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Barrel material-SS vs blue

skyfish
Every rifle I own is blued with wood or laminate. Like the look of a classic gun. Now I was thinking of adding to my inventory of hunting rifles and have been looking at the SS/synthetic stock. Besides the weather "resistant" is there any other advantage or disadvantage of the SS barrel.

With both my boys going deer hunting with me, I'm cleaning up my gram pa's Savage 99 in 300Sav. Never seen that gun out of my dad's gun cabinet. While I like that one, I do want another rifle. The farm in Southern Iowa I hunt deer in was given 70 defamation(yea 70) tags for deer, We'll be eating lots of venison this next year.
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Comments

7 comments

Date Votes
  • stevecrea
    I have read that the SS barrel may have a somewhat longer life than chrome-moly. The content of the steels is somewhat different. I have the impression that it is not a dramatic difference, and may only be 10 or 15 percent more.

    There may be some differences in how the barrels break in because of the malleability of the steel and other factors.

    I am sure others who are more knowledgeable will chime in on this question for you.

    That Savage Model 99 in .300 Savage should work well out to 200 or 250 yards for you.
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  • truthful
    The coefficient of heat transfer for stainless steel is less than that for carbon steel. That means that for identical barrels (other than type of steel) firing identical loads, the stainless barrel will heat up faster and cool down slower. As to the practical impact of that, who knows.
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  • bpost
    In competitve shooting finding a non-stainless steel barrel being used is VERY rare.
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  • BGHillbilly
    quote:Originally posted by truthful
    The coefficient of heat transfer for stainless steel is less than that for carbon steel. That means that for identical barrels (other than type of steel) firing identical loads, the stainless barrel will heat up faster and cool down slower. As to the practical impact of that, who knows.
    To heat up faster and cool down slower seems to be a conflict there.
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  • timhill100
    blue is good for hunting, dont like ss for hunting i think its too shinny, deer may see it reflecting,
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  • beantownshootah
    Stainless has three big advantages:

    a. Its rust resistant, and
    b. It has no finish to rub off/maintain, and
    c. It lends itself to being made into highly accurate barrels. (Which doesn't mean that every stainless barrel is highly accurate, or that non-stainless barrels can't be accurate too).

    Stainless has one big disadvantage:

    - The metallic color can be reflective.

    Its not just that what you are shooting at can see you (which may not be good), but that glare off the top of the barrel can affect your sighting plane, also not good.

    Of course stainless can be blackened/painted/covered to deal with the issue of reflectivity, but then you lose the benefit of no finish to mess with.

    In terms of other properties. Some people like the color of stainless steel. . .some don't. That's subjective.

    Stainess probably does have a lower heat capacity than ordinary carbon steel (meaning it heats up and cools off faster). Whether that is an advantage or disadvantage depends on the particular application, but for a hunter or the average casual shooter who isn't firing off lots of rounds in quick succession, its mostly won't make any difference at all.

    Edit:
    Deer bag limit story shortened: Right now in SC you can get a tag allowing you to kill UNLIMITED deer.

    In terms of stainless vs carbon, one other advantage of stainless is that it retains more strength at high temperature compared to more ordinary allows. Again, for ordinary shooters this isn't going to make any difference, but I suppose it might make a difference in certain applications (eg machine gun barrels, etc).
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  • BGHillbilly
    If I'm reading the chart right, SS should take much longer to heat up and cool down than carbon steel.
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