Gunsmithing Bee Hive Footin. . .

[LRI]

We've taken on some contractual work where we'll be doing a pile of this for some folks. Hexagon fluting is nothing new and I make no claims as to whatever, lol.

The one little difference here. From what I've seen online, the strategy is some X/Y pockets shaped in a hex. No real difference with ours except that the Y axis is now an A axis move. What this does is give the bottom of the pockets a radius. It makes the work appear as though the barrel has been "sleeved" by a really kinky pair of fishnet stockings. Instead of the features being straight walled, they actually grow in size as the distance from the floor increases.

Nothing earth shattering, but it does change the appearance. The pockets also follow the diameter changes along the length of the contour so the wall thickness between bore/pocket follows the outside contour. In this case, it grows proportional towards the breech.

Kinda neat. Certainly different from the other stuff we've done for the last ten years.

We have this on the store now as well. The price isn't the cheapest. It's a solid hour of spindle time to do it this way. Weight reduction is fairly significant. On a 16" OEM Sendero contour barrel for the 300AAC BO we pulled 13ounces from the starting weight. (From 3lbs even to 2lbs, 2oz.) This is approaching a 30% reduction.

Hope you all like it. Comments welcome.

BeeHive fluting

 

[_Windrider_]

Kinda cool and I like kinky.

 

[winniethepooh]

Ehh not my kind of tea unless you have a fore end covering it

 

[cast1]

All I can think about is having to get the dust out of all of those.

 

[Easy_E]

The bolt done like that also would be sweet !

 

[Brux]

Sorry you wasted your time on that barrel.

 

[Supersubes]

All I can think about is having to get the dust out of all of those.

I thought the same. You fall down with that thing, and you’re gonna need a pressure washer.


As always, I love the work Chad, and the fact that you’re sharing it.

 

[MarinePMI]

Heat shrink wrap the barrel to keep the crap out(?). Interesting approach to reducing weight...

 

[lash]

Sorry you wasted your time on that barrel.

Except that he has a contract to do a bunch of them, so I’m guessing it’s worth his effort.

 

[brianf]

i wonder how much irregular deflection occurs when it heats up, being that its a bolt gun not a AR

looks really cool though, maybe get a paint job with several coats of fleck or pearl so the color changes with with the light and viewing angle

 

[powerspc]

It looks really interesting but I don't understand (emphasis on "I don't understand" meaning I have no expertise whatsoever in this field of endeavor) how that doesn't weaken the barrel, i.e., it look like it would make the barrel very, very thin in all those spots, isn't that a bad thing?

 

[MarinePMI]

The remaining lattice structure retains the rigidity of the barrel, while reducing the weight.

 

[bill alexander]

Structurally the outer surface contributes most to the stiffness and is where the maximum strain occurs during bending or torsion of a bar/barrel. The inner axis or center does little during loading. Pocket type features will remove more material from closer to the central axis. Thus this method gives the best stiffness for weight. Additionally the form maintains a better level of torsional stiffness than straight flutes. Not exactly important for a 300 BLK but has merit for the big calibers, 338 Lapua and above. Only proviso is that the bottom corners must be radiused to reduce the stress raisers

Absolutely beautiful work!

 

[Spblademaker]

I dig it. Get come ceracoat in those things and it would be sick.

 

[cornhusker86]

Beautiful work! I'm curious about burrs and how you remove them. I'm assuming you're using a tool in the mill for that purpose since doing it by hand would be too time consuming to even consider.

 

[missed]

That's awesome.
Like others said above the shape is naturally very rigid, and radiused pockets will help will managing stress points. I want a 16" 308 barrel that looks like that! Just wish I could get it with a matching suppressor!

 

[Waorani]

Tremendous increase in surface area for cooling. If you can do that, dimpling should be a piece of cake.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Could this be practical for a 6.5 Grendel AR15?

Heat rejection plus really reduced weight; I think this could be a real winner, especially for folks who don't mind spending a bit more large for their AR-15 builds. Type-2 bolts.

Bill A,

I have recently acquired a couple of inexpensive Stainless barrels (AR Stoner) chambered for 6.5 Grendel.

I'm intending to fire the initial rounds using Bernaul 100gr. I figure it might achieve a bit of firepolishing on the bore.

