Barrel Cleaning by Graham Freeman

[RobinC]

I did query the bore plating with them as nickel is not a lot harder than copper, my contact does not know but he's given me the designers e mail address but he is away until Thursday but I'll email him on Friday and ask to clarify why they plate the bore on the FT. If correct it does raise a point for those using solvents on those barrels as most gun solvents are aggressive to copper, and nickel is usualy plated over a base of copper.

I'll also ask his view on cleaning stainless match barrels and how, so we will know from the horses mouth.

Fun this game isn't it! Passes a wet Monday though!
Robin

[Adam77K]

Interesting stuff, thanks guys. I'd always assumed since the FT guns were originally uprated 10M match guns that the barrels would be the same.
I wonder why they go to the trouble to plate the Hunter and FT guns. There could be only two high-level reasons to my mind; either it's due to the higher velocity, or it is to protect the barrels from the elements somehow, as match rifles are used inside and FT and Hunter rifles outside. If the former why use a soft metal, it makes no sense. So my guess is the latter and the inside gets plated as a side effect.

My interest is only in match guns so I was incorrect and stand corrected on the FT and Hunters which are totaly plated, this would explain why if any one uses extensive cleaning on them they get out black, its the barrel they are wearing out as nickel is a soft metal!
Good shooting
Robin

That last has certainly been the case with the recent Steyr FT barrels since the newer long action guns came out. Initially, by all accounts, accuracy was superb and then within a few hundred shots the groups opened up dramatically. For some time after that the barrels needed cleaning every couple of hundred pellets to get rid of the plating, after which accuracy returned. It seems the plating started coming off before cleaning.

AFAIK only Steyr do this however and some other barrels which are not internally plated do seem to get as dirty. One would expect that with nickel being a soft metal; the plating would be long gone after many tens of thousands of rounds, with or without the occasional clean.

My Steyr LG100 is an early model, with a hammer forged barrel (formed by steel being hammered around a mandrel which has the rifling grooves in relief. These barrels are quite sought after because they are alleged to be less pellet fussy. Whether this is actually true or not is moot. Either way the rifle must have fired 50k pellets and the chances of there being any soft nickel plating left are minimal, and it's still capable of thumbnails at 50m.

[RobinC]

Adam
Many people get confused with Steyr air guns as it has evolved quite dramatically over the years, the name Steyr is a bit confusing, I often hear people saying that Steyr make everthing from tractors, farm machinery, off road vehicles and so on, to infinity. The truth is that the town is called Steyr, its an industrial town with many big industries and a multitude of specialist companies sub contrating to them. The Steyr town name is used in many separate companies, it is not one company its merely the town name which is used. When the first airguns were built, the company was Manlicher (who were in Steyr) and they traded as Manlicher Steyr, the forged barrel was their feature and still is, they are very expensive to produce but were very high quality. The independant company Steyr Sportwaffen based at Ernsthofen a small village 10 km from Steyr was formed as an off shoot of Manlicher (who still make cartridge guns). Its a small unit with 15 staff which makes only air guns. There is no manufacturing, they design, but they operate like an F1 team using high quality local sub contractors for all parts and then QC check all parts and assemble. They were re finanaced a few years back by Anschutz which took a 51% holding and as Anschutz are now majorly owned by Ruag I presume they are now part of that group. The company has been recently renamed Steyr Sport. It is really a very small company, Olympiastrasse is a grand name for a unit on a village industial estate, but they are a team of friendly enthusiasts who welcomed us and showed us around when we visited.
Sorry to drift off thread, If I get an answer from the designer I'll put it on here.
Robin

[Adam77K]

Very interesting info Robin, thanks for posting. Early LG100s like mine are branded Steyr-Mannlicher

[graham freeman 01]

I have designed new Air Striper which will be available very soon the fr01