Barrel tuners for rimfire rifles work. They are very commonly used by benchrest shooters. In fact it's safe to say that all serious BR competitors use them. Increasing numbers of PRS shooters use them and say they help improve results.

The term "barrel flipping" is probaby not a good or accurate one. Without going into details, and to keep it simple, every barrel will vibrate each time a round is fired. A wave or waves move through the barrel, causing the muzzle to move up and down with the wave motion. Rounds with different MV's will be affected differently by the wave motion of the muzzle.

When properly adjusted a tuner is designed to help cause bullets with different MV's to have a more similar POI than they would otherwise have.

A tuner doesn't work magic on ammo that's not consistent. In other words, it can't turn mediocre ammo into excellent ammo. A tuner can help make a good rifle/barrel shoot good ammo with a little better performance.

 

I plan to eventually buy a poor man’s tuner.
Sine I don’t want to mortgage the house to buy one, I looked and found stainless weights with a set screw and .75” bore that will fit my barrel.
I can move the weight in 1/64” increments to adjust.

As was said above, the barrel doesn’t really flip, it vibrates or ripples in ways that we can’t feel.

 

I find it unlikely that a strong short steel barrel could form more than one bend at a time: it’s not a garden hose.

These vibrations are not something you can see with the naked eye, but make no mistake, they are indeed there. And the muzzle variation is both in linear displacement (up, down, sideways) AND angular deflection of the barrel axis.
It doesn't take much deflection at the muzzle to result in a quarter-inch or half-inch change at the target.

 

Do tuners work? For a few years I shot ARA matches at a local club. They has an under 11 pound class and an over 11 pound class. The only way I coul make the under 11 pound was to remove the tuner. On average my scores on the ARA target were 200 points better with the tuner than without. But, my barrel is 26 inches long and is a straight cylinder .910 in diameter and doesn't react well to a tuner because of the thickness. This barrel has .009 inch of sag by it's own weight and i guess that much sag is a bit much for a tuner to overcome. BTW. When I first started shooting with that group, no one had a tuner and none were using wind flags except me and my shooting partner. After winning most of the matches, by the time I stop shooting, they all had tuners and many were using wind flags.

 

Good to know. Thanks!

 

Most tuners move the weight beyond the crown, sliding weights along the barrel isn't likely to have much effect.

 

The theory is, if you can find your vibration nodes, then placement of a barrel weight (or two) midway between those nodes can reduce the vibration. Or, the added barrel weights can move the nodes to new locations.
Makes it kinda fun to chase yer tail, trying to find some magic combination. But then again, you get to shoot some more while you are chasing......

 

Back around 1968 a friend got me into smallbore position shooting by giving me a Winchester T75. Another fiend (also a shooter) had cut down a black walnut tree and had it made into rifle blanks. He gave me one and I made the following stock and made the rest of the parts. (The scope was a 14X Fecker also given to me by the same friend. It was made around 1945 and Unertal worked for him. When Unertal went into making scopes, he started using Fecker's external scope mounts.)

The problem with it was the back end was so heavy it was hard to keep on target. So I got a piece of round steel 1 1/2 inch in diameter and about 3 inches long. I bored a hole off center, took the front sight off and and mounted it on the muzzle. Not only did it become muzzle heavy but it seemed to be more accurate, enough so that I got my master's card with it indoors. When I bought my first Anschutz in 1970 I gave it to a Junior. The reason I bring this up is now I wonder if it actually acted like a tuner and minimized the vibrations.

 

Not only did it become muzzle heavy but it seemed to be more accurate, enough so that I got my master's card with it indoors. When I bought my first Anschutz in 1970 I gave it to a Junior. The reason I bring this up is now I wonder if it actually acted like a tuner and minimized the vibrations.

Classic Rifle! It could be that the added weight slowed down and minimized the rifles wandering when it is fired offhand making the shot timing more precise.

 

The more I look into Rimfire Barrel Tuners the more that I convince myself that they are unlikely to provide any meaningful accuracy improvements.

