AusVarmint

Last night i went through some of my old shootin mags and i came across an old Target. Inside it had an abridged report of a relatively new barrel that blewup some years back during a fullbore match. The report done by a metalurgist from Monash Uni claimed that the longitudinal grooves and scratches coupled with repeated heat, pressure, expansion and vibration would have eventually led to work hardening of the stainless steel to a point where it was only a matter of time before it let go.
Very bright this guy and as i respectfully acknowledge those that teach others how to do things in the real world, that i will cease using any barrels of mine that have grooves in them (rifling) and scratches (lapping marks) leaving me with my shotgun to shoot next years fly and 1000/600 yd events. Should be fun.
Tony Z.

Tony Z wrote: Very bright this guy and as i respectfully acknowledge those that teach others how to do things in the real world, that i will cease using any barrels of mine that have grooves in them (rifling) and scratches (lapping marks) leaving me with my shotgun to shoot next years fly and 1000/600 yd events. Should be fun.
Tony Z.

Hell mate ..I know plenty of blokes that maintain they could do that EASY and then a few more that it wouldn't really matter that much

TonyZ,

Soooo.....did it resemble an overstretched spring or was it the flute that let go ????

KY

The official reason given for the failure of these barrels was that the steel used was too hard. Stainless barrel steel is usually under 30 Rockwell - this stuff was well over that. Interestingly, the barrel that blew up first had done over 2000 rounds with no problems using factory loads (F4). In recent times there have been more Oz barrels that blew up for the same reason. I understand that the Sako one that let go in Canada also had this problem.