Captcurt
Member
All right guys, here it is. I've always wondered if fluted barrels are as stable as unfluted? It looks to me as if the thickness of the flutes were not uniform the barrel would tend to bend as it heats up. What do you think?
A fluted barrel is stiffer than a non-fluted barrel of the same weight. It's a weight saving practice, which may - may - improve cooling as well in common civilian applications. A properly done fluted barrel should have little or no impact on the performance of a barrel in terms of accuracy. It does add to cost.
For 95% of civilian applications, there really no reason to flute barrels other than because it looks neat.