• They are mostly used on rimfire rifles. Centerfires generate much greater forces and should benefit more from their use. Why aren’t they used on centerfires?
• The manufacturers of precision rimfire rifles don’t supply tuners with their expensive rifles. Why wouldn’t they make them if they improve their products accuracy? Tuners are simple devices and should be relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
• It would be great if tuner manufacturers would measure a rifles response with and w/o their tuner and use it to design their tuners. The supposed complex movements of a rimfire barrel can be measured. Strain gauges can measure small changes in a barrel’s dimensions, its’ change in position when it is fired as well as the powders pressure curve. Accelerometers can measure how fast a barrel moves in any direction. Shooting a bullet thru a thin wire at the muzzle can pinpoint the bullets exit time. Microphones can be used to measure the firing pin strike timing. Oscilloscopes can measure all these variables.
• If there are actually some mysterious vibrations or bore expansions that travel down a rimfire’s barrel when it is fired, I expect that shrink fitting a strong sleeve on the barrel, say a 2” diameter high carbon steel cylinder, a distance before the muzzle should stop them.
• Rimfire competitions typically list the important pieces of the shooter’s equipment in some detail: actions, barrels, scopes, rests, ammunition, except for … you guessed it …. Tuners. It seems that they are not considered important equipment.
• Despite my recent obsession with YouTube rimfire tuner videos I have yet to find any that show a significant or consistent improvement in accuracy. Most testers wind up saying something like ‘I’m making progress, but I still have a way to go’. Some explain that the ammo lot, temperature, humidity, rain and possibly the phase of the moon affect the optimum tuning setting, but they don’t explain how to make the proper setting before a competition.
• The tuner manufactures typically recommend making small adjustments to their tuners while firing 2 shot groups to find the most accurate setting. For some reason, unknown to me, the YouTube testers can’t seem to figure out why their five shot groups following their best two shot group at the same setting isn’t a one holer! Hey, I could keep throwing two rocks during a windy rainstorm and eventually throw a one holer at 50 yards, but I’d have a hard time throwing a five rock one holer on the next try.
• I have never found a consistent coherent explanation of how a tuner is supposed to work or how making small adjustments to a tuner makes any difference at all, just vague promises.
• How can such large different in tuners (differing weights, positions on the barrel, attachment methods, Rubber Dampeners, O-Rings, etc.) all improve group sizes as is often claimed?

Maybe I’m just a skeptic!

 

I don't have time, desire, or even the expertise to attempt to respond to all of this but I'll look forward to seeing the responses from those who do

In regards to the YouTube videos...I've watched a few in the past and most I've seen aren't from people who seem to know much about tuners, how they work, and what they actually do. Most of the vids I've seen are from the ELR crowd and don't seem to actually know what they're talking about. Maybe there's some good vids that I haven't seen but I'd prefer to get my info from more experienced people I've met here on RFC, at the ARA matches I've started participating in, and from my own experience.

BTW tuners do work but they won't magically make a poor shooting rifle or bad lot of ammo perform well. They simply time the barrel to reduce the effects of small changes in velocity to reduce vertical stringing. Same with the shooter. A tuner won't make a poor shooter better or account for conditions. I've seen guys on YT setting their tuners on windy days and at longer distances without using wind flags. What a waste of time and ammo.

 

Most of the YouTube videos that I’ve seen are posted by people that seem to be knowledgeable in testing and shooting rimfires. I haven’t seen any that could demonstrate an accuracy improvement with tuners.
I’ve been assuming that this site would have many knowledgeable rimfire competitors. That’s why I’m asking here.
Strangely, the YT targets don’t seem to show the vertical stringing that is supposed, by most pundits, to be the hallmark of variations in rimfire velocity.
If my post covered too many subjects to respond to at once just pick one.

