Canned Air

[Joey Dean]

Has anyone put a short blast of canned air down their barrel between shots on an OCW or Ladder to aid barrel cooling?

I am not talking about emptying a full can down a smoking hot tube here.

 

[M1Amen]

I have seen competition shooters use an aquarium air pump to cool their rifle barrels by running a piece of tubing from the air pump to the bore. I would think the can of air is not going to do a whole lot for you unless you give a really good long blast. Maybe some of the competition shooters can chime in with an air pump technique.

 

[Griff24]

Canned air is usually a liquid under pressure that expands into a gas. One byproduct from liquid->gas expansion is heat absorption. It will cool the barrel very rapidly. I would think that would be a bad thing in a precision rifle barrel but that is my uneducated opinion.

 

[Joey Dean]

Griff,

That is my point. The cooling would be dependant upon the length of the blast. I think, but have no data to back it up, that as long as we are not talking a radical temperature swing there would be no harm. Hence my point on doing this between rounds so there was no substantial heat build up in the barrel to begin with.

 

[George Az]

I have been to a drag race and seen guys put bags of ice on the intake manifold before the next run. I am wondering.........

 

[ChrisGarrett]

I would think that near the end of the air tube, you'd get quicker, more rapid cooling and perhaps a tighter contraction, than you would get near the muzzle, or vice versa.

Chris

 

[Griff24]

If the temp change isn't drastic I don't think it would hurt. Now I have this mental picture of somebody with an upside down can dumping liquid into the chamber.