Topic: Yo, Pan or Gunsmith! Or anyone familiar with long guns....

[AlanS]

Has anyone here heard of a Straightjacket barrel? Sounds interesting in concept.

http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/extreme-accuracy-makeover-the-teludyne-tti-tech-straightjacket/

[Pandora]

I haven't.  I'll heads-up Gunsmith.

[charlesoakwood]

Better selling point if they had established a baseline with that scope before the "straightjacket".

[AlanS]

Better selling point if they had established a baseline with that scope before the "straightjacket".

If you read the comments, he admits it was a bonehead move. A couple of the guys say it helped their guns with a before and after comparison, though.

To me, it's one of those things that sounds too good to be true.

[benb61]

Hell, I get better groups just by not drinking the night before I go shooting.  This proves nothing.

[IronDioPriest]

I can't tell if this makes perfect sense to me because I'm just stupid enough about the physics for it to sound plausible when put into layman's terms, or because it is a brilliantly conceived solution. But it makes perfect sense to me...

...But as the gun heats up, the varying wall thicknesses push and pull the barrel along its length, because it can’t by the laws of physics expand and contract evenly. This effects accuracy, the phenomenon we call “barrel harmonics.”

“All of these years, “ Mr. Adolphsen piped in, “we have been obsessed with perfect loads that we thought “matched” the barrel. We have been fiberglass bedding our stocks and free floating our barrels to relieve the touch points along the barrel length that theoretically made our barrels pull themselves out of perfect harmony. We have invented the most sensitive and ergonomic trigger systems and gun stocks to reduce as much human error as we can. But all the while we ignored the simple fact that the cutting tool wavers during the manufacturing of our barrel, and when we heat up that barrel by firing more than one round, the steel contracts and expands, exacerbating the variations.”

The Straightjacket is designed to take away the heat. In physics and electronics parlance, the Straightjacket is a “heat sink.” They won’t tell me exactly what is in that mixture they pour in the sleeve around your barrel, but I suspect it has some aluminum or copper in it. Both metals blend well with others and are more heat conductive than steel. By the laws of physics, if you bond a piece of aluminum of copper to a piece of steel and heat up the piece of steel, the heat will race to the other metal, because it offers less resistance to the travel of the heat. The heat will then live in that metal and bleed off into the air before it returns to the steel.

In practical terms for the Straightjacket, this means that you can put five quick rounds through your bolt rifle, open the bolt and stick your pinky in the chamber and it will be cool, while the outside of the Straightjacket will be hot, but not as hot as your bare rifle barrel would be because of the increased surface area that the Straightjacket provides. The jacket material sucks the heat away from the rifle barrel itself. Therefore the cutting inconsistencies in the barrel that Mr. Adolphsen have explained are never amplified, and your rifle shoots more accurately. To quote Teludyne, “the Straightjacket completes the rifle barrel...”

[AlanS]

I know what ya mean, IDP. The heat from the burnt powder has to go SOMEWHERE. Does the straight jacket actually dissipate the heat? Or keep it contained to the barrel? The logic escapes me. It's just that everyone that actually uses it says the groups stay the same EVERY shot. All hi-powered rifles I have shot get REALLY toasty after a few rounds.

[benb61]

Could be the "secret" sauce they pout into the cavity created between the barrel and the sleeve absorbs the heat not allowing the barrel to thermally expand.

[Libertas]

So bullet material doesn't matter?  How does that work?  Glock for example recommends not using lead rounds because the rifling peels more material off of lead vs metal, then, how does heat vary between the two as far as composition and friction to rifling bullet material and load charge and residual powder and gas...and repeated firing.  Seems to me there are more forces at work than just heat impacting the barrel.

[AlanS]

OK. Found some more info. The company website is StraightJacket Barrel System guarantees sub-MOA accuracyTeludyne | Game-Changing Barrel Technologies

For an honest review and test, go here StraightJacket Litmus test. - Page 7

On the test site, ignore the 100+ pages of drama (shooters seem to be like a lot of fishermen). The page I set is the one with the guy's results.

Looks like it works. Just not as remarkable as a few thought.

[John Florida]

 Not being an expert I have to ask,wouldn't a thicker barrel to start with have the same results? All this thing seems to be is a way to absorb more heat which a thicket barrel would do anyway.

[IronDioPriest]

Not being an expert I have to ask,wouldn't a thicker barrel to start with have the same results? All this thing seems to be is a way to absorb more heat which a thicket barrel would do anyway.

It seems to me that what they're saying is that using different metal (or whatever the proprietary concoction is) in the sleeve as a heat sink "wicks" the heat away from the barrel.

[Gunsmith]

Hey Folks,

I skimmed through the link and I would say what they're offering mostly likely helps with accuracy, but it's not the be all end all solution.  A barrel on any firearm takes the most abuse out of all the parts, tremendous pressure, high heat, a bullet scraping its way through it each time you pull the trigger.  A 30-06 springfield cartridge produces avg of 60,000 psi and .223 produces 50,000 psi on avg.  The barrel flexes (they use term Harmonics) and then returns to its original shape and position, mostly.  Any product that can legitimately reduce or midigate any of those factors (pressure, heat, friction) should improve the gun's consistency & accuracy.

But keep in mind even the most precise technologically advanced firearm is only as accurate as the person shooting it.