 

There's a lot of good info here about tuners. I would suggest starting with a search in the Benchrest and Benchrest Equipment sections. That's where you'll find the best info

I just did a search on YT for "22 rimfire barrel tuners". I scrolled through the search results for 50-60 videos. Not one was a video I would watch for good info. I want to see a video from one of the top benchrest shooters in the past 20 years. Probably not going to see one because they're not into making vids of themselves acting like they know what they're talking about.

 

Some are now using tuners in Center fire rifles.
Centerfire Benchrest Shooters Explore Benefits of Tuners « Daily Bulletin

 

Some are now using tuners in Center fire rifles.
Centerfire Benchrest Shooters Explore Benefits of Tuners « Daily Bulletin

Thanks, good info. That's where I got: Centerfire Tuners–Still a Work in Progress
In centerfire benchrest competition, the vast majority of competitors do not use tuners, though a few short-range shooters such as .......

 

Here's one for you. He's a champion and uses a tuner. BUT he doesn't say that the tuner help.

 

Here's one for you. He's a champion and uses a tuner. BUT he doesn't say that the tuner help.

Why would anyone use a tuner if they didn't think it helped?

AFAIK Joe Friedrich was never even close to being ARA champion. It says he had a record aggregate score of some kind. Is that for 1 match? 1 season? I don't see that he ever shot a 2500 in competition and he never had enough matches to qualify for the high season aggregate or A-line

EDIT: I searched RFC for more info on Mr Friedrich. Apparently he did shoot some 2500s. Maybe he was the first IDK. The posts were from 2009. The ARA site lists all the records and all those who've shot a 2500 in a sanctioned match. I don't see Joe Friedrich listed

 

Tuners aren't as useful for center-fire because you can tune the load instead.

 

Varmint Al, the Guru of the tuner theories, disagrees with you. He has a detailed analysis of a 6PPC centerfire benchrest rifle at:

FEA Barrel Pressure Analysis on a 6PPC Rifle Barrel

He concludes that a tuner can have a positive effect on high velocity centerfire accuracy, even with differing velocities.

 

Does a video exist showing groups with the tuner out of tune, then in tune? Then go back and forth a number of times to show the repeatability.

I'm definitely on the skeptical side. Then again, I only do silhouette (tuners are illegal AFAIK) and PRS/NRL (lots of tuners both rim and centerfire) type matches since I'm not old enough to participate in benchrest. Yet.

 

Does a video exist showing groups with the tuner out of tune, then in tune? Then go back and forth a number of times to show the repeatability.

I'm definitely on the skeptical side. Then again, I only do silhouette (tuners are illegal AFAIK) and PRS/NRL (lots of tuners both rim and centerfire) type matches since I'm not old enough to participate in benchrest. Yet.

Great! Thanks!
I've reviewed several YouTube tuner videos. I followed your advice this time and played them back and forth many times over and over and guess what: THE VIDEOS WERE REPEATABLE. They kept on showing the same mediocre groups except for some random fantabulous two short groups of course.

 

Tuners!!!!

There has been a lot of discussion about tuners on another channel lately. These discussions often spawn a new batch of what has been called. "Jack in the box tuner twisters" (Thanks BH for the term) I know this post will rub many the wrong way but it is written with good intentions...

benchrest.com

!!!!
No videos but plenty of info and pics about tuners. Ignore the squabbling as their are several theories on tuning and it gets heated. These things are not used on common rifles but for extreme accuracy competition rifles.

 

Sorry, link didn't show. Go to Benchrestcentral.com Then Rimfire Benchrest forum. You'll find a sticky on top just on Tuners.

 

Lee used to say a shooters “system” had to be “capable” before a tuner would help.

IIRC, he was looking for improvements around a bullet dia or less using a tuner.

Need to work on the tune for my rifle. Awaiting a chance to test indoors. Not comfortable tuning outdoors.