I'm also thinking that keeping the number of rounds down and then setting the rest aside for Ragnarok might mitigate some negative consequences of using a bimetal bullet.

Am I losin' it?

Greg

 

[SingleShot85]

not bad Sir, How long does that take

 

[gnochi]

not bad Sir, How long does that take

Per the first post, an hour (!) of machining time. I’d bet it’s at least a couple hours of programming for each barrel profile and length, too.

 

[FCrifles]

Cerakote then polish the O.D. for some really good depth. I think it's pretty cool !

 

[RTH1800]

Excellent! Thanks for posting.

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

Now if someone had the patience to do a 2 color cerakote....inside honeycombs yellow with black barrel (vice versa) it would make great Shot Show display for sure!!

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[_Windrider_]

Hi,

Now if someone had the patience to do a 2 color cerakote....inside honeycombs yellow with black barrel (vice versa) it would make great Shot Show display for sure!!

Sincerely,
Theis

Area419 did this on a spiral flute recently (photo from their IG)

 

[GH41]

I understand the reasoning behind the hex fluting but fail to understand the reasoning behind the 16" 300BO barrel.

 

[Forrest84]

I understand the reasoning behind the hex fluting but fail to understand the reasoning behind the 16" 300BO barrel.

Easy to fail understanding when no reason was stated...... what’s wrong with a 16” 300 blk bolt gun. You can still run silent, light, compact and accurate without going through the trouble of NFA BS

 

[spife7980]

I understand the reasoning behind the hex fluting but fail to understand the reasoning behind the 16" 300BO barrel.

Because thats the shortest you can legally go on a rifle without filing a form 1 with the atf?

 

[powdahound76]

Love it Mr Dixon and thanks for posting!

Love when someone who isnt a badass comments on a badass wasting their time.
Sometimes its about what people want and will pay for.

I would bet a customer ordered a 16” 300 BO. Why would a smart business owner argue with someone who wants to give him money for the work?

Again, thanks for sharing and keep up the awesome stuff!

PS: if you fix that 700 bolt that was discussed on here the other day, please post pics and story.......

 

[gnochi]

Hi,

Now if someone had the patience to do a 2 color cerakote....inside honeycombs yellow with black barrel (vice versa) it would make great Shot Show display for sure!!

Sincerely,
Theis

Graphite black barrel and core with burnt bronze honeycomb walls would be awesome. Especially with a clearcoat carbon fiber stock with burnt bronze hardware...

 

[mcfred]

I agree a simiar bolt job would compliment the barrel nicely. Kryptec camo cerakote job would also blend well too.

I am curious about a before and after accuacy test. That's a non-trivial about of work done to a finished barrrel.

Thank you, LRI for providing more options to the community.

 

[LRI]

Here she is fitted up. No coating on this one. 1st article piece.

 

[W54/XM-388]

A long AXMC barrel would look great finished out like that. I'm assuming if you were doing a 29" or so heavy barrel the 30% weight savings would be quite substantial.

 

[spife7980]

All on a magpul hunter- The fluting alone costs more than the stock!

One question, on the bolt handle it is imprinted with 300bo? Whats that all about, slow switch barrel and keeping bolt and barrel matched? Or was it already there and nothing to do with you?

 

[LRI]

All on a magpul hunter- The fluting alone costs more than the stock!

One question, on the bolt handle it is imprinted with 300bo? Whats that all about, slow switch barrel and keeping bolt and barrel matched? Or was it already there and nothing to do with you?
View attachment 7095201

Something the AAC boys do I guess. I'd of engraved it on the 4th axis. I can't stamp stuff for shit.

 

[LRI]

Area419 did this on a spiral flute recently (photo from their IG)

View attachment 7095079

We were doing this 10 years ago.

 

[LRI]

not bad Sir, How long does that take

1:30-ish for the 16" barrel shown. Exploring some tooling options so we can kick up the feed rate a little.

 

[LRI]

I understand the reasoning behind the hex fluting but fail to understand the reasoning behind the 16" 300BO barrel.

I do what I'm told, lol.

The 300 AAC BO is at best, a 200 yard cartridge. -That's provided your shooting at something roughly the size of a house cat. With heavy pills and the subsonic ceiling of around 1050fps, 16" gets it done all day. If you want more, I guess you can gas it up, but you might as well jump to a 308 or whatever at that point.

