[Neel]

Hammer Forging a barrel involves sliding a mandrel into an oversized drilled/reamed barrel blank and pounding the exterior of the blank under tremendous forces to form the steel around the mandrel inside a hammer forging machine. The mandrel is a polished carbide rod that is a mirror image of the bore; the rifling pattern is "in reverse." After forging, the mandrel is then pressed out of the bore. Most of the larger gun manufacturers now use this method because it's faster and easier, so it lends itself to mass production better. (The match barrel makers use either button rifling or cut rifling, because those processes impart less stress on the steel, and their production rates are not high-volume enough to justify the huge capital investment of the machines. Some say the hammer forging process generally doesn't produce bores that are quite as straight and uniform enough by "match" tolerance standards) - I found this on a previous thread

 

[Ozob]

check out this link on barrel making...

http://www.border-barrels.com/articles/bmart.htm

 

[Skeeter27red]

Awesome article!

Best post I have seen in here in a while! Thanks for the info! :t :t :t

 

[Fumbler]

Good replies and a good link.

RICOCHET, it should also be mentioned that the barrel is turned and pulled by the machine while it's being cold forged. I don't think there are many (if any at all) people in this world who could pull an rotate a round bar through a hammering machine as consistently as a machine can.

 

[bass_singer]

My Izhmash Biathlon Basic has a hammer forged barrel and is very accurate.