 

For the masochists among you who want more info on tuners Rifle Barrel Tuner Vibration Analysis

I will tell a story about my experience with my first tuner. After tuning the rifle at 50 yards I shot the six long range silhouette matches. These matches are shot at 65, 75, 100, 150 and 200 meters. The targets at 65, 75 and 100 meters are fairly high but narrow but at 150 and 200 meters they are long but not very high. For each of the following three years everything was the same, same rifle, same ammo same everything except the use of the tuner.
2007 I won 5 of 6 matches hit 59 of 60 at 150 and 49 of 60 at 200 meters without a tuner
2008 I won 2 of 6 matches hit 48 of 60 at 150 and 43 of 60 at 200 meters with the tuner. However I did win the last match without the tuner and hit 10 and 9 targets at 150 and 200.
2009 I won 6 of 6 matches hit 59 of 60 at 150 and 51 of 60 at 200 meters without the tuner.
My point is, if you are shooting with a tuner and have it tuned to one distance, it may not be tuned for any other distance. The reason I believe this is all the targets I missed at 150 and 200 meters were either low or high shots. Just saying.

I will subscribe to the already mentioned. A tuner will not make a poor lot into a good lot or a poor rifle into a tack driver. Lot testing is still the only way to get tiny groups with an already tack driver.

 

AFAIK: Tuners are supposed to compensate for the lower trajectory of slower moving bullets by causing them to leave the barrel at a higher angle than that of the faster ones. That they are supposed to do this makes sense to me even though I’m not convinced they actually do it.
In any event, that means that if a rifle is tuned at one distance it will be ‘untuned’ (have poorer accuracy) at another distance.
Here is how one of the founding ‘Gurus of Tuners’ (the same one you quoted) explained it:
22 Long Rifle Barrel Tuner Analysis -- FEA Dynamic Analysis of Esten's 22LR Rifle with/without a Tuner.
“TUNING & DISTANCE.... Here is a chart that shows the 100 yard trajectory of a 22LR 40 gr bullets with a BC of 0.128 and an average muzzle velocity of 1050 fps. It is assumed that the actual velocity varies from 1040 to 1060 fps with the vertical tuned out. The first case (bottom curves) is where the vertical is tuned out at 50 yards. In this case the vertical at 100 yards is 7.79-7.46 or 0.33”. The rifle is not in tune for 100 yards.”

Go figure!

 

His skepticism is justified. I've been hesitant to post on this. If bobsteinert8 is watching videos I have seen it would be hard to be sold on results. The few videos I've watched are lacking on process and data collection. The equipment being used is almost impossible to repeat results. There is many things that need to be addressed before successful tuning can be achieved. Constant ign., controlled recoil, cleaning \round count, ammo, just to name a few. Calfee has stated that a lot of rifles are not capable of being tuned because of issues with the rifle. I completely agree with this and will add the equipment around the rifle.
Todd

 

Ok, I am 77 and also an engineer, who'd a guessed? Like you I like to try and understand how things work and why. As I was undergoing radiation treatments for prostate cancer, yeah, us old guys get that, I had to find out what that machine was zapping me. Found out it was a linear accelerator. A what????? What the hell was it accelerating and throwing at me? I had to understand how that Linear Accelerator worked and what was happening. Long story short, I read a lot about that thing. Fascinating, who dreams up this stuff?

Anyway I went back to your first post and see you found Varmint Al's page. Great stuff there. guy worked at Livermore Laboratories and his background is impressive, far beyond my mining engineering stuff for sure. You asked about the cause of the muzzle "flipping". I guess that's one way to word it but it's really the barrel vibrating. What causes that? It's the detonation of the bullet. It's like hitting a hammer on the end of a pipe and touching the other the end of it. You can feel it vibrating. Even the striking of the firing pin on the case starts the vibration albeit very small. That's called ignition. In match rifles it's very important that the ignition, firing pin strike, is the same for ever shot. sounds anal and I think it is but that's what "they" say.

Barrel Harmonics.

Hopefully this link transferred over. If not go to guntweaks.com and search for barrel harmonics. I didn't go through all the posts so I hope this isn't a repeat of what was already said.

Two old engineers having a ball.

hope this helps.

