How a tuner really works, Calfee

K

Kathy

Guest
My centerfire friends:

When I developed the first muzzle attached barrel tuners back in the early 90's I believed we used them to "tune for the load" being shot........and I believed that for several years, as did everyone else.

About 5 years ago I ran some experiments, barrel ringing, wrote about it in Precision Shooting several times.

I discovered my friends, that a tuner is not used to "tune for the load" but it is used to "tune for the barrel"...

A properly weighted and positioned barrel tuner does not need to be adjusted.

These are the facts my friends. You can accept it now, or sometime down the road.....but sooner or later you will accept it.

What you folks would be well advised to experiment with, is making the physical size of you guns, barrels, etc., such, that you can use a tuner of the proper weight and still meet the 10 1/2 weight limit.

Your friend, Bill calfee
 
I've been away from these forums for awhile. I see this tuner debate is still rageing. I also see that people are still refusing to listen to someone with more experience with tuners than everyone on the centerfire board put together. Bill is absolutely correct.

Everyone on Earth who has spent a long day at the range playing with tuners knows you can alter the amount of vertical with one. Nothing new has been discovered here. The question is, now what? If all a tuner does is add a fourth variable to the powder charge/seating depth/neck tension equation, why bother?

The answer to that question is that tuners don't work that way. Tuners have no effect on your ammo. They can't, they never come into contact with it. Tuners effect barrel vibrations only. And with the proper weight properly positioned, THEY NEVER NEED TO BE ADJUSTED. They don't need to be adjusted for the weather. They don't need to be adjusted for the load. What a tuner does is give you a rifle that never surprises you. A tuner gives you consistency every time out. Three or four groups into the day and you'll know what to expect for the whole day. If that consistency isn't small enough for you, then you need to look at your ammo (or some other variable), but you don't need to look at your tuner.

This business of trying to make a tuner work within the constraints of some set of rules is silly. It reminds me of the old joke about the drunk looking for his keys under the street light because "the light's better there". If the rules prevent you from using enough weight to make a tuner truly effective, then the whole thing is an exercise in futility.
 
About 5 years ago I ran some experiments, barrel ringing, wrote about it in Precision Shooting several times.
I discovered my friends, that a tuner is not used to "tune for the load" but it is used to "tune for the barrel"...

Thats right Bill - You tune your barrels for AFTER the bullet has left the barrel. The rest of us are trying to tune the barrel BEFORE the bullet has left!
 
pacecil said:
Thats right Bill - You tune your barrels for AFTER the bullet has left the barrel. The rest of us are trying to tune the barrel BEFORE the bullet has left!
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That is exactly what a barrel tuner is doing as well - tuning the barrel for the moment of exit. I may disagree with Bills description of HOW and WHY it does this, But it does give a more stable muzzle condition upon bullet exit. :D

So was anyone here fooling with them before Browning "patented" the Boss system?:D
 
Mike

Many of us who have actually been using, and winning with, tuners in Centerfire Benchrest will pay a lot more attention to what Mr. Calfee has to say when he writes up a report on his first Registered Competition Two-Gun Win, or Grand Agg Win, or a Yardage Win, or heck, even a single group win.
I am of the belief that most of what Mr. Calfee observes in his "barrel ringing" exercises happens after the bullet has aready left the barrel, and probably gone through the target. Also, ringing a barrel in it's "static" condition, trying to find out something, is a far cry from hitting it with a 70,000 psi pressure spike, while a bullet travels down the bore, changing the very vibration patterns he is trying to controle with every .001 inch of its progress.
His basic problem is trying to relate low-pressure rim fire technology with high pressure centerfire technology. The dynamics are so far apart that they are related in just one aspect, in the end, the thing goes "bang".
This is another one of those areas where there are those that sit around and contemplate the issue, theorize about it, and then write about it. Then there are those of us who sit down, draw up something, build it, and then spend countless hours at the range, and in competition, either proving it's worth, or discarding it into the "well, that didn't work" pile of ideas that just did not pan out.
I am not trying to be a smart ass, and I do know trhat Mr. Calfee is well respected in his relm of expertice. But, this is Benchrest.com. Sooner or later, when you come on here, you have to be willing to "walk the walk", and not just "talk the talk". We do not carry a small group around in our wallet. We hang Championship Plaques on our walls.
The single most striking evidence of Mr. Calfees ignorance is his continuing to push that "correct tuner weight" thing. He speaks with the authority of someone who does not have a clue as what we are really doing at the level of accuracy and precision that it takes to win in 100-200 yard Benchrest.
This all might seem rather harmless, except for the fact that shooters log onto this site for one major reason, to gain information on how to improve the agging capability of their set-up in the Competitive Arena. We have an uncanny way of separating the "wheat" from the "chaffe". It's called results.......jackie
 
