness of a thin barrel.

Fluting was to make a barrel stiffer and lighter. Spiral fluting makes it heavier and weaker. Probably not a desired effect; although it does look nice.
 
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