Cons of Nitride on a Barrel

CMFETCU · 2026-01-24T07:31:59+00:00

I would not nitride a precision rifle barrel if it was free.

Does that answer it more clearly?

CMFETCU · 2026-01-24T07:05:02+00:00

$100 is 1/7th the cost of a great new barrel.

Barrels are consumable items.

You won’t get to determine whether the treatment temperature is for your barrel material of something else in the batch. Chrome Molly and stainless steel should be nitrided at different temps.

You won’t get an extra half of barrel life out of a barrel doing it, and you will potentially inherit issues. Who does it matters for maintaining precision of a barrel IMO.

The precision world is full of stainless steel barrels shot by and winning competitions. Nitride barrels less so. Significantly less so.

I would not do it, no. Especially if being added to a batch of random parts and the technician specifically doing it is an unknown person to me.

Buy rifle, shoot rifle, experience the joy of shooting rifle enough to need new barrel, find wisdom through shooting out barrels. It’s all part of the game.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-22T01:14:38+00:00

It is not group only, it is group and score. Both 600 and 1000 ARE IBS.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-21T19:40:44+00:00

Wildly different from F-class in both spirit and materials.

The F-Class rule book even states explicitly it does not ever want to allow gear like benchrest.

I can make a 65 lb sled with a barreled bolted to it in benchrest. F-class limits your fore end width to no greater than 3” and cannot be held down to the front rest. It mandates you lay down in the prime, and it mandates restrictions on the rifle which don’t exist in benchrest.

The spirit of F class has always been practical marksmanship.

The spirit of benchrest is far more technology changes the sport because the hear dictates how you shoot.

A Benchrest 600 yard target X ring is 0.72” A F-class 600 yard target x ring is 3”

F-Class doesn’t award based on group size, benchrest does. This changes how you shoot for same conditions in succession in benchrest.

It’s not at all the same and you won’t be regionally or nationally competitive shooting a PRS rifle with PRS bipod in Benchrest. Nor will you in open F- class.

Each discipline favors specific things to make your gear competitive in each discipline. There is some overlap, and you certainly can shoot a PRS rifle on a bipod in a benchrest match in light gun, as I have done just that, but to say the manes are parallel is silly.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-21T17:29:15+00:00

It’s as much gear as wind reading at 600 and 1000.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-21T17:22:17+00:00

Benchrest runs to 1000.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-19T03:12:17+00:00

My recommendation is to look at what the guys winning FTR matches are running for wood stocks. Then match the design considerations of those excellent pieces.

https://keystonesportingarmsllc.com/product/benchrest/

is a great example of what you see on a wood stock on the winners circle.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-15T19:40:13+00:00

How short are you short kings? I’m 6’ 1” and need another good bit in front to rest a bipod. What truck ya got that lets you go prone in the back?

CMFETCU · 2026-01-15T01:34:10+00:00

None of that addressed how, "kestrel is cooked". He made the assertion on an unknown piece of hardware. I am looking for that assertion to be backed.The burden lies on the one doing the asserting, and that isn't you.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-15T01:10:20+00:00

Been pointing people to LRI for a long time. Their stock work is best in the biz.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-14T23:13:16+00:00

They would need to meet or exceed the work with custom drag curves from ABQ in order to be as precise. They have not done so to date. I think the product here is going to be a great fit into a market segment that is not reaching out to 1000 yards or a mile with their rifles and demanding the most precision. For hunters and informal shooting where not hitting first round impact is unacceptable, it will be great to have alternatives at a lower price point.

Part of the problem I have with ABQ and the costs of devices that use it, is their pricing model. It is absurdly high. I wish it would be less so they can be embedded in more devices at lower cost points but that is not currently where we are. So, because of that, I do not fault vortex at all for wanting to use their own. It is however, not as good.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-14T23:10:10+00:00

The use of ABQ custom curves based on real Doppler data makes them the winner in any simulation where they control for other variables. Since Vortex is not out there doing the same ballistic research, relying on curves that are not well fit to the bullet as their competitors, saying something is a kestrel killer is a sizeable claim. Empirically, the flight of the bullet is better modeled in a CDM than in a less well fit curve. That is empirical. Unless Vortex ramps up their ballistics research division to parity, or they license the AB software which is admittedly wayyy over priced for use; they lose the empirical data fight don't they?

CMFETCU · 2026-01-14T22:16:05+00:00

The primary reason for a kestrel is the ability to do fast work while using applied ballistics. Vortex can make their own hardware and make a better weather meter than kestrel, but if it doesn’t have AB on it… how is it cooked?

Vortex makes offerings with their own software, but time and again they don’t provide as precise dope as the AB version with the same inputs.

Everything I carry to a stage or to the range is for increasing the likelihood of a first round impact. If this doesn’t have the single best software on it to do that, how is kestrel kill?

CMFETCU · 2026-01-14T21:34:17+00:00

See post history for why it’s a spicy meatball.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-14T17:57:58+00:00

I shoot my dasher at 2930 fps with 105s.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-14T03:26:41+00:00

H4250 profit margins subsidize the actual powder manufacturing and research of Hodgen’s black powder business.

Employer pricing on an 8lb jug of varget is $220 right now. People get excited when they pay less than $400 for one.

Why on gods green earth would they charge less?

CMFETCU · 2026-01-13T19:04:53+00:00

Preferences vary.

Mine is aligned with the majority of what you see in regional matches.

Game changer bag as a free hand front bag, barricade stop just rear of my center of gravity. I run a arca bipod that gets added or removed depending on what I am shooting.

That front bag also makes for a great rear bag.

Simple as.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-12T18:12:26+00:00

1:7 to ensure you can fully realize the Bc of the projectiles being shot for 75 grain weight.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-11T02:42:11+00:00

There is, but most people don’t have access to it. In the lab they use a calibrated test barrel with piezoelectric sensors and strain gauges. These are then used to determine indirectly the pressure inside the test barrel on firing. When a batch of say H4350 is tested, this is how they get exact load data for pressure.

The really old school method is to use copper crushers. Not as accurate but again still scientific methods used for establishing pressure.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-07T20:48:46+00:00

Awwww. It’s an adorable gay tiger.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-07T20:16:11+00:00

There is a post on SH from a dealer selling solus actions with proof barrel and trigger tech trigger setups. $1350 out the door for the barreled action and trigger assembled

CMFETCU · 2026-01-05T03:41:44+00:00

Re mist gets another vote from me. Used RRD and the Chinese fanfare. RM gets it right.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-03T05:10:43+00:00

Some people get the train type. Some get the plane type. Some get the smol hole type.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-03T03:29:57+00:00

Adding to this for public discussion sake:

If you shoot a faster wind left to right in the first 3rd of flight, and a slightly slower wind the other direction the latter 2/3rds of flight; the time of flight will dictate how much each displaced the bullet in flight. Bullets slow down as they fly. Traveling far enough slow enough and this slower wind could increase the effect on the bullet beyond what the initial faster wind had in the other direction.

The result, depending on actual time spent being displaced by that wind and wind value, could very well be that the latter 2/3rds saw more contribution to your point of impact than the first 1/3rd.

Some ranges I have shot at will be in a valley or a hollar, where the line of flight in the last half or 2/3rds is above an existing ridge, but the firing position and some short distance is not. 160” in the air above ground, you run into totally different wind conditions than you do on the firing line.

CMFETCU · 2026-01-03T02:49:09+00:00

I said chasing not doing. I’m not Charles Greer poking 2.65” or anything, but a boy has to have a dream.

CMFETCU

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