Friend Jackie

Friend Jackie:

I just came in and turned on this machine and saw your post.

When a tuner, of the proper weight for the barrel, is used, the muzzle will be completely stopped.........at that point, the tuner will no longer need to be adjusted...

I don't know you my friend.....I'm sure I would like you, and you me..

I am extremely comfortable....

Time will tell if I am a fool, or if...............

Your friend, Bill Calfee
 
Lynn said:
As you know I hired a piano tuner and did it per your suggestions in Precision Shooting Magazine.How did it turn out-My 73 year old father has set 4 records now with 1 still standing and he never touches the tuner.Not bad when you consider he has about 3 years in and didn't shoot a tuner his first year.


Lynn
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But Lynn,

How did the barrel with the tuner shoot before you put a tuner on it? While you may believe the tuner made a difference in the way the rifle shoots, it may have made no difference at all. It may just have the preverbial "hummer" barrel.

By way of example, I came real close to setting the HV 100 yd agg and IBS 200 yd Unlimited Group records -- both without tuners and both lost because I err -- choked. I'd be glad to show you a real nice 4 shot .081" 200 yd group to prove it (I think I tossed the others). Truth be told, I had some awesome shooting .22 bullets and a fantastic .22 LV barrel at the time and they made shooting small groups seem like child's play.

I took the same gun, put a new barrel on it, and it shot groups with horrible verticle. I tried putting a tuner on the "verticle" barrel. Guess what? It still shot verticle after the tuner. Admittedly, it shot less verticle, but I never could get the verticle completely dialed out and it had enough verticle that it would never be competitive.

So, here's what I've concluded: (1) some barrels just shoot better than others; (2) some bullets shoot better than others; (3) some scopes hold zero better than others; and, (4) some powders are less effected by certain enironmental changes than others. The addition of a tuner to a system that has a barrel, bullet, or powder problem may show an incremental improvement, but a bummer system will not be magically transmuted into a hummer system. I'm not saying that tuners don't work -- certainly they have been proven to be able to improve the grouping of a particular load to a particular barrel in particular circumstances. However, as pointed out by others in this thread, adding weight to the end of a barrel (and presumably slowing its periodicity at the anti-node) is always beneficial -- especially when we can adjust the load parameters.
 
Kathy said:
Friend Jackie:

When a tuner, of the proper weight for the barrel, is used, the muzzle will be completely stopped.........at that point, the tuner will no longer need to be adjusted...

Your friend, Bill Calfee
Click to expand...

Prove it. I'll never utter another word of disbelief if you can prove to me that you can stop the muzzle end of a rifle barrel from vibrating, as the bullet exits, when fired. I'm not talking about holding a metal rod and watching it vibrate as you grip it in different places, I'm talking about a Cu jacketed bullet accellerating from 0 fps to Mach 2.5+ scraping along the interior of a hollow steel tube (which in and of itself stretches and elongates the tube), said bullet developing rotational energy from 0 rpm to approx. 160,000 rpm, pushing a plug of air out of its path (which is also bouncing off the walls of the cylinder) and being followed by 32 - 65,000 PSI of gases, solids and plasma again all bouncing off the interior walls as they careen down the barrel.

I'll even send you a vibration kit complete with accelerometers to attach to the muzzle to prove it stopped. All you'll need is a silly scope.
 
