Barrel Cooler

[airedale]

Shooting from the bench on these hot days gets your rifle barrel hot quickly, especially the light thin sporter barrels and they stay hot forever.  Anyone knows  hot sporter barrels start causing shots to wander some  and open groups, I started looking for a solution to cool the barrels down relatively quick as I like knowing where my hunting rifles shoot with a cool barrel especially the first couple of shots. I found several barrel cooling devices and decided to go with a "Chuckwalla" universal barrel cooler from competition shooting school. I chose this model over the others because it uses the much more common AA batteries. You just place the device in your rifle's chamber and turn it on and it will get the barrel cooled back down much quicker than just waiting around to cool on it's own. I think it works pretty good and keeps thing moving along on the bench.

Al

[Shoots100]

I like the idea, but I prefer putting the hot barreled rifle in the shade and heating up another rifle.

SJC

[Farflung]

some rifles shift point of impact a lot and some it is not even noticeable. I noticed that Remington 742's and 760's would wander around a whole lot. My Tikka's shift very little. 

I agree with Shoots100, bring several guns and rotate them.

[airedale]

I have rotated firearms on the bench for over fifty years so barrels can cool and if it works for you no problem, continue on. With the amount of shooting and handload development I do this barrel cooler speeds things up much better for my sessions on the bench, a game changer for me.

Al

Edited July 18 by airedale

[fasteddie]

I recall watching a Western movie where 2 men were having a shooting contest with rifles . I think Sam Elliott was in the movie . Anyway , the contestants were using rifles and the barrels would heat up . One of them used a bucket of cold water to dip the rifle barrel into to cool it off after each shot . I wouldn't recommend doing this but it was interesting at the time . I wish I could remember the name of the movie and the actor .