To bloop or not too bloop??

[TresMon]

Greetings,

So I know bloop tubes were originally introduced to lengthen sight radius on iron sighted rifles.

But I've heard it theorized that a bloop tube allows a (very temporary) more stabile atmosphere for the little bullet to "go to sleep" (rid itself of some nutation and precession) and thereby increases accuracy.

Does anybody have first hand knowledge or comparison of a highly accurate rimfire with and without a bloop tube??

Big thanks,
TM

 

[Robinhood]

If you are shooting with iron sights, a bloop tube can tremendously improve your sight picture, which may be a greater contribution to accuracy than tuned ammo.

A bloop tube with an adjustable weight will allow you to tune your barrel for the ammunition you have, and hence decrease your vertical spread. I use Guy Starik's carbon fiber tube which works very well. You can also get bloop tube tuners from Eric Uptagrafft and Beesting.

If you use a bloop tube without a tuner, your only benefit is the extended sight radius. The tube will affect your barrel's tune so with the current ammo you shoot so it can either improve or worsen your precision. However, if you get your rifle batch tested with Lapua in Arizona or Eley in Texas, you can get a lot of ammo that is matched for your barrel with the bloop tube that doesn't have the tuner weight.

Hence, the tuner tube gives you more flexibility for various lots of ammo, but at a slightly higher cost.

Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck

 

[Robinhood]

Are you shooting positional prone or 3-position? If so, and for others who may be interested, I would highly recommend heading to targettalk forums, which is an excellent resource for this type of shooting. A lot of world class shooters often pitch in their advice on equipment and shooting position

 

[Hoser]

I have a BeeSting on my Annie 2018 prone gun.

It accomplished 3 things for me. It increased my sight radius a touch which can be helpful. It also has a tuner which allows me to further tweak my ammo to my barrel. It also gave me a way to mount a can to my rifle. A can isnt ISSF legal so I just take it off, adjust my tuner to the non-can setting, for matches.

 

[TresMon]

Thanks for the responses. I will check out the Tragettalk forum. To be more specific I'm talking about the bloop tube in regard to external ballistics only. Does a bloop tune help the little;e bullet rid itself of precession and nutation better?

Or to put it another way....if you take a perfectly tuned bench rest rail gun (that has no stock) , put a bloop tube on it and retune the barrel/tube to the ammo, will there be an overall accuracy increase?

 

[Robinhood]

To answer simply, a tuner bloop tube will improve your accuracy. A bloop tube without a tuner may or may not.

Here's an article written by Guy Starik explaining "positive compensation". A tuner decreases variations in the muzzle velocity. This improves your vertical spread, and hence your accuracy.

It sounds like what you're really after, if you're shooting benchrest or not strictly shooting iron sights, is a rimfire tuner. Harrels makes a nice tuner that is popular in rimfire benchrest: http://harrellsprec.com/index.php/products/harrell-rimfire-tuners-403

 

[Hoser]

Or to put it another way....if you take a perfectly tuned bench rest rail gun (that has no stock) , put a bloop tube on it and retune the barrel/tube to the ammo, will there be an overall accuracy increase?

The best answer I can give is like everything else in rimfire.

Maybe.

Right now a tuner will give you the biggest bump in accuracy. I doubt that adding a bloop tube to a railgun will do anything meaningful.

 

[Robinhood]

whoops, here's the starik article: https://www.starikshooting.com/starik-carbon-tube/theory/

 

[Robinhood]

@Hoser: great setup! I never realized you could mount a can onto the Beesting. Is there an exterior thread or thread extension on the muzzle end of the Beesting that you thread the can onto?

 

[Hoser]

@Hoser: great setup! I never realized you could mount a can onto the Beesting. Is there an exterior thread or thread extension on the muzzle end of the Beesting that you thread the can onto?

Just an aluminum insert that I glued into the end of the tube and threaded.

 

[jbell]

The best answer I can give is like everything else in rimfire.

Maybe.

Right now a tuner will give you the biggest bump in accuracy. I doubt that adding a bloop tube to a railgun will do anything meaningful.

Exactly

I think the theory of the bloop tube giving the bullet stable air to begin its external ballistic life is just that, a theory. True the tube will shield the bullet from wind right at the muzzle, but there are 2 other considerations:
1 - the bullet is still going to have to enter into the “unstable” air of the outside world in 6 to 8 inches
2 - what effect does the tube have on the precursor gasses as they are being forced out of the muzzle just before the bullet? In my mind if the muzzle was open to atmosphere those gasses would disperse more readily but when contained in a small diameter tube you may get a swirling effect creating more turbulence than without the tube.

