StraightJacket Litmus test.

[dogmush]

For those not following the other 3 threads on the StraightJacket Rifle system there's apparentlly a new system that may or may not make your old rifle shoot amazingly more accuratally and cooler. Makers website here:
Teludyne Tech

I mentioned in the other thread that I'm interested in this thing enough to see if it works. I want to do as scientific a before and after test on this mysterious system as is possable. I figure it's 50/50 going to work/going to do nothing.

My plan is to use an indoor, climate controlled range, shooting at 50 Yds. I'll buy a bunch of surplus ammo in a spam can and use the same can for before and after.

I'll start with heat testing. I'll shoot a couple shots in a set time frame, then measure the exterior and interior bore temps, as well as bolt face and muzzle temps. I'm thinking do this after 5 shots, then 10 shots, then 15 shots, all done pretty much rapid fire. I'll time the shooting strings. Then I'll slow down, and shoot 4, 5 shot groups at 50 yds for accuraccy. That's 55 shots total.

Then I'll send the rifle off to Teludyne for the carbon steel Straight Jacket and muzzle brake, and when I get it back do the exact same test. Same ammo, same range, same shooter everything. Then I'll post everything up so folks can see.

Should be fun.

I'm not made of money so I hit the gun show today looking foe a suitable victim rifle. I saw a couple of old mausers in 8mm and a 1917 short rifle in .308, but I really didn't want to carve up a nice piece of history. Not to mention that would have involved bending bolts and finding scope mounts.

Then I found a guy at in the last row with a used Savage Model 110 E in .30-06. The stock was kinda dinged up and a really attractive shade of Dog Poo Brown. It had a old crappy 3-9 (Swift?) scope with nicley dark and blurry optics, and a really cool grinding sound when you changed magnification. He was asking $250 for it. Ha Ha, says I. A little haggling, some insinuations on the rifles likelyhood of self destruction, walking away, and counting of cash where he could see me, and it was mine for the bargin price of $150. That left me enough cash for a slightly less crappy (but much clearer) 4-16x chinese scope and some rings. Rummageing through my junk drawer turned up a Versi-pod that I wasn't useing and Ta-Da! the experiment begins.

My Gunrags have led me to belive this rifle will be better if it's black, so I put it on a pancho and made it watch Full Metal Jacket untill it was tactical enough.

The Victim:



It's already defending me from the menace of neon fish:


If anyone has any ideas for other before and after measurements I could take, throw them up here. If it's within reason, I'll try and do it. I'm also trying to come up with a way to empiricly measure recoil, that doesn't involve me buying an accelorometer. Any idea on that one let me know, otherwise you're stuck with me saying "eh it felt a little different". It's going to take me a couple weeks to do the first stage of measurements, so we have some time to come up with other measurements.

I'll add updates as I get them done.

[RecoilRob]

Good on you for the experiment! Personally, I don't question the recoil reduction claims because they are adding weight and a brake. Duh! Of course it will kick less. Just how much it reduces it will be subjective unless you can rig up a lead-sled and measure how far it moves....or something like that.

The improved accuracy claims don't bother me either as making a barrel stiffer, and cutting a new crown will almost always make a rifle shoot better. Again, nothing new here...

The real question that I personally hope is answered is the 'changes how it handles heat' claim. Adding mass to the barrel will always allow it to hold more and heat up at a slower rate. They claim that the outer barrel stays cooler, while ALSO keeping the inner barrel cooler. Well, at least in the initial postings on the 'system' this was implied.....the advertising department seems to have toned down this claim in subsequent posts....perhaps they have realized that it was as far fetched as the .003 MOA one?

Anyhow, you could simulate the shroud mass with thin lead sheathing or tape applied to the exterior to equal weight of the soon to be 'system'. Do your external and internal temp measurements and then compare them with the rifle after treatment.

I cannot imagine that your inner barrel temps are going to be significantly cooler, while also having the outside cooler, beyond what the addition of barrel mass accounts for.

Again, good on you for the experiment!

