Sleeved Barrels ~ interesting rifle barrel technology to increase accuracy!?!

[Melensdad]

I've seen sleeved barrels on 10/22 target guns before.

Never seen a sleeved barrel on a centerfire rifle, or if I did I didn't notice it.

But I ran across this company:


They are a custom barrel maker, specializing in lightweight barrels that are apparently pretensioned inside a sleeve, essentially making a skinny barrel that 'free floats' inside an tube that is filled with some sort of "proprietary" stuff. The claim is light weight but rigid.

Link to their home page: Custom Rifle Barrel Manufacturer Greenville, SC - Teludyne Tech Inc.

Watch the video on the HOME PAGE LINK ABOVE and tell me what you think.

They argue that their system provides a much cooler barrel shot to shot and therefore as you take 3rd, 4th and 5th shots the barrel is not heating up as hot as a traditional barrel. Further in cold weather it helps keep the barrel a more consistent temperature for more consistent follow up shots.

Here is a YouTube video I found, this is much shorter than the above video and far LESS complete. Still interesting, but not as informative as the longer video at the home page.

Teludyne Tech - WTS Outdoor Adventure -...

And another, that appears to be a commercial

Straightjacket Shooting System - YouTube

[300 H and H]

Less mass, more surface area=faster cool down. Interesting indeed. I wonder if it is as good as claimed, if they won't be putting this on competition rifles. I will become a believer when that happens for sure. The bench rest guys will be trying this out, I would think. Time will tell in the end. Thanks for showing this here.

Best regards, Kirk

PS. I see the olympic biatholon shooters are using them with good success in cold temps.

[Melensdad]

You mention competition shooters and I thought the testimony from the Olympic girls Biatholon shooters seemed pretty interesting!

As for the "less" mass part, I think you misunderstood their sales pitch. They actually take your existing rifle barrel and sleeve it, fill the space between with their 'stuff' and send it back to you. That would yield 'more' mass.

What it does seem to do is create a large 'heat sink' to pull excessive barrel warping heat away from the barrel. At least that is what I think it does????

There have been some huge threads on this companies on various forums with claims from mild to wild being about equal. One forum member at the GunRightsMedia forums bought a rifle, did everything to correctly break in the barrel and the shot it for groups, then he sent it to the company for the shroud. Recoil was lower but it also had a bunch more weight out front, the chamber held about the same heat but the inner barrel did appear to stay cooler. Basically it is a big heat sink. if you do some searching I am sure you can find a lot of these discussions on various forms going back a couple years now.

Here is a good example...read through and do some resaerch and decide
StraightJacket Litmus test: GunRightsMedia => http://www.gunrightsmedia.org/showthread.php?t=416765

[300 H and H]

I read the post on the link you provided......Lots to read by the way....

It sounds like the temperature of the barrel was consistant with their claims, and the accuracy was better as well. $300 bucks worth? Now the ice gets a little thin here, as the testing was done with junk ammo.

My thought was if it added as much weight as the tester claimed, then maybe simply a heavier barrel, equal in weight with the straght jacket barrel, might just match it for accuracy, with no addd weight.

I would hate to send them a sows ear, and expect a silk purse to come from it...It might not happen.

Interestingly they can do this to a gas operated auto, as well as a bolt gun. The gas port has to present a problem with the AR rifles.

Will keep an eye on these guys, to see if we see their product gets used in benchrest matches. Then I might get excited....

Regards, Kirk

[xsinawl]

See Dan Wesson revolvers of years back....

[Melensdad]

Originally Posted by xsinawl

See Dan Wesson revolvers of years back....

I honestly forgot about those (I'm old enough to remember them and old enough to forget them too ). But what was their reason for having the internal barrel and the external shroud?

[xsinawl]

They are changeable to different lengths and they were marketed as target revolvers.

[Cowboy]

Originally Posted by Melensdad

I honestly forgot about those (I'm old enough to remember them and old enough to forget them too ). But what was their reason for having the internal barrel and the external shroud?

Originally Posted by xsinawl

They are changeable to different lengths and they were marketed as target revolvers.

As xsinawl refered to it was to make several different variences to the same basic weapon, see pic.

[300 H and H]

The Dan Wesson Guns use the shroud to strech the barrel liner in tension. A very good thing for accuracy. This straight jacket thing is a bit different and is a monolithic structure with no air gap, and much improved cooling, the tester found to be true. The gap is filled with their proprietary mixture, that hardens to a solid. Rifle barrels by their long nature, operating at much higher breech presures than most hand guns, have much greater barrel harmonics that this compositon they build is claimed to dampen, completely....

Will be interesting to see what happens in the future.

Regards, Kirk

[muleman]

Wonder why the military has not adapted this for field use? The weight might be an issue but it would seem to lend itself to sniper use.

[Danang Sailor]

Originally Posted by muleman

Wonder why the military has not adapted this for field use? The weight might be an issue but it would seem to lend itself to sniper use.

These are quite good for sporting purposes, but the ones I'm familiar with are simply not rugged enough for combat zone
applications. Considering the speed with which technology advances, that should change in the not-too-distant future.

[Kane]

The www.thehighroad.org is perhaps one of the most respected websites for the gun snob. Read carefully the nine pages of comments and you will come a way with a more than adequate sense of the StraightJacket barrel system. Is it worth $300? To a certain subsection of shooters, yes. To the rest of us, maybe not so much. It sure looks cool, tho.

By the way, to all of you guns snobs out there, link up with the High Road for the real deal on gun talk. You'll like.