Keeping your barrel cool

Hey shooters,
i was wondering about ways to keep your barrel cool while at the range. I know hunters don't have this problem but I'm going to be target shooting and I'm worried about losing accuracy and worse damaging my barrel do to over heating it. I have a heavy barrel and its chambered in a fairly light load (223) but when I was breaking it in I noticed the barrel getting pretty hot so I would wait around and let it cool before firing it again. My two questions are:
1:how hot is to hot?
2:what can I do to make the cooling process faster. I have read you can point the barrel up and that helps also keeping out of the sun in the shade. I have read that people use wet towels to speed up the process and I even saw a guy on YouTube running water down his barrel to cool it??

I also want to say a quick thank you to all the people on this forum for all the info and support.

Expel the spent brass as soon as possible after each shot, and keep the bolt open as long as possible between shots, If you can't keep your hand on the barrel it is to hot. the best way is bring a another gun with you even if it is a rimfire and use that while they other rifle is cooling off.


Dean

I don't do a lot of target shooting. But for cold bore load work-ups with SS or creakote finished barrels during the hot summer months, I bring a cooler full of the plastic bag refreezable gel ice packs to the range. As the hot barrel melts the gel, the soft plastic cover wraps around the barrel and you can gently slide back and forth on the barrel to cool. Of course, with high humidity condensation is going to leave behind moisture on the barrel which I wipe off with a dry towel when the barrel is almost, but not completely cool. The remaining heat energy will re-vaporize most of the moisture. I would not use this method on uncoated on chrome moly barrels that rust quickly.

My barrel is just the black carbon steel that the axis comes in. Would using the wet towel trick work for me??

This is the video i saw. I did not think you could do this to a barrel without running the risk of damaging it.

http://youtu.be/Gj18igDANcw

There's nothing about the water that will necessarily damage the barrel except as a catalyst for corrosion. If this were a semi-auto, especially one with a substantial magazine, I might worry that the barrel might get hot enough that rapid cooling might deform it, but if the coolant is being introduced in a uniform, linear fashion to a moderately hot barrel, it seems like it would diminish the possibility of uneven or contradictory contractions.

I do try to use convection to cool my barrel between strings. Muzzle straight up, bolt wide open.

As to what is too hot? If I grab my barrel and think, "Ow, that's hot," I give it a rest. If I grab it and say, "Hm, that's hot," I might fire another round.

It's a very debated subject. But from what I have read as long as you don't let the barrel get really hot and you make sure to get all the water out of the barrel with dry patches you will not damage the barrel. I am wondering what would happen if the barrel was wet and you fired it. They say it would be a catastrophic fail but I am wondering why???

I have a battery powered air pump with I tube I was thinking about using a spent casing and rigging up my own little air cooling system. The pump is very small and would be easy to keep in my range bag. I could just open the back of the casing to the size of the tube and it would blow cool air into it

Go to an F/class event and see what they use. Minimum of 22 shots fired per match. Three matches that are 20 minutes each. Often the barrels light up when the wind drops. I don't think I have ever seen a serious shooter do anything but put their rig in the rack, out of the sun.

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Originally Posted by Russ77

It's a very debated subject. But from what I have read as long as you don't let the barrel get really hot and you make sure to get all the water out of the barrel with dry patches you will not damage the barrel. I am wondering what would happen if the barrel was wet and you fired it. They say it would be a catastrophic fail but I am wondering why???

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Too much water in the bore can act as a bore obstruction. Shotgun barrels have been known to rupture if they're filled with water and there's that HK video where a Colt AR blows a chunk out of its receiver. Of course shotgun barrels are pretty thin, and the damage to the AR seemed to be caused by the gas system. Whether or not a few drops will do the same in a bolt gun...eh, I don't know but I don't really want to find out.