CO2 barrel cooler

Onionskin I have a friend who is an airline mechanic and he gave me some stuff called "Quick-Freeze" that they use for removing bearing races in jet engines. It is none corrosive and ozone friendly and nonflammable. It is made by miller-stephenson.com it will cool to -55 degrees F. check it out the stock number is MS-242N it will freeze fast.
 
I use the wet towel method. I don't know about the barrel being hotter closer to the chamber. It's always hotter closer to the muzzle for me.
 
I have used water down the barrel to cool my guns since 1988. I have used it on factory chrome moly barrels and all kinds of custom SS barrels with no ill effects.

It takes about 20 seconds to cool the barrel, 4 dry patches, dry the chamber, then back to shoot'en! I believe that patching out the barrel extends your shoot'en session inbetween cleanings also.

It is impossible for barrels to cool down when rotating guns on a good dog town. Even when you have 5 guns when the temps are at 90*, they will never cool off leading to excessive barrel wear.
 
If you think that no harm comes to barrels from pouring water down hot barrels then call a barrel maker and ask him... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

If I truly were in a prairie dog town where I couldn't keep barrels cool by rotating 5 of them in the shade I'd be thinking I was a lucky guy. We just use a 12 volt fan (unless there's a good breeze) and keep the rifles in the shade. They cool in just a few short minutes that way and no harm comes to the barrel from cooling too fast or from uneven cooling. It also is very easy and quick to just switch rifles.

By the time you hook up your equipment to cool your barrel, or pour water down the barrel and patch it out, I will have shot another 10 dogs with my rotation method. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Also... When high volume varminting I always have an AR with me that has a chrome lined barrel and chamber for serious high volume shooting. The chrome lined barrels don't shoot out nearly as easily due to heat stress. In fact you can shoot hundreds of rounds out of a chrome lined and free floated AR barrel with no loss of accuracy and little if any harm to the bore or throat. That's why they make them that way. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif

$bob$
 
Bob, I have talked to Pac Nor and Hart barrels. In fact, the guy that though of this whole idea of us using water down the barrel did R & D for Pac Nor. Steel has to get to 800* before it could ever be harmed by using water to cool it.

Bob, from start to finish, it takes 2 minutes or less to cool a barrel with water including patching out the barrel and drying the chamber.

I have my own private 300 yard rifle range with a shooting house that we shoot out of. I have a rack set up in front of the Air Conditioner that we put our rifes in front of to let the Cold Air blow across the barrels. It takes a while to cool even a sporter barrel, must less a big heavy Max Heavy Varmint contour that 1" at the muzzle or an unturned Blank.

Water is the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to go, but the idea is so unconventional it is hard for folks to accept new things.
 
Try rubbing alcohol. Cheap and it won't rust your barrel /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
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Humm.... good ole flammable alcohol poured, squirted whatever into a HOT gun barrel. What is the "flash point" of alcohol? I don't know. Do you? I think I'll pass on that cooling method for now. Though I do know alcohol can be (in the right circumstances) an excellent coolant.
 
alcohol will rust the dickens out of the outside of a blued barrel, quickly wicking out all of the oil. I do cool my barrels with a rag dripping wet with a solution of rubbing alcohol 50/50 mixed with water. Wet a rag and put enough solution on your gun barrel to where the solution is dripping off the bottom of the barrel, it will cool your barrel fairly quick, but the whole process of using water down the barrel is less time consuming from start to finish.
 
Onionskin,
FWIW I work in the oil/gas industry and have built plants for stripping H2s and Co2 gases and yes Co2 can be very corrosive. The difference betweent the bottled gas and the gas I deal with is the bottled gas has no water in it due to the refining process prior to bottling. I beleive the co2+H20=Carbolic acid...
I could be wrong about the type of acid but I positive about the Co2+H2o=corrosion! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif The water is the problem! Granted the refridgeration caused by the pressure drop will absorb heat and condense the water from the air and the steel in the barrel(ie frost). The Co2 being so dry will absord the water and in a sense dry the barrel over time. If I were to built a barrel cooler I would use Co2 or nitrogen. Onionskin I wouldn't worry about corrosion to much, I would run a patch down her to get rid of any possible h2o/frost and get back to shootin! I would however run an oiled patch down the barrel before any storage just in case any moisture is left behind.
As far as wet towels go... can't beat the price, but kind of messy (possibly traping water between stock and barrel?)for me, but they will still work great even if you don't get real close to the chamber. Because the cold will drawn the heat from the chamber area (physics thing). The closer the cooling/towel to the chamber the QUICKER the cooling. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Just my $.02....too much coffee and time this morning....great forum /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
People can always figure a way to make any task more complex than it needs to be. I've seen barrel cooling setups that went from complex to flatout ridiculous. Don't even mess with compressed this, or electric-powered that. Ackleyman's alcohol towel works. His water-down-the-barrel method is also simple and well proven, and you'll never find anything that works better. Hold onto a hot barrel and pour water down the bore.....you can feel it go from hot to cold in maybe 15 seconds. A simple screw on valve with tube attached, made for motor oil bottles, also fits water bottle threads. Costs about $4 at Walmart.
 
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