I neglected to mention, we actually turned this into a 308 Winchester at the request of the owner. Kalyb opened up the bolt to a .480 with dual ejectors and our M16 extractor upgrade. So, it'll have a bit more snort while still being very handy in a pickup with a can on it.

Regarding how a gun gets set up, here's my thoughts:

The rational I use often in conversation is a bag of golf clubs. While you could put with a wood if you had to, they all have a specific purpose. No different here.

The client sheeted this rifle very specifically. We were asked to do this type of cosmetic work to the barrel. He gave me some artistic "leash" to explore some ideas. That's what we see here. Simple X/Y moves are kinda boring imo. - Far more interesting to wrap the tool path around the A axis so that the finished piece looks a little more "cerebral."

Programming really isn't that big of a deal. I dove in deep with the new 5 axis machine earlier this year. Part of that investment included a $25,000.00 upgrade in software. Very powerful shit that makes this a whole lot easier to do. The biggest bang for me is the simulator. One that actually animates the entire process inside the machine work environment as you would see it in real life. Down to the bolts that hold the fixtures. A tremendous amount of work to set up initially, but now that we have it and its vetted, life got a whole lot better for doing stuff like this.

Translated tool paths make this pretty fast and we've worked out an incremental/local subroutine using macro variables since so that we can apply it to most any contour. The real "work" was coming up with a simple and elegant means of supporting the barrel while doing all this. Dumb, simple stuff is what I like and once I reminded myself of that, it's become a whole lot easier to do.

The cost is spindle time. I can flute 20-30 bolts in the time it takes to do one barrel like this. We may end up moving this onto the Kitamura for the production run. Least that way were not tying up our "swiss army knife" machine that does a ton of work for us.

Thank you all for the support and encouragement. If I can squirrel away a couple hours this weekend, I'll see about slinging some pills through it and see how it does.

 

[ebd10]

We've taken on some contractual work where we'll be doing a pile of this for some folks. Hexagon fluting is nothing new and I make no claims as to whatever, lol.

The one little difference here. From what I've seen online, the strategy is some X/Y pockets shaped in a hex. No real difference with ours except that the Y axis is now an A axis move. What this does is give the bottom of the pockets a radius. It makes the work appear as though the barrel has been "sleeved" by a really kinky pair of fishnet stockings. Instead of the features being straight walled, they actually grow in size as the distance from the floor increases.

Nothing earth shattering, but it does change the appearance. The pockets also follow the diameter changes along the length of the contour so the wall thickness between bore/pocket follows the outside contour. In this case, it grows proportional towards the breech.

Kinda neat. Certainly different from the other stuff we've done for the last ten years.

We have this on the store now as well. The price isn't the cheapest. It's a solid hour of spindle time to do it this way. Weight reduction is fairly significant. On a 16" OEM Sendero contour barrel for the 300AAC BO we pulled 13ounces from the starting weight. (From 3lbs even to 2lbs, 2oz.) This is approaching a 30% reduction.

Hope you all like it. Comments welcome.

BeeHive fluting



View attachment 7094674

View attachment 7094675

View attachment 7094676

It reminds of.....a hot chick with too much makeup on. It makes her look gaudy, but you still want to hit it.

 

[GH41]

"The 300 AAC BO is at best, a 200 yard cartridge. -That's provided your shooting at something roughly the size of a house cat. With heavy pills and the subsonic ceiling of around 1050fps, 16" gets it done all day. If you want more, I guess you can gas it up, but you might as well jump to a 308 or whatever at that point"

300 BO will do everything you can do while staying subsonic out of a 9 inch barrel. That is what it was developed to do. This is what the AR boys do to avoid another stamp>> https://danieldefense.com/ddm4isrr-02-103-02041.html

 

[LRI]

It reminds of.....a hot chick with too much makeup on. It makes her look gaudy, but you still want to hit it.

BEST ONE YET. LOL!

I'm gonna plagiarize the shit out of this.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

After some PM'd response and serious thinking, I have concluded that in the matter of shooting Bernaul 100gr Bimetallic through the new barrels, I must be crazy.

The Bernaul stuff goes the the back of the shelf as Ragnarok fodder.

Matter closed.

Greg