Surface area allows radiation of heat.

Greater surface area (and greater mass) equals faster cooling.

Formula for area of a cylinder (barrel) will show this.

Thicker barrels may be stiffer, but all have harmonics, and those will likely change as the barrel heats up.

Some shorter or lighter barrels may shoot just as well as a thick one for a few rounds.

For most rifle hunting, barrel diameter is probably irrelevant. For a belt fed, it is critical.

TR

Painted the block and tinware of my hotrod's engine flat black because of the better thermal emissivity.
It assists in cooling.

Curious to know if such things have been done with machine gun barrels.
(Not sure if non-insulating paints are made which will stay on in those temperature ranges).

That's something I try and do every time I walk outside of the house. I need to pick me up a wind meter, to see if my guesses are right. You should see my wife laugh at me. The wind will pick up and i'll be standing there like a tard. She says it looks like I was lost in thought.

One of the best snipers I know "sees" it, like a "fish swimming".

This is about as good of an article as I have seen for reading the wind for hunting purposes. You should copy the indicators to your computer and then take them to the field with you. For competition, there are other methods which usually involve angles of the wind flags or watching mirage by adjusting your parallax knob.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/arti...ading-wind.php

The thing about wind meters is that they only measure the wind where you are. They do not measure wind out in the valley nor over at the target.

one day:lifter

After you've watched enough "trace" you'd know that's exactly what it looks like, "fish swimming".

I watch trace every time I spot-I can see it pretty easily most of the time. What I can't see is wind. I can see the effects of it-that's as close as I get.

I believe Suttles actually sees the wind.

wind
 

Dusty,

Put yor spotting scope lsightly out of focus then you will see the rising heat waves. It looks like the "mirage" that rises off the road on a hot day. Despending on the velocity and direction of the wind the waves will rise at varying angles. Guess I am a little late in advising you to attend the unit level SOTIC...

MVP

Oh, I know what you mean, and thanks for the advice.

I'm not talking about mirage, though-I guess I just am unable to explain what I mean.

This guy "sees" the wind. He says it looks like a "fish". Maybe he can explain it-I'm sure he still works out at Badlands...

I also did shot second match over the weekend. It was a "low light" match that started at 7PM and ended around midnight. I scored around the middle of the pack. That was a big improvement over the last match.(DFL) Having the AICS which fed well really helped. Also the new trigger was an upgrade.


:lifter

I guess. Might just be experience. Steve got signed off on a kill out past 1200 yards in Nam.

I just need to shoot more...;)

I picked up a new long range rig, dropped it in my AICS


Blue printed 700 Action
Shilen match barrel 1:10 twist #5 contour finished at 24"
Bolt spiral fluted with badger knob
Nightforce 20 MOA base.
Gretan firing pin Assembly.
Timney Trigger @ 2lbs.
Nightforce NXS 5.5-22x56


Took it out to 1000 yards yesterday. I was able to hit Clays out to 803 yards, @ 1010 I was hitting pretty close to them, but for me that was close enough.

The guys I was with could really read wind well and were helping me w/ wind calls. That's what I'm spending as much time as I can on. The scope pic is @ 1010 yards, you can hardly see the clays.

And when you "see" trace from a bullet following that path it does indeed look like a "fish in the wind".