The case for carbon

I recently read an article on carbon-fibre-wrapped barrels for rifles. Are they really the future for lightweight stalking rifles?

It’s a tricky one, as I know many people, myself included, prefer a lightweight stalking rifle for walking and stalking over long distances. Lightweight or slim normal steel barrels have a reputation for heating up quickly and thus increasing the group size, but on a stalking rifle one shot is all you need anyway.

One way to reduce weight and achieve good accuracy is to carbonwrap a slim steel barrel. The barrel is machined down in diameter then wrapped with carbon fibre to give strength and stiffness. This gives a lightweight barrel while delivering good barrel accuracy and consistency, plus reduced heat build-up and thus less heat mirage to distort the image when viewing through the scope.

I have been hankering after one for a while, but carbon-fibre-wrapped barrels usually add around £800 to £1,000 to the basic rifle. Alternatively, you can have your existing rifle rebarrelled with a carbon-fibre wrap to keep costs down. BP