Here is an interesting high speed video showing the flex of a barrel during firing. One barrel has been modified with the Straightjacket system which according to claims, reduces flex and the video supports the claim. Whats real interesting to me is the motion of the unmodified barrel. The flex shows greater flex and unpredictability than I expected.
I have no connection with the folks performing the Straightjacket modification, nor have I any experience at all with barrels so modified. I know this isn’t strictly an AR topic and hope this is the right sub-forum. If not, mods, please move it
Someone’s not playing from a full deck. Look at the stocks. Upper rifle is flopping all over the place as in free recoil. Lower rifle is locked into some sort of rest. The upper rifle also appears to have a longer barrel or a thinner barrel profile. The video of the upper rifle is also being played faster than the lower rifle despite what the file data says. Look at the ripple of the plastic film the visible bullet speed.
Don’t get me wrong, barrel flex does occur, but not to the level that that video is suggesting.
Wish they showed the way the top rifle was secured. You can see the top barrel whip a little but it looks like most of the movement is from whole gun rising as one piece from the receiver end.
That top barrel is really long. You can see the end of the fore-end for an instance and the barrel appears to be about 26" past the fore-end. The bottom barrel extends about 19" past the fore-end. (If the grid is 1"x1").
Two things for sure, that bottom barrel is about double the thickness of the top barrel and the bottom barrel doesn’t seem to flex a bit.
Ignore the comparison for the moment. The makers of the video are hawking a sleeving of the barrel to deaden vibration and the comparison may not be completely impartial. Study how the standard barrel flexes. You can see waves rippling down the barrel. It also appears the initial flexing consistently flexes the muzzle downward first, unless I’m missing something. Seeing the barrel harmonics like this is very interesting. Perhaps someone has a link to other, similar vids?
Snake oil salesman marketing video to be sure. That said it would be interesting to see if there was some hi speed videos out there that delved into barrel whip and harmonics.