 

Ok, I am 77 and also an engineer, who'd a guessed? Like you I like to try and understand how things work and why. As I was undergoing radiation treatments for prostate cancer, yeah, us old guys get that, I had to find out what that machine was zapping me. Found out it was a linear accelerator. A what????? What the hell was it accelerating and throwing at me? I had to understand how that Linear Accelerator worked and what was happening. Long story short, I read a lot about that thing. Fascinating, who dreams up this stuff?

Anyway I went back to your first post and see you found Varmint Al's page. Great stuff there. guy worked at Livermore Laboratories and his background is impressive, far beyond my mining engineering stuff for sure. You asked about the cause of the muzzle "flipping". I guess that's one way to word it but it's really the barrel vibrating. What causes that? It's the detonation of the bullet. It's like hitting a hammer on the end of a pipe and touching the other the end of it. You can feel it vibrating. Even the striking of the firing pin on the case starts the vibration albeit very small. That's called ignition. In match rifles it's very important that the ignition, firing pin strike, is the same for ever shot. sounds anal and I think it is but that's what "they" say.

Barrel Harmonics.

Hopefully this link transferred over. If not go to guntweaks.com and search for barrel harmonics. I didn't go through all the posts so I hope this isn't a repeat of what was already said.

Two old engineers having a ball.

hope this helps.

Yeah 77, I remember it well!!! I lost one stomach to the Big C and I only had one to start with, not to mention that I had radiation treatments where the sun don’t shine. I’m not sure that 77 is actually on the Sunset Strip!

Thanks for the link! That may be the best summary I’ve seen. At least it shows the barrel moving back and forth in some unspecified direction. It could be whipping around or just moving in a single plane, you’d have to ask the barrel for more info on what it is doing. That’s what I would call barrel flipping, whipping or whatever you want to call it.

By my crude calcs:
If a shot is deflected .25” on a target that is 120 feet (40 yards) in front of a 2' barrel, the barrels muzzle would only have to have been deflected by (.25)(2)/(120) = 0.004 inches. That’s assuming that the breech end of the barrel is stationary, that the barrel is moving around a point at the breech end and that it is otherwise remains straight.

There are obvious simplifications in those assumptions, but they seem reasonable enough to demonstrate that sound waves could be sufficiently large to be the culprit. I’d appreciate it if you could check my calcs, assumptions, etc., so that I can change them and claim perfection.

A simple demo of sound amplitudes can be seen at:

Of course, the speaker cone isn’t moving anywhere near as much as the bouncing beads in the video, but a speaker cones can easily be seen to move substantially, especially at low frequencies.

A thought that still nags me: I still do not know how the firing of a bullet would cause a barrel to flip. I would think that the pressure forces generated by the firing of a cartridge would be symmetrical inside the barrel bore and they wouldn’t cause the barrel to move in any direction. Maybe it is expanding and contracting but that does not seem to be sufficient to cause a change in the bullets POI.

If the gun recoiled up and back on firing that could cause the flipping, but I do not believe a rimfire generates enough force to lift any part of the rifle off the bench unless the center line of the bore is awfully high. Weak bedding would be an obvious culprit.

If it is sound waves that are causing shot dispersion, I have no reason to assume they would cause only the vertical dispersion that can be tuned out, but removing even random dispersions would be great.

Somewhere in my ramblings above I mentioned that the equipment necessary to measure the actual flipping/whipping/vibrating has been readily available for some time. It’s just not in front of me right now.

 

I hesitated to comment on this subject. But, I realized that I can not keep quiet. In MHO a tuner will not help a mid grade or lesser rifle. So many other variables are at play in that 'shooting system.' A screw-on tuner may present other issues, too. I don't have one and don't know.

I shoot ARA. I have won some matches ( and not won some, too!) I shoot practice and experiment cards two days a week at my range. I am an engineer with an R&D background. I keep a lot of data and stats and I know how to statistically analyze the data generated.

I go through a lot of ammo. I do lot testing. My main rifle (a Trident) only likes Eley products, and even there, it is lot sensitive. It does not shoot well with Lapua. But my number two rifle (an old Turbo) does better with Lapua as apposed to Tenex.

