Re: Barrel contour and accuracy
Terry,
Understand I saw this and decided to give just a what-if, somewhat of a demonstration of what can be done. In this case I chose a 30 caliber bore - the most popular still I think.
As for your second question, the bending stiffness of the barrel (or a beam for a more traditional engineering application) is defined much more by the outer diameter than the inner. That said, it would be an easy analysis to show exactly what difference it does or does not make.
To your third question, I would say absolutely. In this case I looked on Surgeon's website and picked the shank length for their 591 receiver. I'm sounding like a broken record here, but it would a very simple thing to show exactly what an effect shank length does or does not have.
And for your fourth question, I think so. That analysis gets slightly more complicated (in my mind that becomes what we call a non-linear analysis rather than a linear analysis). Still not terribly hard to do though.
I knew you weren't making fun of me. I've tried to get one of the action manufacturers attention on this before to no avail. As I see it right now some really smart people (GA Precision, KMW, Surgeon, Bartlein, Krieger, and so on (in no order)) have done an amazing job at what they do, but I still think there is more that can be done with some engineering analysis. Some of the things I think may have opportunity are analyses of action stiffness, barrel stiffness, composite stock stiffness, and maybe most importantly the whole thing as a system. Maybe you guys have already put together the best there can be, but maybe there is some more to be gained too? Also, we can do analyses for heat transfer to understand exactly how it affects things, and how quickly things heat up and cool back down, etc.
I am an engineering nerd whose biggest hobby is guns and shooting, so I enjoy trying to pair the two.
Thanks for your interest,
Chris