R1/Hw80 full power barrel length

[Yogi]

When pulling a cleaning swab through my R9, I cannot detect variation in bore tightness.  But when I push a pellet through with a thin dowel, there is clearly xtra tightness at both ends of the barrel. So I'm still wondering...

Pushing a projectile through a barrel is called slugging the barrel. It allows you to feel the slightest variation in the barrel and shows how the rifling prints in the projectile.

Your results are typical of Weihrauch barresl. Their barrels are splined and pressed into the beech. That creates the first tight spot. Often referred to as the breech choke. The muzzle choke is created by crimping the muzzle for a sight.

Both chokes are deliberate. The first time I found the breech choke I though the barrel was defective. I later learned that they all have that. The breech choke acts like a pellet sizer. It sizes pellets to a uniform size.

The second choke stabilizes the pellet as it last leaves the barrel.

You'll find the rifllng in the middle a loose fit. Thus the drag difference in barrel lengths is minimal. Rarely some Weihrauch barrels are too loose in the middle. Is it the bore that's loose? Or is it the breech choke too tight?

I had a 20 cal barrel that was too loose in the middle and was bypassing pressure. Weihrauch replaced the barrel and the replacement barrel made between a half pound and full pound more energy depending on pellet.

Ron,

Could you hear a difference upon firing?  That must be a 100 fps+ difference?

-Yogi

[shed tuner UK]

Pretty good discussion on AGN about this very subject.
Maybe the same OP???

Not me, but I'll have a look...

[caudie]

Yogi/Ron
That'd be about a 10 to 20 fps gain wouldn't it.  I might be calculating FPE wrong.

[Yogi]

Yogi/Ron
That'd be about a 10 to 20 fps gain wouldn't it.  I might be calculating FPE wrong.

I get about a 30 fps difference.  I thought it would be bigger.   This is with a 13.8 grain pellet at 670-700 fps.
It makes your ES and SD more important.

-Y

[Tom1340]

From what I've read on this forum, the common wisdom seems to be that a choke adds to rifle performance, by improving pellet stability or some other means.  Yet Mark 611 is quite pleased with his chokeless rifles.  In fact, he makes a compelling argument that we'd be better off cutting the chokes off our barrels.  Mark writes well and comes across as quite knowledgable, but his is a lonely voice on this subject.  I don't really know of his standards for a good rifle...perhaps he is happy when he hits beer cans at 20 yards  , or maybe he routinely beats the 10 dime challenge.  I was interested in whether Deerstalker's special edition hw95, with its short barrel, has a choke.  If it doesn't, then HW manufactured a gun in accordance with Mark's guidelines.   To me, this would lend weight to the argument that the HW choke is an accidental consequence of the front sight dove tail, and is not a performance enhancer.

[Yogi]

If you have a great barrel, you do not need a choke.  When I push pellets through my HW 50's, I feel very few short loose barrel sections.  Hatsan barrels, most of the barrel has little resistance.  Not so for my HW barrels.  Chokes do improve lesser barrels.  Remember that pellets spin MUCH MUCH faster around and around than they do making forward progress.  Perfect pellet spin in what accurate barrels achieve.

-Y

[Mark 611]

Thier's many ways to look at the use for chokes, if there's a true choke added to begin with? let's use Lothar Walther barrels for example, they make choked and non-choked barrels, I have used plenty of LW barrels in air guns, my experience using a true choked barrel from LW is first off is they kill your power! I've seen a 50 to 100fps loss in velocity using a choked barrel, most air gun manufactures are not going to spend the time and cost to roll barrels to add chokes to them! what most people think is a choke in a barrel is not, the interference you feel is usually from the forming if the site mounting grooves or stamping on the end of the barrel for the front site, air gun barrels are mild steel! not hardened gun steel, being a machinist myself, I know what happens to steel from the forging process to the machining to the heat treating of steel, when working with mild steel it doesn't take much to deform it, so when you squeeze site grooves into a barrel the steel has to go somewhere? How about inward and outward, it may feel like a choke! but it is an interference caused by the forming of the grooves or bump stamp for the front site, so if they had a true choke to begin with and you add the forming the barrel would be so tight it would not have a lot of velocity, the best example I can give is, I have a U.K. Tomahawk, I had RMI put a true choked LW barrel on it about 15yrs ago, the choke is so tight that if I try to detune the gun under 600fps the pellet will not exit the barrel!!!! YMMV

[Bayman]

Marc I'm not sure what the definition of a true choke is and you maybe right the deformed muzzle on a Weihrauch barrel isn't a true choke. But it is in a way a choke as discussed because it's a restriction. The bore can't be too distorted or oblong because it'd be hard to crown well enough to get the accuracy from these things we do. In any event regardless of nomenclature they're there and seem to work.