But this is just me talking... I have shot and tested very accurate rifles with and without a tube back to back many times & don’t see any appreciable accuracy difference. Interesting topic though

 

[JG26_Irish]

I would point the OP to the world of high precision rimfire benchrest shooters for answers. These marksmen use highly tuned, purpose built custom heavy rifles with insanely powerful optics as high as 50x mounted to one piece rests which to me resemble a artillery mount more than a rifle rest to fire very precise shots at 50y into tiny little bullseyes. To shoot well in these matches one needs a rifle which is consistently able to group in the 1's. These unlimited class rifles are allowed to use any rifle, and muzzle device, and any rest or ammo. Nearly all of them utilize the Harrells tuner or some variation of that muzzle device because it does work. Almost none of them use bloop tubes. They are using scoped rifles so the bloop tube is not gaining them any site radius like they do with peep sighted rifles. Since that appears to be their only benefit the BR crowd tend to shun the bloop tube. There may be exceptions but those guys are pretty quick to adopt any device that improves accuracy and drop anything that is not helping. A bloop tube that incorporates a tuner is going to help because it has a tuner. In my opinion such a combo would only be warranted on an iron sighted rifle. If your shooting a scope sighted rifle, I would suggest that the Harrell tuner alone would be a better option because of jbell's consideration #2 above.

I used a Ezell tuner (similar to Harrell) on my Remington a few years ago and once I took the time to adjust it, found it was improving my groups by about 20% overall. However, I did find it to be tedious to tune and when I switched ammo lots it usually needed to be re-tuned a process that took hours and hundreds of rounds of match grade ammo to accomplish. Since I was not a BR match shooter, I stopped using it. Most matches for factory stock rifles prohibited its use also. Only the unlimited class allowed it. Nobody minds if I run the factory class with a bloop tube. Wonder why?

Irish

 

[TresMon]

Thank you everyone for the time you took to respond. I'm sorry I'm a poor communicator. My rifle is already "Unlimited class, rimfire bench rest accurate." It will stack 5 shot groups into the high .2xx" at 100 yards with premium ammo.

It already has barrel tuner on it and because it is a reverse taper barrel, which forms a mechanical hinge, the barrel tunes very quickly and easily. and obviously when observing what is happening on paper.

I was trying to focus the scope of my question to external ballistics ONLY, not asking how to try to get my rifle system to shoot more accurately. overall.

I was asking if a tube would help with precession of the bullet only.

I'm going to go ahead and order a piece of carbon fiber tube (because it's light and looks cool) and machine it so that it will attach to the already existing barrel tuner. I'm also going to put 6, 1/8" slots around the first 3" of the tube so that gas has a place to go.

I'll report back as to if a Bloop tube seems to help with precession & nutation.

Thanks again.

 

[jbell]

What about trying a paper towel inner cardboard thing? Just to test the theory out?

Sorry to get all redneck on you

 

[JG26_Irish]

Regardless of my verbose opinions, I would be interested in results of a well planned test of the rifle with and without bloop. I have found that rimfire is full of strange and difficult to explain phenomena and this is especially true with the subject of barrel harmonics and bullet trajectory. My recent experience replacing a receiver mounted optic 6-24x with an old vintage barrel mounted optic also 6-24x which resulted in a massive improvement in the old rifle's accuracy performance using the same ammo has proven to me how very much I don't know about this sport. Always willing to learn. Still, my bet is that the bloop tube is more likely to make things worse than better due to shockwaves of hot gases expelling out around the projectile during its first 6-8 inches of flight. Might be subtle if at all. But it is a simple cheap thing to try.

Irish

 

[jbell]

Regardless of my verbose opinions, I would be interested in results of a well planned test of the rifle with and without bloop. I have found that rimfire is full of strange and difficult to explain phenomena and this is especially true with the subject of barrel harmonics and bullet trajectory. My recent experience replacing a receiver mounted optic 6-24x with an old vintage barrel mounted optic also 6-24x which resulted in a massive improvement in the old rifle's accuracy performance using the same ammo has proven to me how very much I don't know about this sport. Always willing to learn. Still, my bet is that the bloop tube is more likely to make things worse than better due to shockwaves of hot gases expelling out around the projectile during its first 6-8 inches of flight. Might be subtle if at all. But it is a simple cheap thing to try.

Irish

I bet it shot better because it was happier having a more period correct scope mounted back on it. It was pure nostalgia and nothing to do with harmonics...

 

[Robinhood]

@TresMon Please do report back. We'll be curious to see how it goes.