This is far and away the deepest fluting, tightest spiral, lightest contour fluted barrel I have owned, and which I put through both the most scrutinizing analysis and most abuse. This barrel would get EXCEPTIONALLY hot during matches, to the point it once literally burned my skin to the point of scabbing after incidental contact on my neck. But the POI held true.
The smallest shooting barrels in the world aren’t fluted, but not necessarily for any effect of the fluting itself - it simply costs more and reduces weight and stiffness, all of which are contraindicated for competition shooting.
In principle, the flutes should be symmetrical around the bore, so expansion will also be symmetrical. Maybe not as radially uniform as an annular cross-section of a conventional contour, but on a net basis, still radially uniform. Spiral fluting, naturally, would SEEM to be a deviation from this, but overall, the cross-sections remain symmetrical, so the expansion and internal forces aren’t uneven.
Overall, fluting a barrel - properly - won’t cause a barrel to walk any more than a normal barrel, and a guy can shoot bugholes with any of them - but if you’re competing where hundredths count, fluting is moot, and simply isn’t part of the vocabulary.