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Archive 1

Right-hand twist; picture

I seem to remember that there is a reason (more than just tradition) why modern rifling uses a right-hand spin. Anyone else remember?

And does anyone have a good picture down a barrel?Rossami 23:55 15 May 2003 (UTC)


- Agreed, a picture or diagram is definitely needed for this article. -lommer 23:49, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I posted an image relevant to this "Riflilng " discussion. the image is titled "marlin 35 rem 2". --Rickochet 13:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

rifling twist

As far as I know, right hand twists are not used exclusively. I once had it explained to me, that it using left or right twist depended on which hemisphere of the earth the barrel would be used in. (i.e. left twists for southern hemisphere) and that the reason for this was to preferential compensation of the earths magnetic effect. I was told this by a guy who was a sniper, and he believed it, but I cannot say definitively whether its true or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.128.87.101 (talk) 05:31, 29 March 2006

If the hemisphere thing were true (which it isn't) then you'd also need a different twist for shooting east and west. Right hand is most common, but some makers, such as Colt and many British makes, use left hand. As for the sniper, I'll bet he wasn't actually a sniper; 99% of people who claim they are snipers and/or special forces are not. If you really want to test a sniper-wanna-be, ask him how much holdover Billy Dixon needed to hit that Kiowa... scot 16:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


Also ask the sniper for the caliber of rifle Billy Dixon used in Adobe Walls and then ask him if that Kiowa heard the shot! --Rickochet 01:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


I have long suspected, but do not know for sure, that Sam'l Colt was left-handed.

The Single Action Army (SAA), of his design, seems to have been made for left-handed shooters, with the loading gate on the right, making reloading difficult for right handers.

It was possible to reload the SAA while shooting it, by leaving the loading gate open and as an empty came around to the ejection port, kick out the empty, put in a fresh cartridge, and continue firing, repeating this process as long as desired, without stopping to eject six empties and reload six loaded cartridges. This method is a lot easier for left-handed shooters than for right-handed ones.

I note and was somewhat surprised that my inexpensive knockoff of the Colt 1911 by Rock Island Arsenal, has a right-handed twist, more in line with "normal" practice.

I have a high suspicion that IF Mr. Colt was indeed left-handed, this may explain why all (as far as I know) Colt handguns have a left-hand twist, as opposed to most other firearms. It seems like it might just have been a whimsical preference of Mr. Colt to use left-handed rifling in his firearms.

I wonder if anyone knows for sure.

--230RN —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.53.13.142 (talk) 07:10, 10 July 2007


There is some discussion as to why Pope used a left-hand twist in his barrels. I have the reference in front of me, but am unfamiliar with the best way of including this information. Additionally, it doesn't explain why many barrels are right-hand twist today. Lagaman (talk) 23:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Polygonal rifling

I yanked some invalid looking claims from the polygonal rifling section. Here's why:

  • If polygonal rifling were actually more accurate, why aren't all the custom 1911 gunsmiths using it on bullseye guns, and why don't you see it in benchrest rifles, where accuracy (i.e. fractions of a minute of arc) is a realy concern?
  • Leading is caused by high pressures (such as in magnum cartridges) or gas blowby on a poor seal between barrel and bullet, which cause melting of the lead. You can't claim that polygonal rifling seals better yet leads worse. My speculation is that the polygonal rifling doesn't grip the softer bullets as well, so accuracy will suffer.

scot 16:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Polygonal rifling to my knowledge can only be manufactured by Hammer forging method which is VERY expensive. It is more cost effective to broach or button rifle a custom barrel and then finish with a lapping process to remove as many imperfections as possible.
--Rickochet 13:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, hammer forged barrels are CHEAP, once you pay for the megabuck machine--that's why Ruger and other big makers use hammer forged barrels. The hammer forging process gives you get a rifled, profiled, and chambered barrel spit out of the machine every minute or so--about what it takes to broach or button rifle (but not profile) a barrel, and far, far less than a single point cut rifled barrel. You can buy polygonal barrel blanks (Lothar Walther: http://www.lothar-walther.de/html/363.php) but while Walther barrels are used by world class airgun shooters, traditional cut or button rifled barrels from makers like Krieger, Lilja and Shilen are still tops in the benchrest game. You can also make polygonal barrels with a broach or button, all you have to do is cut the tool accordingly. Cut rifled barrels are done in multiple passes, so that's the one technique that is really impractical for polygonal rifling. scot 15:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

picture

The picture captioned "a tank's main gun is often rifled" - wouldn't it be great if the picture was of a tank with a rifled gun.87.102.123.108 19:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The rifling in that picture looks pretty obvious to me...? Socrates2008 22:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Experiment

I'm dropping a ball, and hoping to get it to bounce straight back upwards. Would rifeling help to ensure it fell and returned dead straight? Larklight (talk) 15:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


How does it actually work?