[wristtwister]

Dogmush,
I also had a versa-pod bipod on my ATR after having it straitjacketed, and those pods wobble horribly. You can get a Caldwell bipod for about $37 that will lock down and keep your shot groups straight... but using that versapod will definitely affect your shots. It's fine for a field rifle, but for target shooting you need something that restricts movement, and the versa-pod wobbles enough to allow the rifle to almost turn 30 degrees of horizontal roll.

If they had a way to lock it in place, it would be fine. As it is, it would be better to take it off and shoot off sandbags.

WT

[dogmush]

I can get sub.75MOA out of an AR on a Versi-pod, I imagine I can get it to work with this one too. I useally hold the rifle to counter-act roll.

Either way, as long as it's the same Bi-pod in the before and after tests it shouldn't matter. It will affect both equally.

I cannot imagine that your inner barrel temps are going to be significantly cooler, while also having the outside cooler, beyond what the addition of barrel mass accounts for.

I'm not going to mock up extra mass, because I want to give the system the benifit of the doubt. The extra mass is part of the system, so they get it's effects also. Besides it should be some pretty straight forward math to figure out if heat loss is in excess of what can be accounted for by a pound or two of steel.

This is what I think, too. I think it's actually insulating the barrel. That's why the outside is so much cooler after shooting. It's possable that the secret stuff inside is really that efficiant at heat transfer and allows it to radiate off that fast.

I'm planning to turn a copper or brass rod down to right at the bore diameter, shoot a couple times then stick the rod in for a set time. (30s or so) then pull it out and measure the temp of the rod. While that's not actual bore temp, it aught to give me a nice repeatable way to tell how much heat is added to the bore per shot, and to see if the StraightJacket is transporting heat better.

BTW If anyone can com up with a better way of measuring interior bore temp, I'm all ears.

[RecoilRob]

So, you plan to measure temps with an infrared gun? How about measuring several places along the barrel, say every 3 or 4 inches from chamber to end as the chamber will be hottest and the temp should decrease as you go away from it.

When you get the gun back, you could bore small holes in the jacket to the barrel and measure it directly in exactly the same spots as before for an apples to apples comparison.

I think that would be the easiest and most accurate method, plus......you get to see inside the shroud! For Science, of course!

[dogmush]

Rob, I have a couple of DMM's with thermocouples and an infrared gun.

My plan is to tape the TC's at roughly the chamber and halfway down the barrel, and record their temps during the course of the tests. I'll use the IR gun for the boltface and interior temps as they're less condusive to static testing. If I get another TC I'll use it towards the muzzle.

I don't want to destructivly test the system untill I know it doesn't work. After all if it works I have a tack driver of a rifle for not much cash. If it doesn't work (or is just mediocre) I'll consider drilling and cutting it open.

[wristtwister]

Dogmush,
you said

I'm not going to mock up extra mass, because I want to give the system the benifit of the doubt.

I don't really think the Caldwell bipod is "extra mass", if anything somewhat lighter than the versa-pod. In either case, I think they weigh about the same, but I found a significant difference in how they worked.

(Don't want to hijack your thread, just giving you my experience with both)

WT

[dogmush]

WT,

You misread.

Recoil Rob suggested I mock up the before test with a lead heatsink so as to rule out added mass as the agent of heat transfer. Even if the SJ wsa just a steel pipe and nothing else, it would keep the barrel a little cooler due to the added mass the burning powder has to heat. RR was suggesting a way to account for this variable and help isolate the heat transfer charecteristics of whatever's inside the shroud.

I allowed as I was going to give whatever added heat transfer the shroud's mass gives to the system as a kinda freebe.

I'm sticking with the Versi-pod for two reasons.
1. I've used it before to good result on a varitey of weapons.
and
2. I already had one so that's another $50-$100 I don't have to spend.

[wristtwister]

Well, I know you are a "gadget" guy, so I won't bother to tell you that you're really wasting your time with heat measurements, etc. You'll find the rifle "runs cool" after the system is applied, and that it can take probably up to 30-40 rounds before it gets appreciably hot on the outside, so start with plenty of ammo. My ATR is in 30-06 and I shot it all day Saturday and only got it warm once, and that was after it had sat in the sun for about an hour.

