Have you ran tests on this? I have not, but I have talked with a good friend and read literature that says otherwise. Just curious
Look at it like this:
If I take a barrel made of steel it's going to weigh "X" for any given contour.
If I then take the same barrel and turn it down to a pencil and wrap the outside of it with graphite strands or cloth, it will probably not weigh quite as much as when I started. Why? Carbon is not as dense as steel.
Does the barrel shoot better? If carbon-wrapped barrels offered a significant performance gain, then I would expect to see them used heavily in stuff like NRA Highpower, International Palma, Bench rest, Silhouette, etc... It's a very rare thing if it happens at all. Highpower is a good litmus test here because of the rapid-fire strings that are back to back when shooting the 800 ag course of fire. PRS is also a good example when match directors set up "barrel burner" stages. -Carbon guys generally don't care for that because it's hard on equipment, and they pay a lot for their stuff. The word I get is that CF-wrapped barrels have more of a habit of wandering when they warm up.
Is the barrel stiffer?
It's along the same argument that routinely surfaces when discussing fluting. I use two basic examples:
If I take a magic wand and wave it over a contoured barrel and grow flutes on the outside of it, does that barrel become stiffer? I would say yes.
If I took a larger barrel contour and fluted it with the root of the flutes following a smaller contour, does it also increase in stiffness? I would say no.
The fundamental thing here is that you will not make something stiffer by removing material. With a wrapped barrel, you are more or less sorta doing both. The question becomes, did it actually improve? If I turn a barrel into a pencil and wrap it with something, so it now looks like a Sendero, it will probably be stiffer than the pencil I started with. Is it as stiff as a traditional all-steel contoured Sendero, though? I've never tested it, so I don't know, but it brings several other questions to mind.
- Does it somehow shoot more accurately?
- Is the barrel more forgiving because it now operates at a different frequency and amplitude?
- Are bullets somehow faster for a given powder charge?
Does a carbon-wrapped barrel dissipate heat better than a solid steel one?
I will say no. The example I use is a decade ago; I had a pair of Cerakoted barrels in the oven curing. Both in Sendero contours. One was SS, and the other was a Proof. I took them out of the oven and let them hang to cool. I grabbed the Proof first and was reminded that assumptions are often painful. I burned the snot out of my hand. The steel barrel, however, was cooled off enough to where I could handle it safely.
The lesson:
Experience is never cheap.
) Id agree, although the Havak PH2 is a few $$$ more, it's a great "factory" rifle and reasonably light