This article seems to lack on explanation on how the barrel being twisted makes the bullet spin. how do the grooves (or whatever they are) actually force the bullet to spin? in the first rifles they used leather patches wrapped around the bullet the make it grip the inside of the barrel. What's the modern equivalent? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.223.207 (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2008

There are a number of assumptions you're making in that question, which aren't really valid. First, "patched" bullets are still used in some modern firearms, but only to allow a significantly smaller diameter bullet to be fired, such as a .223 inch bullet from a .308 inch bore. These are called sabots, and are used in everything from small arms to shotgun slugs up to the main guns in tanks. They can be used in rifled or smoothbore barrels, though in a smoothbore you need an inherently stable projectile like a flechette.
Next, the patch in a muzzleloader really has nothing to do with rifling, because patched balls were used in smoothbores as well. Muzzleloading guns needed to have a loose enough fit you could ram a lead ball down the muzzle by hand, which meant that for, say, a .50 caliber rifle you used a .49 caliber ball, and filled up the remaining space with something squishy, like paper, cloth, or thin leather, that you could push down the bore easily. And remember that black powder is very inefficient, with about 60% of it's mass after burning ending up as solids, either particles of smoke, or crud deposited inside the bore. This just makes the gun harder to load for each successive shot, so from a military point of view, a really undersized ball with a thick patch was a positive thing, as it made reloading in battle faster and easier.
Last, not all muzzleloading firearms used patched balls. Look at the loading instructions for a cap and ball revolver, for example. A .44 caliber revolver uses a .45 inch ball, which is swaged into the chamber by a lever located beneath the barrel, which gives the shooter enough leverage to squish the oversized ball into the chamber, and provide a tight seal. Also, by the American Civil War, the Minié ball, with its hollow base, had largely supplanted the need for patched bullets. The hollow base of the bullet would expand with the pressure of firing, spreading out the base of the bullet to produce a tight seal with the bore, and engage the rifling so the bullet would spin.
Breach loading rifles typically use bullets sized to the groove diameter (the low spots), and the front of the chamber is cut to match this diameter so the bullet slips right in. The diameter at the lands (the high spots), is a few thousandths of an inch higher, and upon firing, the bullet travels along the open bit by the chamber, called the throat or freebore, until it hits the rifling. By this point, the pressure behind the bullet is on the order of 10,000 to 60,000 pounds per square inch. On the low end, say, a .22 Long Rifle, that's about 400 pounds of force pushing the bullet into the rifling, where it swages into shape. Look at a fired bullet, and you'll see the engraving, which is the image of the rifling impressed on the bullet by its travel down the barrel. scot (talk) 21:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Your comments could also likely use some information on paper-patched bullets, still commonly used in black powder cartridge. Lagaman (talk) 00:00, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

ratchet rifling, plus

This article could likely do with some commentary on ratchet rifling, plus "canted land", 5C and 5R rifling. I also see there's no information on the Henry rifling.

I don't have any good sources on the ratchet rifling short of the picture on the Shilen website. The "canted land", 5C, and 5R, I'm not even sure what those are exactly. Lagaman (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Object proximity to spinning bullet affect trajectory?

When a bullet shot from a rifled gun leaves the barrel, the spinning motion drags air around the bullet, in a sort of small whirlwind? If the bullet passed extremely close to a stable object with greater mass than the bullet, would that object catch the drag and decrease the efficiency of the spin, thereby decreasing the long-range accuracy of the bullet's trajectory?

For example, if a bayonet was built into the barrel of the gun so that the blade was within a milimeter of the barrel's opening, would it affect the spin of the bullet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.4.47.181 (talk) 15:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved; request malformed and lacking consensus — ækTalk 01:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


Rifling → Rifled barrel — See the reasoning at talk:Rifled musket for the renaming KVDP (talk) 11:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You appear to have proposed two article oves to the same title. Can you explain a little more clearly what it is you want to do? 81.111.114.131 (talk) 20:04, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Talk page cleanup

The change I just made to the talk page was not to add (or remove) any content, but just to clean up malicious/accidental edits in the past:

  • The main change was that I restored the comments that had been deleted in this change by 59.53.101.90 at 06:41, 12 April 2008.
  • I added signatures to all unsigned comments (since I was passing through all the edits anyway).
  • I pulled the "experiment" section further down the page. This had been placed in the *middle* of the polygonal rifling section User:Larklight, the start of which had then been deleted by the above edit. This meant that the replies appeared to be aimed at the experiment question, and so didn't make any sense.
  • I moved a comment by 66.53.13.142 ("230RN") made on 10 July 2007 from "error" to "rifling twist". He'd posted two comments that day, and the first clearly was meant for "error", so I think the second went there by mistake.
  • A few minor formatting things (indenting, removing accidental horizontal lines and verbatim).

