I always assumed that of the 3 procedures for installing the rifling in barrels, cut, button and hammer, the hammer method produced the most accurate results. Afterall, Steyr, Sako and other high end riflemakers use this German invented process. Then whilest surfing I found this interesting article....now, I'm not so sure....http://atlantisarms.com/History/Barrel%20History.htm

What do you guys think? Regards, Rick.

A good read.
 
Cooper or Lilja or some such custom barrel/rifle maker is currently making barrels with octagonal or hexagonal "rifling". I remember reading about this form of rifling at least as far back as the erly 1800s.
 
Paul

Rick, as Gitano pointed out, this type of rifling is nothing new. It has been around something over 100 years. The British used it in some of their 12 gauge rifles. ( Medium bores.) It is something like the 'Medford' type rifling, I suppose. Actually I see little avantage in it. Ease of cleaning would be one advantage. It would seem the bullet would be much more likely to strip in the rifling under heavy pressure. I can't prove that tho. At least it has a better chance happening than with conventional rifling. From what little I have read it is best suited to large slow moving calibers. As with everything else pertaining to guns, someone comes up with a 'brand new' old idea like the .224 Texas Trophy Hunter cartridge, which is close to 100 years old or the 17 MachII and 17 HRM which are forty years old.............Paul H

Hi All,

    Of course Charles Lancaster developed the Chordial Rifling which bore his name being called the "Oval" bore and then there was the Metford type from Sir William Metford. The so called "Enfield Rifling" was also of Metford's design ( which of course is a tapered rifling being deeper at the breech than the muzzle) which he "gave" to the government to help in the war effort beign a loyal subject of the Crown. I can remember when I was involved with "Practical Pistol" and Polygonal rifling was a specialist thing with severla replaement barrels for popular pistols being offered with this rifling form. Of course Metford's rifling is actually a Polygonal form .

   As to who actually invented Rifling is rather lost in the mists of time. The word rifling is derived from french so ................................?

   Now Sakorick, were you aware that Parker-Hale designed and built their own Hammer forging machine for barrel making :)  and BSA also used this method to make their barrels latter innproduction including for their Air Rifles. Of course the  Enfield Enforcer, L42 and the  Envoy target rifles all used hammer forged barrels and they were well known for their accuracy and the amount of competitions in which such rifles won for many years :)   it seems the Kolbe of border barrels conviently forgot this fact in his article which after all IS promoting his barrel making firm. Also true is the fact that the Accuracy International rifles used Kolbe's Border barrels.

  Lowther Walther I believe used both Hammer forged and Button rifling techniques to make thier barrels. Oh I was informed that the BSA barrel plant was brought by a company from Lahore in Pakistan  however as far as anyone seems to know they never made anything with it? which is very strange. Perhaps they couldn't set it up? which also seems wierd!

   In his article Kolbe mentiond fluting on the outside of the barrel. Again it's not new as Steyr would produce many different shapes and rifling ot your order especially on their Target Martini's. Another thing is that Dieter Anshutz is very secretive on exactly how they make their barrels so how can Kolbe be so sure what proccess they use?

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