freezing your barrel?

H

hunting4fun

New member
I was over at gander mountain yesterday and overheard one of the salespeople telling a customer that was looking at a 22-250 that he should have it cryogenically frozen if he is going to shoot it alot. He said that it increases life expectancy of the barrel by 75%. And that wear and tear from shooting it hot is almost zilch. He said that alot of guys that are prarie dog shooters are doing that now and getting 15000-25000 rounds out of the barrels now where before they would onlt get 2000-5000. I have never heard of this before and was wondering if anyone could fill me in a little.
 
Cryogenic treating of a barrel has been around for a while and IMHO, the jury is still out as to the benefit. I've had two that were done through DPMS and both were extremely accurate. I've had two that were not, but custom barrels, and both are extremely accurate.

The treatment is supposed to remove or reduce the stress factors normally found in all steel.

As far as increasing the barrel life, that sounds a little far fetched for stretching from 5000 to 25,000.. I don't know anyone that shoots that many rounds on PDs in a year... Maybe there are some out there. After all, that's only 833+ rounds a day for 30 days.
 
I've had it done before,I've been pleased.I was told it removes all stress,and sort of hard surfaces the tube.I have a .22-250 with over 2500 thru it,that is showing no real signs of throat erosion.It does make cleaning a breeze,a few wet patches,a few dry,and no more green.I don't expect 20,000 rounds out of it,I would be pleased if I could wring 7500 out of it.Cryo'd or not barrel life still depends on the nut behind the buttplate.I have a buddy that can't 3000 out of a .22-250 for his life.But he does'nt stop shootin till he could brand a cow with it!
 
So where is this PD colony? I have had one day that went over 600 rounds and I was exhausted. I have had several cryo treated barrels and I can tell you from first hand experience that they burn out just as quickly. One was a .270 AI and one was a .30 cal wildcat based on the 8mm Rem Mag. I can not even say that they were easier to clean than a good cut rifled barrel would be.
 
I also think it is a waste. Had one in .220 swift. Next time I want one frozen, I'll save the money and sit in a sub zero field and wait for a fox or coyote to answer the call.
 
I have had several barrels frozen with good results. The biggest challenge was a Rem model 7 in 7/08 that would not shoot better than 2" - after being frozen, it now shoots 1/2". I am sold on the idea if you are at a last resort with getting one to shoot.
 
Dan Lilja, Maker for match grade button rifle barrels had this to say

"So, because of the very limited amount of stress that could be removed with the cold treatment (if the barrel has been properly stress relieved with heat as our barrels are) we do not believe that there can be much if any accuracy benefit to the -300 degree treatment of our barrels. It is for these reasons that we feel the cold process has very little potential for increasing the accuracy of our barrels. In our opinion, other than the removal of these stresses, there are no other mechanical factors involved that could benefit accuracy in a rifle barrel, resulting from a heat treating operation, either hot or cold."

Found this on http://www.riflebarrels.com/faq_lilja_rifle_barrels.htm I would tend to believe this man.
 
and from shilen.

"If you have heard that the cryogenic treatment stress relieves steel, this is false. We have measured the residual stress in 4140 and 416 steel with a process called x-ray diffraction. After much R&D, we have not been able to measure any changes in molecular stress after cryo treatment. For this reason we do not endorse the cryogenic process, but we can safely say that it is not detrimental to the barrel either."
 
What cryo treating is doing is that intese cold oreents the grain structure of the steel to be more hermonic. It may surface harden the steel to some extent as well. it may make an accurate barrel of good steel a bit more accurate, it will improve the accuracy of an inaccurate barrel, but if it is made of poor quality steel or is of poor quality in other areas it will still be poor quality steel and poor manufacturing but it may be a bit more potentialy accurate. As far as barrel life goes that is more a result of poor care or poor fire disipline. Do not over heat your barrel and they will last a lot longer use a strict regimine for cleaning use rod guides and proper cleaning tools and methods and the barrel will give alot longer life than if you do not.
 
the advice from top barrel makers is of little consequence,..they are using methods that don't impart much stress anyway. Cryo'ing one of their tubes won't show much at all,...but cryo a factory tube with hammer forging stresses throughout and I bet it shows a Lot more affect. There is little to no stress in a match grade tube and they are using the top grade of metal to begin with, couple this with button rifling or cut rifling processes and I wouldn't expect to see much improvement as the barrel will already outperform any "average" barrel.

I have heard it will settle down a stressed mass produced barrel and quite a few folks have told me they saw a definte advantage when cleaning.
 
Just curious what this process costs? If it's over 100 bucks, I think I'd save the money for a custom rebarrel whent he factory bbl is burned up. Sounds like it's a way to make a cheap factory bbl closer to a custom in accuracy. If it truly extended bbl life 3-4X's, you'd think everyone would be doing it.
 
I had a few factory barrels frozen when it was all the rage, about ten years ago. Can't say that I could see any improvement in accuracy, perhaps a very slight improvement on one of them. Cleaning might have been a bit easier, one cobby Savage barrel in particular, I think really was easier to clean.

The two of them that I wore out, did not last any longer than their unfrozen counterparts, though.

I wouldn't bother with it, on any barrel, personally. If a barrel (factory or otherwise) is shooting bad enough to make me even consider something like that, these days, that barrel will be gone faster than you can say "freeze". Life is too short to mess around with crappy barrels...

- DAA
 
I had some done years ago. I even had one double treated, i.e. frozen both before and after rifling. I haven't had any done in years. Looks like a complete waste of money from what I have seen.
Some years ago the NRA had some complete rifles frozen. In half of them it slightly improved accuracy, in the other half it made accuracy worse.

Jack
 
I try to do a couple each year....

When I go up north in January/February to hunt coyotes, I leave my rifles in an unheated barn each night. They seem to shoot about the same the next day.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I don't think I'd spend money doing it, however... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-006.gif

On the plus side, keeping them in an unheated barn at night keeps them from gathering moisture by taking them into a heated house after being out all day in freezing temps..

-BCB
 
Sierra, the bullet manufacturer, did a study of this: they had three barrels from the same lot of steel, chambered in sequence on the same machinery, then had two of them "frozen". These barrels were used for accuracy testing of bullets, so very detailed records were maintained. At the end of the test, the barrels, identified as Larry, Curly, and Moe, were not identifiable for any reason. They simply could not point to anything that might sort one from the others. I'm with those that would put that money into a kitty for my next barrel.
 
If you really want to "Freeze" a barrel I would suggest putting it under my buddies bed, when his wife finds out he is bringing home a new rifle next week I am sure it will be very cold, infact it gives me the chills just thinking about it!

Just poken fun.....I am sure a some of you can relate!

On a serious note: I have seen large brake rotors used in the paper industry that have been treated, true they do last a bit longer, but these are run 24/7 in horibile conditions, the fact is, the vast majority of these rotors go untreated, and these rotors are not cheep to begin with right around(400$), in my opinion the gain in longevity isn't worth the extra cost.
You would probably be better off with a HQ barrel to begin with.
 
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