Quietbritishjim (talk) 13:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Mode of propulsion impacting rifling ?

Does it matter what method of propulsion is used (ie black/smokeless powder, or compressed air, ...) ? I would assume that the swirl of the rifling is more elongated in the beginning as the speed of the bullet is greatest there, and becomes more round near the end of the barrel. This would also mean that the method of propulsion impacts the rifling. However, I'm not sure.

91.182.94.236 (talk) 08:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Rifling Page Critique

Wikipedia Critique: Rifling

The article did an excellent job describing the historical importance of this development as well as the different ways one can create rifling, the differences of rifling in various firearms and the specific technology behind it. The article delves completely into the mathematics behind velocity and range in association with the width and degree of twist in a rifled bore and also to different projectiles and what works best in what situation. However, it does get very technical and although some words are linked so I could look at them myself, others seemed to be assumed knowledge or explained using even more in-depth terminology, which really leaves me with no mental image. It is obvious that the author knows their subject well, but that does not necessarily mean that the rest of the public does. The pictures were very helpful in comparing/contrasting and giving me a good idea of what was being described in that section and I thought that the organization of the article flows very well. Even with this, I would have preferred perhaps more images explaining some of the more intrinsic and complex portions of the article where there was a lot of technical jargon. The equations that were added towards the end were nice and supportive as well. I believe that the article did a good job covering all aspects from history, to change over time, to different projectiles and firearms, the explanation using mathematical equations of velocity/grooves/shape of projectile, etc. There seemed to be no frivolous detail, anything that subtracted from the article, bogged it down or drew my attention elsewhere.

The sources for this article were books on either the history or the technical aspect with only a few websites. They seem to be all professionals who specialize in this field. There were a decent number of sources for the article, although more would not hurt it. It was obvious that the author/authors took time to find well supportive illustrations and get information from actual books and encyclopedias, not just the internet. The sources could perhaps been better sited though, since I was unsure of where they were published, by who, etc.

I believe that Wikipedia perhaps was able to give more details than an encyclopedia at least based on its layout. Many more illustrations and pictures could be used because of the layout of the page which would probably not be attainable in an encyclopedia. Also, it seems as though it could devote more information to it, such as specific mathematical equations and the actual creation of it, not just its significance. It explains some of the terminology and if that was not enough, you could simply click on the other highlighted blue words that could quickly take you on a side note to further your understanding. All in all, this article gives me some faith that people take their entries seriously and personally enough to take the time to create a presentable page full of facts.

HIST406-10SarahBass (talk) 03:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)s.c.b.HIST406-10SarahBass (talk) 03:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Rifling in pop culure

perhaps we coud include a section referring to the james bond movie intros? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.143.101.134 (talk) 17:00, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Obscure Diction

"Differences in naming conventions for cartridges can cause confusion; for example, the .303 British is actually slightly larger in diameter than the .308 Winchester, because the ".303" refers to the bore diameter in inches, while the ".308" refers to the groove diameter in inches (7.70 mm and 7.62 mm, respectively)."

This sentence needs rewriting as it is not clear what "respectively" means. Does it mean that British .303 = 7.70mm, while .308 = 7.62mm? If so, the math is incorrect. .308 inches does not equal 7.62 mm. (EnochBethany (talk) 04:35, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

)

Historic rifling

I'm not sure whether this has been described; according to http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/musket-barrel-rifling-t34825.html

Rifling was done by: whittling a helical guide from a log and using the wood pattern for pulling a rod or wood dowel with a piece of file on the end while shimming the cutter for each pass.

Another method used a rifling bench. It was all wood except for the hook rifler. Each pull through the bore would cut one groove. The next pull would be ratcheted over to cut the next groove. It took many cuts to get the right depth.

Perhaps mention in article ?

91.182.151.208 (talk) 14:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

This is not an disambiguation page

Someone wrote: Rifling refers to helical grooves... , which is not an exact definition. We want to know what the rifling really is.
For example:
CUP may refer to many things which can be named on here, but a cup is a small, open container... Would you write: "a cup refers to a small, open container..."? I don't think so. See discussion about the subject"
85.193.242.154 (talk) 17:02, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

What causes the spin at the end?

In the german wiki regarding rifling i asked what causes the spin at the end, but i did not get an answer.Twist AS a consequence of rifling seems To be self-evident, therefore nobody is wondering. A Bullet is not formed as a screw beging forced To rotate via rifling, not At all regards erik — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.139.13 (talk) 13:38, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Are only gun barrels rifled?

Surely, there must be more uses for rifling than just gun barrels. Mixing materials is one I can think of. DirkvdM (talk) 08:09, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Some teapot spouts have a type of rifling. This may also be true for some other fluid conduit types... 76.10.128.192 (talk) 14:32, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

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Reference number 5 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling#cite_note-5) points to a broken link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.122.12.63 (talk) 09:58, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

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