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Lynn said:
Mike
The tuner is removable by simply backing it off as it is threaded in place.The gun does shoot very well without the tuner on it.
I do however find it very amusing to read how everybody but 100,200 yard benchrest shooters know anything at all about tuners.In the 600,1000 yard game I shoot mainly with the same guys who shoot against you yourself at places like Visalia.I shoot at Sacramento which is just up the road from you a few hundred miles.If you don't have a degree from MIT I guess you can't successfully use a tuner?
I have never seen Robert Yates win a race but if he wants to give me an engine I'm not going to tell him he must first win the Daytona 500 with himself as the driver before I will believe he knows how to make horsepower.Too bad Bill Calfee doesn't seem to get the same break from a bunch of guys who originaly said tuners would never work and are now using them successfully.
Lynn
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Lynn:

Jackie uses a tuner. He's probably one of their biggest proponents. So, I don't think he's saying they don't work. But, I'm not going to try and put any words in anyone's mouth.

My beef, if I even have one, is why it works, not whether it works. I've seen the accelerometer traces of a barrel when fired. If the bullet exits at a peak or valley, i.e., an area of low angular momentun, you get small groups. If it exists during a rise or fall or worst yet the node (the area where the barrel is travelling at its highest angular momentum, you get bigger groups). The longer, time wise, a barrel dwells in a peak or a valley, the more likely the bullet will exit at the peak or valley, and the less succeptible it will be to variations in velocity. The heavier the muzzle, the slower its angular momentum, and the more time it dwells in a peak or valley. (This is the theory espoused for the BOSS system, and it makes scientific sense.)

But in the traces I've seen, there has never been a flat spot -- a spot where, with no addition of an external force (an external energy), the curve simply goes flat, i.e., the muzzle stops moving all together. That violates the laws of physics and quantum mechanics -- and I've studied law. ;)
 
So what you are saying Jackie is , " That a gunsmith has to be a champion shot or in the BR Hall of Fame to know anything about BR guns " ???
 
Lynn said:
Mike you sound like a lawyer.
How much experience does Bill Calfee have with a tuner? How do his rifles do in competition? Are they sought after or do they sit on the shelf collecting dust when someone decides to retire from the sport? Is it possible he knows how they work? What is his definition of a stopped muzzle? If a barrel block was put at the muzzle end of the barreled action and held into the stock would that be stopped or would we need to freeze the molecules to -260 Celsius to stop it?
You guys are a very entertaining bunch.
Good Luck wit your shooting.
Lynn
Click to expand...

Thanks Lynn, I am a lawyer. But before that I was a chemist (BS, MA). I left USC's PhD program to pursue a legal career, but I graduated with a 3.95 GPA and a couple of published articles in scientific journals (JACS and Journal of Physical Organic Cemistry), so I say this to head off the naysayers - no, I was not asked to leave. Rather, I was asked to stay take an MA (non-terminating degree) and a 1 year leave of absence rather than a MS (terminating degree) to decide if I wanted to be a lawyer. Its been a while, and I can't whip through differential calculus problems anymore, but I still remember the basics like conservation of energy: "A body in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by another force." There is no external force to stop a muzzle from vibrating, so it can't happen -- unless you violate the laws of physics.

As for whether Bill knows why a tuner works, I suspect he knows how they work and has his own reasons for espousing his stopped muzzle theory -- but I could be wrong, so I'll give him the benefit of doubt and not espouse my opinions.

Can Bill build a fine rifle? That does not seem to be a disputable subject. Of course he can. But is building a rifle more art than science?

Actually, people have tried clamping the muzzle end of a barrel to the top of a rail gun. The resulting groups were not impressive. I suspect that the conservation of energy equation kicks in and instead of having the end of the barrel vibrate, the whole platform is made to vibrate with some unanticipated consequences.
 
Doesn’t matter how they work.

I think part of the problem is unless someone’s actually experienced the incredible 200-yard grouping ability produced by a working BR rifle (without a tuner & without playing with the powder measure), they just cant understand how little’s left on the table.

