Barrel tuner

BRACES of Bristol - Sauer 100 XTA Stainless Package
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Woodmister

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Probably the wrong place to ask but someone may know.

been looking at barrel tuners over the past couple of days.

prodominalty for Rimfire as you can’t really change the loads on these, but they also do them for centrefires, to help change the harmonics and tighten groups up.

more target orientated than anything but do any of you have any experience with barrel tuners at all?

cheers Adam
 
Woodmister said:
I have seen his stuff! Looks good!! Just didn’t know if people used them for hunting! As I shoot with a mod but most of the attachments don’t allow for mods?
Click to expand...
Being interested in the vagaries of .22 rimfire accuracy I've made a couple of barrel tuners and also one that works with a mod fitted.
This is fitted on the original Finnfire barrel:


This is one fitted to my Sako Finnfire with a Lilja match barrel:


 
1066 said:
Being interested in the vagaries of .22 rimfire accuracy I've made a couple of barrel tuners and also one that works with a mod fitted.
This is fitted on the original Finnfire barrel:


This is one fitted to my Sako Finnfire with a Lilja match barrel:


Click to expand...
Did you make this yourself mate?
 
Woodmister said:
Did you make this yourself mate?
Click to expand...
Yes, made it myself, and yes, a small but definite improvement in accuracy. However it's not miracle cure, more of a tweeking device. As you said in your original post, you tune a centrefire load to suit your rifle, with a rimfire you are left with tuning your rifle to suit the ammunition.
The most noticeable improvements show at longer ranges as you would expect. With careful handloading of centrefire ammunition you can get the ES down to single figures on a bullet traveling around 3,000fps. With .22lr ammunition the ES is oftem considerably more that this on a bullet only going at around 1050fps, this shows up as vertical groups. By careful tuning this error can be reduced.

There are different ideas and approaches to tuning - some are what you could call barrel damping, as in the "limb saver", this idea is to kill the barrel vibration. Other systems aim for "positive compensation" where the barrel is tuned so the bullet exits the barrel on the upswing vib. The theory being that a faster bullet leaves the barrel earlier at a slightly lower trajectory, a slower bullet leaves on a slightly higher trajectory - both trajectories aiming to cross at your tuned distance.

Another idea is to tune so the barrel is effectively "stopped" .
Just recently I sketched out an idea for someone who wanted to try a tuner with a moderator - this would work ok with one of the PH mods as an experiment.
 
1066 said:
Yes, made it myself, and yes, a small but definite improvement in accuracy. However it's not miracle cure, more of a tweeking device. As you said in your original post, you tune a centrefire load to suit your rifle, with a rimfire you are left with tuning your rifle to suit the ammunition.
The most noticeable improvements show at longer ranges as you would expect. With careful handloading of centrefire ammunition you can get the ES down to single figures on a bullet traveling around 3,000fps. With .22lr ammunition the ES is oftem considerably more that this on a bullet only going at around 1050fps, this shows up as vertical groups. By careful tuning this error can be reduced.

There are different ideas and approaches to tuning - some are what you could call barrel damping, as in the "limb saver", this idea is to kill the barrel vibration. Other systems aim for "positive compensation" where the barrel is tuned so the bullet exits the barrel on the upswing vib. The theory being that a faster bullet leaves the barrel earlier at a slightly lower trajectory, a slower bullet leaves on a slightly higher trajectory - both trajectories aiming to cross at your tuned distance.

Another idea is to tune so the barrel is effectively "stopped" .
Just recently I sketched out an idea for someone who wanted to try a tuner with a moderator - this would work ok with one of the PH mods as an experiment.
Click to expand...
Yes looked at the limb saver but most of the other centrefire tuners require a larger diameter barrel to be machined down to accept the tuner, in my case this isn’t possible as there isn’t enough meat of the barrel in the first place. So your last drawing is looking appealing😁!!
 
I use one of the limbsaver tuners on my hmr, again a,small increase in accuracy.

I also have a spare one brand new knocking about I may be willing to sell 😉
 
I’ve a limbsaver fitted to one of my rifles but not had an chance to tune it yet.
I’ve seen lots of videos explaining how they work, how you “tune the rifle so the bullet leaves the barrel at the point the barrel crosses the midline of the authors simple sine wave”. However, from a maths/physics perspective, sticking with the simplifies sine wave analogy, the obvious point you want the bullet to exit the barrel is at the peak/thought of the wave form as these are the only points where the barrel stops moving (as it’s direction of travel changes), the point, traditionally mentioned is where the ‘sine wave’ crosses from + to -, is where the barrel is at its maximum velocity. This is much the same as tuning a load to a specific barrel; the best load is one with similar accuracy/poi from +1 and -1 loads either side of it; not the accurate group/ load with wildly different poi either side of it.
N
 
If anyone is really interested and wants to do some deeper reading then I would suggest:
Using barrel vibrations to tune a barrel (geoffrey-kolbe.com)
Lots of articles and information here:
22 Long Rifle Barrel Tuner Analysis -- FEA Dynamic Analysis of Esten's 22LR Rifle with/without a Tuner. (varmintal.com)

And Bill Calfee's book - The art of rimfire accuracy. Bill Calfee is the chap who made the first barrel tuners. His .22lr benchrest rifles hold more State, National and World records that all the other .22lr benchrest rifle builders put together.
 
jcampbellsmith said:
I've thought for a long time that the double stub tuning approach used in microwave antenna might have some application in barrel tuning.
Click to expand...
Just as I was thinking that some of these tuners looked like the lumps of ferrite you see moulded on data cables. And I scroll down yo read JCS's reply!
 
I follow Alan Maughan, a gunsmith between Hexham and Newcastle in the Tyne Valley, on Facebook.
Alan‘s made and played about with barrel tuners for f class rifles, quite successfully from what he’s posted. He’d perhaps be someone to have a chat with.
 
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