I used to design power boilers and have a pretty good understanding of thermodynamics, and what you can discover with temperature readings really isn't going to tell you anything. You will get the most noticeable results in accuracy and repeated accuracy, which is why I posted the advice regarding the wobbly bipod. If your optics are good, you should be shooting one ragged hole if you hold the same aim point. I don't know what distances you have available to you, but you should start with your 50 yard test and then move it to longer and longer distances looking for consistency. You'll be well satisfied.

Like Sheik Yerbouti said, "it's easy to make an accurate rifle", but an "accurate rifleman" is a different story, and since the improvement in accuracy is the main point of applying the system to a "hunting" rifle, it only makes sense that you should make sure you don't short-change the system's benefits and limit it to heat dissipation.

I had a problem during the rifle competition last Saturday because I ran out of 180 grain ammunition and had to switch to 165 grain ammo right in the middle of the shoot, and didn't have my gun "dialed in" for that bullet weight.
I don't really feel bad though, I was shooting against people with $5000 benchrest rifles and it was the first time I had shot under their rules, etc. so I kind of wrote it off as a "learning experience". My first rounds were "middle of the pack", but the last two were off the charts bad because of the bullet weight, wind, and an optics problem.

I make no bones about being a pistol shooter rather than a rifle shooter, but I do pretty good for an old man with bad eyes... The winner Saturday shot a 250 - 20X with his $5000 benchrest rifle, vernier shooting support, and $1000 scope. I shot a 69 - 2x and 2 "no score" sheets with one rifle, and 98 - 2X with the other. The first was my ATR, which lost the optics and my other was a Remington ADL in .308 with a $125 BSA mil dot scope shooting milsurp ammo... but I had a hell of a lot of fun. If I had brought enough 180 grain ammo, I should have shot in the 115-120 range with my ATR (which also has a $125 BSA mil dot scope on it)... and I was shooting off bipods, where these guys were using vernier scale shooting stands.

Now, I know that's nothing to brag about, but I was there just for the experience and to see how they run their 100 yard matches. The targets were different from their 400 yard targets, and the format was different, so to learn how they're doing things, I shot the match. Next time, I'll have a more stable front support than my bipod and sandbag setup.

That being said, IBS "hunter rifle" targets (which we used) have 5 separate targets and a "sighter" on them. You fire one shot at each target, so to figure out what your "group" is, you have to use a ruler and some "black dots". The targets are 4 inch circles. The "white" part of the target is 23/4" and that's the 6 ring. As Mr. Miyagi said in "Karate Kid"... "first time you, first time me"... BTW, if you had 2 hits in the target, you got the worst score of the two, so if you hit a bullseye and a 6, you get the 6. Most of my "groups" after transferring the info could be covered by a quarter... so I don't feel too bad about them.

WT

[dogmush]

Well, I know you are a "gadget" guy, so I won't bother to tell you that you're really wasting your time with heat measurements, etc. You'll find the rifle "runs cool" after the system is applied

Well I may, or I may not. All we've seen so far is a barral with a cool shroud. I could do that with some fiberglass insulation, or even just an air gap between the barrel and the shroud. If nobody ever takes measurements then we won't know will we.

I used to design power boilers and have a pretty good understanding of thermodynamics, and what you can discover with temperature readings really isn't going to tell you anything.

Apparentlly you don't. What I can discover, by compareing interior and exterior temps over time is if the system dissapates heat from the bore faster, slower, or not at all. since that's the main claim of Teludyne it seems worth testing doesn't it? They said:

Unfortunately, because of increasing temperatures after each shot the harmonics are not uniform on every shot. In other words, each shot changes because the hotter the barrel the more harmonics comes into play.

Heat levels are half their sales pitch.

If anyone has a cost effective method of measuring barrel harmonic let me know. I have access to an O-scope, but not much experiance using it.

