Stainless Steel for a Duty Weapon?

[bp7178]

That’s related to sulphur stringing IIRC, and kind of over hyped. Kreiger or Remington had a warning about it too.

This is one of the things Crucible (the foundry which produces 416R, which is a properitary product) checks for when producing 416R series stainless, which was engineered specifically for rifle barrels, hence the “R” in 416R.

[Cameron]

In regard to 416, interestingly Bravo Co uses 410 SS in their barrels and says:

410 stainless is a harder and more corrosion resistant than the conventional 416 stainless found in most barrels.

Also Lothar Walther says of 416:

LW50 which is used for centerfire cartridges. This last material was developed in 1994-95 as a safe alternative to 416R and to solve durability problems associated with 416R.

My two SS barrels were a DD/Lothar Walther LW50, and BCM/Criterion SS410.

Cameron

[bp7178]

Surprisingly every manufacturers material of choice is superior to the materials the all the OTHER manufacturers use.

[markm]

@bp7178

Surprisingly every manufacturers material of choice is superior to the materials the all the OTHER manufacturers use.

I hate when that happens.

[BAC]

Slight off-topic note. PH 17-4 actually is superior to most (maybe all) common stainless steels used for rifle barrels. It’s seldom used because of how hard it is to work with; the final product is too expensive for most. Noveske abandoned it for this reason and I think LW50 is now the only commercially-available variant for rifle barrels.

-B

[bp7178]

Gas blocks are typically made of 17-4 IIRC, due to its ability to resist corrosion.

Noveske said in an interview they did make some barrels out of 17-4, but it ate up a lot of tooling and they would have to charge 1k to make any money off of them.

[trinydex]

@a0cake

---

Now, after all that, here’s what I think people need to look at when selecting a stainless vs chrome lined barrel.

• Are you in a position to be able to feed it exclusively match grade ammunition? There’s no point in going stainless if you’re shooting M855. The best barrel in the world won’t make inaccurate ammunition shoot straight. If you can’t afford / can’t use match ammunition for whatever reason…go chrome.

• If the answer to above is YES, then you are either pretty well off financially or your unit or organization is in a place to provide it. In either of these cases, the monetary cost / practical difficulty of a replacement barrel will be absolutely trivial in comparison to the cost and availability of ammunition. In other words, if you can afford 10-15k rounds of match ammunition, you can afford a new barrel. If your unit / organization can get that much match ammunition, it can get you a new barrel. In either case, barrel life is a non issue.

• Corrosion problems and sudden catastrophic failures from high volumes of fire are in my experience not relevant or warranted fears. I’m not trying to tell war stories here but I’ve asked a lot out of stainless barrels in some engagements as large and frenzied as you can imagine in the valleys and mountains of eastern Afghanistan. I don’t forsee many other stainless “duty” barrels being faced with 125 red bearded nutjobs advancing down the mountain toward them. Having been in such situations with a stainless barrel I have to question the veracity of anybody who claims that SS barrels are not durable enough for “combat.” Gotta wonder what they’re basing that off of. Rest assured that a good stainless barrel is more than durable enough for combat conditions. Deliberately doing 10 mag dumps in a row on the range for Youtube is another story. Also not real life.

So, my position is that if you can take an honest look at yourself and determine that A) you can shoot to the potential of a match type barrel and B) you can afford to feed it a high quality diet and C) You don’t mind the extra weight from the SS and beefier contour and D) you will not neglect to maintain your equipment…that you in fact SHOULD choose a stainless barrel for the edge in accuracy.

If the answer to any of these or the above questions is NO…go chrome.

Sorry for being so long winded.

Wheres the like button?

[dodgefreak8]

you can also get stainless barrels in Black
Rainier Arms Select™ 5.56MM Barrel - 14.5

[bp7178]

a0cake’s post is on the money.

[Bulldog60]

@sniperfrog

Stainless loses some strength in really cold temperatures. It can become brittle and have a catastrophic failure, although this is only in very light contours. Barrel maker Boots Obermeyer recommends not using stainless if you’re going to use your rifle in really cold environments for this reason.

That said, I’ve shot a stainless 300 win mag in -30 degrees without any issue but it had a heavier contour.

I finished my first build about a month and a half ago and when it came to a barrel I decided to go with BCM lightweight 16 CHF but of course they didn’t have any in stock. I paid extra for a Noveske Stainless 16 lightweight. But before I placed my order I emailed Noveske and asked about extreme cold weather and barrel performance since I live in ND. The response was that there would be no issues with performance with their SS barrels in the extreme cold. The temp here can get well below 30 below. Granted I will not be shooting when it gets that cold but if I can make it to the range and the temp is above zero I will be there if I have time off…