Does fluting cause stress in a barrel?
We’ve been asked if machining flutes into a rifle barrel causes stress in the steel. The short answer is no, it does not. There are some operations in the manufacture of a rifle barrel that can cause stress to develop in the steel, but fluting is not one of them. To the contrary, fluting can and will relieve stress if it is already present. The same is true of any outside machining work performed on a barrel. The type of stress that can exist in a barrel is called compressive stress. Under normal conditions the stress could form from two processes. When steel is manufactured, the round shape is formed through a rolling operation in the steel mill. This forming can be performed either hot or cold. Cold rolling generates a great deal of internal stress in the steel. Usually, with steel used for rifle barrels, this stress is relieved by heating the steel to just below its transformation or critical temperature. We have the steel mill that makes our steel do this as their very last operati