The power loss between the two 20 cal barrels wasn't as much as I had hoped but it wasn't negligible either. It was on my R1 and I pushing for maximum power and hit a wall with the first barrel. The second barrel gave me another give or take a pound of energy. I don't remember the exact amount but it was measurable and appreciated.

I toyed with the idea of reaming the breech choke on that bad barrel to prevent it from making the pellets so small they lost contact with rifling in the mid section. Then I might have had to cut the muzzle choke off. The barrel was brand new and very expensive so I chose to get it warranteed.

I'd love to try removing the breech and muzzle chokes to see what happens to power and accuracy. Maybe I'll try it on my original 177 R1 barrel and It's the only barrel I have no use for. Hmmm?

[shed tuner UK]

If you have a great barrel, you do not need a choke.  When I push pellets through my HW 50's, I feel very few short loose barrel sections.  Hatsan barrels, most of the barrel has little resistance.  Not so for my HW barrels.  Chokes do improve lesser barrels.  Remember that pellets spin MUCH MUCH faster around and around than they do making forward progress.  Perfect pellet spin in what accurate barrels achieve.

-Y

Exactly this.  I've shortened / removed the chokes on dozens of barrels over the years, and so long as you check first that there's no tight spots nearer the breach, ie you can chop the barrel at a point where it won't be loose, accuracy is either the same or improved. And it also guaranteed to give a small performance increase, due to the enrgy of squeezing the pellet down in size no longer being extracted from the pellet before it leaves the muzzle.

Rgds,
JB

[Bayman]

If you have a great barrel, you do not need a choke.  When I push pellets through my HW 50's, I feel very few short loose barrel sections.  Hatsan barrels, most of the barrel has little resistance.  Not so for my HW barrels.  Chokes do improve lesser barrels.  Remember that pellets spin MUCH MUCH faster around and around than they do making forward progress.  Perfect pellet spin in what accurate barrels achieve.

-Y

Exactly this.  I've shortened / removed the chokes on dozens of barrels over the years, and so long as you check first that there's no tight spots nearer the breach, ie you can chop the barrel at a point where it won't be loose, accuracy is either the same or improved. And it also guaranteed to give a small performance increase, due to the enrgy of squeezing the pellet down in size no longer being extracted from the pellet before it leaves the muzzle.

Rgds,
JB

First find me a Weihrauch barrel that isn't tight at the breech. Second, to the best of my knowledge, all Weihrauch barrels regardless of caliber are 1:16 which isn't terribly fast. The rifling helps but much of pellet stabilization is done by the skirt. I believe it's called the shuttlecock effect. My childhood smooth bore 760 was much more accurate with pellets as opposed to BBs

[shed tuner UK]

i get the "tight at the breach" when initially getting a pellet seated into the rifling, but I've not had an HW barrel where the pellet then doesn't remain a nice smooth sliding fit after that - as opposed to "going loose". However most of my rifles are much older, and I've not tried the newer "star breach" type to see if that's affected things.

OTOH, I've had BSA barrels where the pellet will literally free fall in the bore once past the tight breach.. those you really don;t want to remove the choke from !

[Bayman]

Every one I tested got tighter in breech just past the leade. They may have been all new guns with the star nut breech. I'll have to slug my original R1 barrel and the barrels on my 98 & R9. Those are 90s era without the star nut. Curious to see if they are

[tjk]

From what I've read on this forum, the common wisdom seems to be that a choke adds to rifle performance, by improving pellet stability or some other means.  Yet Mark 611 is quite pleased with his chokeless rifles.  In fact, he makes a compelling argument that we'd be better off cutting the chokes off our barrels.  Mark writes well and comes across as quite knowledgable, but his is a lonely voice on this subject.  I don't really know of his standards for a good rifle...perhaps he is happy when he hits beer cans at 20 yards  , or maybe he routinely beats the 10 dime challenge.  I was interested in whether Deerstalker's special edition hw95, with its short barrel, has a choke.  If it doesn't, then HW manufactured a gun in accordance with Mark's guidelines.   To me, this would lend weight to the argument that the HW choke is an accidental consequence of the front sight dove tail, and is not a performance enhancer.