Also fully half the test is accuracy improvment, so don't worry about me focusing on heat to much.

"it's easy to make an accurate rifle", but an "accurate rifleman" is a different story,

To allow a little snark out:
This:

is a 100yd group shot by this rifle:

wobbly bipod and all. Note the .6 MOA or so. I think I'll be able to give the StraightJacket an honest test.

Feel free to post some groups from your mossberg before and after the system.

[wristtwister]

Sounds like you've got a plan to me. As for the "understanding thermodynamics", that's a little hurtful since I've made my living most of my life using that particular skill... but opinions are opinions. You're certainly entitled to yours. Most of my career was spent designing high pressure high temperature pressure vessels, so we just have to agree to disagree on that one.

I think with an honest test, you'll be impressed.

WT

[dogmush]

As for the "understanding thermodynamics", that's a little hurtful since I've made my living most of my life using that particular skill... but opinions are opinions.

It was, and I apologise. I sometimes get a little grumpy.

Tell me, do you disagree with this statement:

What I can discover, by compareing interior and exterior temps over time is if the system dissapates heat from the bore faster, slower, or not at all. since that's the main claim of Teludyne it seems worth testing doesn't it?

One of the things I'm interested in is whether or not they manage to keep th bore cooler, or simply insulate the exterior of the shroud from the propellant gasses. You can see how just the ability to touch the outside of the shroud, with no other data, doesn't give me a complete picture of the thermal management of the bore. Right?

[waterhouse]

Sounds like a good test. I look forward to seeing the results.

[wally]

You are going to need more than 5 shot groups to prove statistical significance.

--wally.

[Unit91]

Hey guys, I'm an engineer and a vibrations guy, so I have to weigh in on this. I have strong reservations regarding the content of the TTI claims. From the brochure:

The StraightJacket utilizes a patented process to improve accuracy, dissipate heat, and eliminate barrel harmonics for any rifle shooter. With the StraightJacket custom fitted on the rifle, the barrel is "locked in." This eliminates barrel harmonics or whip...

Harmonics [vibrations] are unavoidable. Everything in the universe is vibrating all the time. Always. Forever. I'm really not here to nit-pick, but I'm concerned that TTI's claims are well overstated, since the basis of their product lacks technical merit.

With regard to heat transfer: Newton's law of cooling is absolute. Adding material, or selecting materials that provide better heat dissipation, allow low temperatures for longer periods of time, but their claim that "every shot is a cold-bore shot" is patently false.

Needless to say, I am VERY eager to see the results of the experiment being cooked up here.

[ceetee]

How hot does the inside of a barrel get? Here's a long-stem thermometer -- it looks like the stem will fit down a barrel. The only thing is, it's upper limit is 550 degrees F. Not a whole lot of money, either. We use them to measure the temp of hot asphalt kettles in the roofing industry.

[dogmush]

Ceetee, that's a good idea, and one I've given thought to. Since I had some time on this past week, I fired up the lathe and turned this out:

That's a brass insert, turned to fit the chamber and first inch of barrel with a Type K thermocoupler embedded in the tip.

I figure I'll insert it for a set time (I'm thinking 30 s) between the shot being measured, and record the temperature change. It won't give me the actual bore temp, but I should be able to extrapolate some data. i.e. if the original barrel raises the temp 40 degrees in 30 sec after 5 shots, and the SJ'd barrel raises it 10 degrees in 30 sec after 5 shots I can assume that the SJ'd is cooler. (I'll record and publish the raw temps as well.)


In the meantime, I've collected just about everything I need. I'm hoping to take it out and zero the new scope this weekend, then I have to travel for buisness next week, but some time in the week after that I hope to do the "control" shooting, then I'll ship it to Teludyne. I should have enough pennies saved up by then to pay for it.

Here's the setup so far. Ammo is all of the same lot, and same month of manufacture:

(before anyone bemoans my choice of ammo, I'll happily use whatever ammo you think is best for this test. PM me for the shipping address, I'll need about 250 rds.)