I have shot both rifles without a tuner. They shoot better with their tuners. They both shoot at approximately 200 points better on an ARA target with their tuners in place and properly set. Though it does take some experimenting to find the right setting. The Trident has a PRX tuner on it. That tuner has done better for me than the previous tuner, by an average of 50 points per target.

In ARA, nothing is more frustrating then having shots that are 50's by 0.001"... unless of course they are 25's, 10's or 0's!!! A properly set tuner cuts down on those disappointing shots.

Serious .22lr unlimited bench rest shooters all use a tuner. The only time I've seen somebody at an ARA match without a tuner, they came in last place.

Again, I don't see a tuner helping a medium grade rifle shooting mid grade ammo. But who knows? There is a lot to know in the tuner world. There are members on here that can give further info than what I have said.

Different settings on a tuner will reposition your groups; sometimes as much as 1/2" at 50 yards. There are relative impact places that are better to be and those that are not as good. This is usually confirmed by enough shooting at the various settings.

To the OP, if you don't want to use a tuner, feel free. But to think that you are approximating a high quality tuner with just a weight at the end of the barrel is in my humble opinion, not true.

 

Kind of sad to think anyone reading these posts would give any serious consideration to opinions offered by those who have no experience or expertise in the areas they are commenting on.

 

Silly and useless!

 

In answer to one of the questions in post #12, apologies if this is a duplication.

Why aren’t they used on centrefires?
I don’t pretend to have definitive answers, but from my experience:
Centrefire rifle ammunition, at least the higher quality stuff, is more consistent than its rimfire cousins.
The velocity difference issues, which a tuner is designed to minimise/negate, can easily be mitigated in handloading to achieve greater consistency.
Apart from the Lapua 6mm Norma factory loads, used in 300m, you won’t find factory loads being used in any high level competitions.

 

In answer to one of the questions in post #12, apologies if this is a duplication.

Why aren’t they used on centrefires?
I don’t pretend to have definitive answers, but from my experience:
Centrefire rifle ammunition, at least the higher quality stuff, is more consistent than its rimfire cousins.
The velocity difference issues, which a tuner is designed to minimise/negate, can easily be mitigated in handloading to achieve greater consistency.
Apart from the Lapua 6mm Norma factory loads, used in 300m, you won’t find factory loads being used in any high level competitions.

Did you follow #52 above?

 

Since the speed of sound in steel is 16,700 Ft/Sec., in the 0.002 seconds shown on the chart, the sound of the firing would travel about: 0.002 Sec x 16,732 Ft/Sec = 33 Feet. So, the sound wave from firing a .22 would travel up and down a 2 foot long barrel about 15 times before the bullet leaves the barrel.

Strain gauges like VarmintAl used to produce this pressure curve work by measuring the expansion of the barrels’ diameter which is produced by the pressure of the burning gases in the barrel. Note that there is NO evidence of any sound waves moving up and down the barrel that are significant enough to affect the barrels’ diameter.

The important conclusion, I believe, is:
since there is no evidence of sound waves affecting the barrels diameter, it would be virtually impossible for sound waves to be causing any whipping/flipping/waving/expanding/contracting (or whatever you want to call it) that would affect a barrels’ accuracy. None.

I’m sure that it is possible to measure the barrels deflections by one of several means, but those deflections would have to be caused by forces other than sound waves, such as flexing in the barrels bedding from the recoil forces. (It may be possible that the small wiggles in the strain gauge curves are caused by sound waves, their frequency looks crudely like the frequency of sound bouncing up/down the barrel, but they are just too small and irregular for me to count.)

VarmintAls’ analysis is amazingly comprehensive, detailed and enlightening but I have still not been able to find whatever the cause of the flipping is in his Finite Element Analysis.

 

this is not rocket science. The "flipping" as you insist on calling is VIBRATION!. It is caused by the ignition of the round when the firing pin strikes the case. It's that simple. And it is called VIBRATION. At least get your terms right.