I am pretty sure the front dovetail sight grooves do not have any bearing as a “choking” effect. Otherwise the barrels would have an uneven choke and accuracy would be compromised to a less than ideal performance standard.  Not to say that the choking and groove machining are not necessarily perform simultaneously. But I am sure there is some sort of limiting blank inserted into the muzzle during the procedure. How HW and other barrel makers actualmake there barrels is most likely a guarded trade secret.

[Yogi]

From what I've read on this forum, the common wisdom seems to be that a choke adds to rifle performance, by improving pellet stability or some other means.  Yet Mark 611 is quite pleased with his chokeless rifles.  In fact, he makes a compelling argument that we'd be better off cutting the chokes off our barrels.  Mark writes well and comes across as quite knowledgable, but his is a lonely voice on this subject.  I don't really know of his standards for a good rifle...perhaps he is happy when he hits beer cans at 20 yards  , or maybe he routinely beats the 10 dime challenge.  I was interested in whether Deerstalker's special edition hw95, with its short barrel, has a choke.  If it doesn't, then HW manufactured a gun in accordance with Mark's guidelines.   To me, this would lend weight to the argument that the HW choke is an accidental consequence of the front sight dove tail, and is not a performance enhancer.

I am pretty sure the front dovetail sight grooves do not have any bearing as a “choking” effect. Otherwise the barrels would have an uneven choke and accuracy would be compromised to a less than ideal performance standard.  Not to say that the choking and groove machining are not necessarily perform simultaneously. But I am sure there is some sort of limiting blank inserted into the muzzle during the procedure. How HW and other barrel makers actualmake there barrels is most likely a guarded trade secret.

There is a video of the Weihrauch factory that shows how they made their barrels.  Do a U-Tube video search and you will see how they make them....

-Y

[Bayman]

From what I've read on this forum, the common wisdom seems to be that a choke adds to rifle performance, by improving pellet stability or some other means.  Yet Mark 611 is quite pleased with his chokeless rifles.  In fact, he makes a compelling argument that we'd be better off cutting the chokes off our barrels.  Mark writes well and comes across as quite knowledgable, but his is a lonely voice on this subject.  I don't really know of his standards for a good rifle...perhaps he is happy when he hits beer cans at 20 yards  , or maybe he routinely beats the 10 dime challenge.  I was interested in whether Deerstalker's special edition hw95, with its short barrel, has a choke.  If it doesn't, then HW manufactured a gun in accordance with Mark's guidelines.   To me, this would lend weight to the argument that the HW choke is an accidental consequence of the front sight dove tail, and is not a performance enhancer.

I am pretty sure the front dovetail sight grooves do not have any bearing as a “choking” effect. Otherwise the barrels would have an uneven choke and accuracy would be compromised to a less than ideal performance standard.  Not to say that the choking and groove machining are not necessarily perform simultaneously. But I am sure there is some sort of limiting blank inserted into the muzzle during the procedure. How HW and other barrel makers actualmake there barrels is most likely a guarded trade secret.

I think you're half right. The muzzle end choke if that's what we'll call it is exactly the length of the front sight dovetail. Coincidence? I think you're right about a limiting device being used to keep the bore relatively concentric.

On another note, I checked my older 20 cal R9 for a breech choke. There was no pronounced choke after the leade as I've found in later star nutted breeches but the bore did get notably looser forward the breech block until the muzzle choke. .

[Mark 611]

Jon, has confirmed everything I have been telling you guys for years! if the facts were not true this conversation would be going in another direction, I have posted plenty of information and pix over the years of the work OC and I have done in regards to this type of work and tuning to my air rifles along with OC's AG's, again a good barrel if you do the work correctly there's no restriction or choke needed! Now on the other hand, the restriction at the breech in a HW barrel IMO should not be altered! Jon, OC and myself have done enough of this type of work IMO to be called expert knowledge in this field! You may cast your stones now!