The way I read all these tuner threads.
1. Adding -any- weight delays/slows/reduces muzzle motion at the instant of bullet exit.
2. People like cool futuristic clicky adjustable space age things (ie would they still adjust their power measure between matches if it didn’t have a cool clicky dial on the side?).
3. Both the NBRSA & IBS now have a loophole where you can bypass the long established taper rules -but only if- you thread or clamp your motion reducing weight on the barrel and call it a “tuner”.

I’m guessing there will be a lot of new barrel profiles tried in the future, some will even have anodized clicky things on the front. If your existing varmint taper barrel’s working, you could care less. ;)

Jim
 
Physics, math, etc.

Mike: All the laws of physics mean nothing to me........especially when it comes to a bullet going down the length of a barrel. Varmint Al's stuff is very interesting, as well as everyone else's input, but key factors are not being used. Not that I have an answer, but I do have questions.
1. Barrel temperature rises with each shot.
2. Barrel fouling (and the lubricity of that fouling) changes with each shot.
3. The density of the air in a hot barrel is definately different than in the ambient conditions around the rifle.
4. Temperature of the powder charge (when left in the chamber for a specified length of time before firing) is different for subsequent rounds.....see #1
5. 50 millionths of an inch in bullet diameter or bearing length.
When you consider all the factors involved in putting 5 shots into a hole, I can't imagine how it is done.
Bryan
 
Hi Mike,

I'd say you've about got it, but you need to remember the old saying "You can always tell a Texas Aggie (or substitute your favorite description/institution), but you can't tell him much."

Charles
 
bryan said:
Mike: All the laws of physics mean nothing to me........especially when it comes to a bullet going down the length of a barrel. Varmint Al's stuff is very interesting, as well as everyone else's input, but key factors are not being used. Not that I have an answer, but I do have questions.
1. Barrel temperature rises with each shot.
2. Barrel fouling (and the lubricity of that fouling) changes with each shot.
3. The density of the air in a hot barrel is definately different than in the ambient conditions around the rifle.
4. Temperature of the powder charge (when left in the chamber for a specified length of time before firing) is different for subsequent rounds.....see #1
5. 50 millionths of an inch in bullet diameter or bearing length.
When you consider all the factors involved in putting 5 shots into a hole, I can't imagine how it is done.
Bryan
Click to expand...

Bryan:
I couldn't agree more. There are a number of things we take for granted before we ever get to the barrel. As a bullet maker, you know how critical it is to have every core to seat in the jacket with the same "feel." Ever try to explain that "feel" to anyone? Ever notice how critical obtaining the proper feel is to turning out quality bullets? I tell everyone who expresses interest in making bullets that it will take at least 6 months for them to develop a process that will turn out bullets that they can rely on. Until that time, I warn them that their shooting will suffer.

Then, still dwelling on bullets, you have some hummer jackets and some bummer jackets and they are practically impossible to differentiate except for that "feel."

Barrels: forget about it. Its all a crap shoot.

I'm not a big follower of the changing tune with changing conditions theory. Its my belief that the general tuning problems arise from powder measures not dropping consistent charges over a wide temperature range. That this occurs cannot be disputed. Why this occurs? I have no idea. Its been my general experience that if you load the same weight powder charge, the gun will keep shooting irrespective of the weather conditions. It is true that I've experienced rare times when this was not the case, but I suspect other things (such as an impending scope failure) were causing my poor groups and not the rifle's tune.

Changing fouling? Yea. What about the effects of MoS2 or WS2 on not only fouling, but neck tension? How about changing neck tensions due to work hardening?

I'm getting a headache. Time to grab a beer.
 