[Regular Joe]

Whether or not this all amounts to anything means just about nothing to me, as I'm not really interested in the straight jacket. What keeps my attention is seeing that this is a "for fun" project for you, and you're doing it in an admirable fashion. You promote a noble spirit of the "Scientific American".
Teludyne is either going to refuse to do the treatment on your rifle, or they're going to love you for it, depending on the validity of their claims.
It's because of projects like this that we know: "Old guys rule". Good on you.

[TMM]

this is looking like a very good scientific experiment! i'm looking forward to the results...

tmm

[dogmush]

"Before" Accuraccy testing done today, give me a little bit to crunch numbers and I'll post it.

[Jim Watson]

Surplus ammo?
50 yards?
OK to try to study heat sinking but nothing on accuracy.
Savages are pretty acccurate, see if the company will front you some good ammo or bullets to load and find a minimum 300 yard range where you can tell what is going on.
Get several thousand rounds, because the other factor of interest is barrel accuracy life.

[dogmush]

Jim you're not tracking here. It's a before/after test. The actual accuraccy almost doesn't matter, as I'm looking for the change in accuraccy. Besides the company says that it's system makes surplus ammo into match ammo.

Besides that, I don't have a handy 300yd range or thousands of rounds. You're welcome to do your own test on your own dime, and I'll kibitz your protocol.

That being said, the Golden Bear ammo left TTI room to work on the accuraccy. I won't say this rifle/ammo combo is the most innaccurate I own but it's close. And it's pretty sensitive to heating up. Anyways, I got a baseline for it's accuraccy.

I shot 6 groups of 5, I didn't pretend I was at a match, but I got a good picture, and squeezed each shot. Average time of groups was 1:43 for five shots with the fastest being 1:20 and the slowest being 1:58. Best group was 1.7"/3.4MOA. Worst group was 4.63"/9.26MOA With the exception of the third group the groups got steadily bigger as the barrel heated up.

I started by zeroing the scope, so the barrel was at 100*F for the first shot group, right around 3-3.5 MOA is what this rifle/ammo will shoot starting off.

In a perfect world I'd be able to shoot for groups and let the barrel cool between shots to ambient, but I don't have that much time to burn at the range.

I've posted some graphs that show the effect on group size over time and barrel temp. I'll also post the targets.

On this test TTI's got two goals. They need to make the starting group smaller, and they need to make the groups not open up as much with Barrel temp.

Tomorrow, I'll go back and shoot more rapidly and collect heat absorbtion data so we can see if TTI makes it lose heat faster.

Targets and graphs: (Squares are 1")

[Fast Frank]

Thank You, Dogmush.

That looks like a good baseline to use for a comparison.

If you can duplicate this after the conversion, we will have some real usable data to consider.

It's refreshing to see somebody actually test something and document it. The internet needs more of this.

[Paul47]

Jim you're not tracking here. It's a before/after test. The actual accuraccy almost doesn't matter, as I'm looking for the change in accuraccy. Besides the company says that it's system makes surplus ammo into match ammo.

But the problem is that accuracy of ammo depends on where the bullet leaves the barrel while it is vibrating. It's possible with the current setup that that vibration point is good, while with the Straightjacket it won't be good. Which is not to say that the best accuracy load you can find with Straightjacket can't be better than what you find without it.

In other words, unless the Straightjacket folks say every load will be made more accurate, your test will be inconclusive.

[Unit91]

In other words, unless the Straightjacket folks say every load will be made more accurate, your test will be inconclusive.

Not really. If there is no change in accuracy with the Straight Jacket installed, the results are very conclusive: there is no noticeable accuracy change.

Consider the following: a Mil-Spec M40B with Wolf ammo would be far more accurate than my Rommy AK with match ammo (pick your brand / hand load). A dramatic difference in rifle accuracy affects all loads. Rifle / shooter is a macro adjustment. Rifle / ammo is a micro adjustment. When we're starting with a 3.5+ MOA baseline, ammo is virtually irrelevant.