Re: Carbon wrapping a Barrel
Hey guys,I guess I'll chime in for a little knowledge on composite wrapped,anything.I am a certified composite engineer of 12yrs.I have a physics major.I've worked for Boeing,Northrope Gr.,then Vector composites(we make 82% of the composites on the Apache heli)before I left recently.I am now QA engineer.So,this being said
I'll say that wrappping the barrel is nothing more than,well,wrapping a barrel.Obviously not an easy job to do but honestly not hard.I know of two composite firms that do third party contracts for the us gov/mil and were asked of barrel engineering theories via laminates/composites for beneficial use.
I was told from insider "friends" that it was not "purposeful" vs. a heavy fluted barrel for cooling effiency,and accuraccy was completely determined by the barrel of origin.These were from field testing done by the militarys' AMU,on the M110 knights DI rifle,as this was one of their experiments to say the least.Costs of engineering and labor being as I quote,"it's a wasteful product but looks nice,I don't think the military is gonna bite on the functionality though.."My friend seemed very honest as he usually is.He's a double degreed' physics and properties engineer.These barrels were done with a filliment winding machine and a patented filliment coating system that applies epoxy before the filliment is about to touch the barrel/cylinder.This method is used to keep tolerences precise,it's very,very strong,and seemed to flex the best with the barrels energy dissipation and shape change during energy discharge.The filliment winding system is also very time consuming and expensive.Me and him had this talk and this is how I feel.I think the same about it IMHO.The barrels metal properties are different from the composites epoxy(no matter what the epoxy,period.Over time they WILL separate in some way,due too the harmonics.The two will never really be one and that would kind of worry me in the end.Looks are one thing but for the additional price paid I would go get a good ol'steel barrel,airgauged and hand lapped,tried and trued.He is an avid shooter also and wanted to see this work in his words,but agreed with me without a doubt about the physics and the actual test results he shared.Just my .02cents.Goodshootin'
~Reagan