Lynn said:
Mike I knew you were a lawyer.
If you look at a sine wave on a piece of paper it crosses a line at 3 points 0 degrees 180 degrees and 360 degrees and has a peak at 90 degrees and a trough at 270 degrees.Pacecil calls the trough an anti-node because if you add it to the positive peak at 90 degree it equals a flat line.
What Bill seems to be saying is in total agreement with your statement that you want the barrel at 90 degrees or 270 degrees to take advantage of the dwell time at each point.If you cut a barrel to length and you are at 0,180 or 360 degrees you are at the point of highest angular momentum.Why would we want to do this? Bill is telling to cut the barrel at the parallel node which would be 90 or 270 degrees.Doesn't that seem to make the most scientific sense? I do realise that the bullet has a influence on te barrel and that is what the tuner addresses in my mind right or wrong once a barrel is properly rung.
I have worked on ground waves used for talking to submarines were a 1/4 wave is thousands of mile long to millimeter and lightwaves in the past for around 22 years.Every wave I have ever tested using Klystrons scalar network analyzers and optical spectrum analyzers tells me there are harmonics,subharmonics,stray and reflected waves present in any wave.When properly Tuned you always get a very happy customer.When not properly tuned you get a whole bunch of the wave reflected back disrupting and destroying your outgoing wave shape and hurting performance.
From what I can see Bill Calfee is talking about shot to shot stopping of the muzzle in a broad sense of the term.A engineer could never understand this but the grunt doing the actual work could.
You should put a 8 twist barrel on one of your bench guns and come play with us at 600 yards.Jackie tried it out.
Lynn
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Lynn:

I've read Bill's posts before, and I don't believe that's what he's saying. He means node when he says node and not anti-node. Actually, I believe he is somewhat misusing the term node and is really referring to a condition of zero vibration, i.e., a flat line and not a sin wave. In other words, I believe what Bill is saying is that if you scale the weight of the tuner, according to his model, when the gun goes bang, the tuner will stop all motion at the barrel as the bullet exits the muzzle. Of course, you hit upon the only way this can happen: you must counteract the vibration at the muzzle with an equal and opposite phase vibration. A correctly placed accelerometer should be able to confirm this hypothesis.

As for the 1:8" twist, I've got enough trouble keeping my point blank guns shooting and my bow arm in shape as it is. Maybe someday though . . . . Take care.
 
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Mike

Stephen Perry will tell you the .224 bullets were my wife's work. He's right.
When she first started helping me by doing the core seating, I came home to a bucket full, and 2 small piles. She explained that the 2 small piles had a different feel to the press stroke.....one was somewhat easier and one was somewhat harder that the norm. On weighing those bullets, the variance was a tenth of a grain over or a tenth of a grain under the intended weight!! She has the ability to segregate bullets by that "feel". My feel is a but less sensitive.
I got stupid and sold those dies (Blackmon, steel) and a perenial World Team shooter is using bullets from those dies today.
Whoodathunkit?
Maybe I'll make some bullets in the future, but right now I concentrate on keeping healthy.
Bryan
 
Lynn

Since I have been one of the proponents of allowing tuners in Centerfire Benchrest from day one, you must be mistaken when you thought you ever heard me say I thought they were of no use..........jackie
 
Jackie,

You were winning before you ever tried a tuner. That you continue to do so proves nothing about your tuner. You guys on this forum are all breathless with excitement because you think you've discovered something. What you've discovered is the exact same thing everyone with a tuner discovers very early in their trials with one. You've all discovered the obvious. Congratulations.

Before anyone bristles, let me say that I've seen some pretty impressive aggs with your name on them. There is no doubt that you are a very talented benchrest shooter. But that doesn't make you an expert on tuners. I'm coming up on 20,000 rounds through a tuner equipped rifle. And my experience with tuners pales to insignificance compared to Bill Calfee's. We are both trying to tell you that you (and others on here) are missing the point. To be blunt about it, if you think a tuner requires constant adjustment, you are making a rookie mistake. For all your undoubted talent, you have yet to discover what a tuner really does.

Now I hope none of this comes across as abrasive. I sincerely wish that every single one of you finds the one true tuner setting for every barrel you own soon. There is only one profound mystery with tuners and it has nothing to do with knowing when and how to twist them. The only question to be answered with a tuner is how do you know when you've got them to the point that they never need to be adjusted again. When all of you have discovered what tuners really do, maybe one of you can answer that question.
 
Lynn,
A virus listed on the Mcafee site as “BR_Newbee(D)_Fireform_WrongCharge_almost_kaboom” crashed the forum about a year ago. Quite a few posts and topics were on the casualty list, including Jackie’s.
 
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