Many thanks for this thread, Wayne. I have extensive experience electrolyzing steel, iron, brass, etc. but none with new bare steel. Can you or someone comment on the electrolyte(s) and amperage used in the cation process? How long does it take to rifle a barrel this way? Does that vary with the size of the bore? Again, thanks.  

From Kirk on the Shiloh forum:

Post by Kirk,

Good morning guys, I didn't forget anyone, just got back from the Safari show.
Anyway, to answer your question, Shiloh barrels are and have always been buttoned. When we bought the company in 1991 Wolf was using 11L37 steel which was good steel but not the best for the kind of shooting we do today. Around the tail end of 1992 I, with the help of some good friends in the industry switched myself over to 4150S steel. I run this steel at a 30 - 31 rockwell, pretty hard. I first run it through a heat soak, to releive it of any stress. We then drill, ream, and button the barrel, on 45 caliber the button produces around 60 ton, I like this method, because if there is a flaw in the steel this finds it, and not everyone shooting Shilohs are using these low pressure black loads. The next thing that happens, is they get hung, muzzle down and run through another heat cycle, which is the very same as chryo. only on the other end of the scale. After this, is when the barrel is inspected then matched up to a gun. Shiloh has been making barrels and guns for many, many years now and after being involved in many, many shoots I am quite confident that a Shiloh barrel will hold it's own with any of them. Look at Steve Brooks and all of his wins or this year at Raton, and for those of you that were at Raton this year know how the match was won, and how close it was back to the old good day and bad windy day and guess what day the guys shooting the Shilohs got lucky with?? If there are anymore questions please don't hesitate to call. Thanks, Kirk

condorsc wrote on Feb 9^th, 2025 at 4:39am:


Gerald,

The cation process uses a very strong acid.  I believe you are referring to ECM rifling (Electrolytic machining rifling), which uses electrolysis.  It was discussed later in this thread.  I don't have any further details but there is info on the Internet and some YouTube videos on the process.

Wayne

Since Michael Rix's question on match grade quality of Badger barrels & marlinguy's comment, I thought I check out what rifling process other barrel suppliers use.  Although there are a lot of Internet threads on which is better, cut or button rifling, none I could identify use broached rifling including the following:

Cut rifling: Krieger, Bartlein, Hart, Rock Creek, Brux, Hawk Hill Custom.
Button rifling: Criterion, Douglas, Shilen, Pac-Nor, Broughton, Schneider.

BTW, some firearm suppliers use their own hammer-forged rifled barrels.  Ruger is a good example.

Since Browning BPCRs all use Badger broached rifled barrels their well-known high-accuracy speaks for itself, although broaching may not be the ideal solution for high-velocity high-precision firearms.

Wayne

At one time in Ruger's history he bought barrels from Marlin. Around 1975 I think Marlin got too busy to supply barrels to Ruger and ended the contract.

I just found a video showing Rugers hammer forging operation and machinery. Looks like the old WWII Krupp machines are no longer used. It’s all fully automated and a lot smaller. Ruger never took a back seat in modern machinery or his Pine Tree casting operations but he was the first to use cold forging for consumer barrels in this country

Rick

Rick

CW wrote on Feb 9^th, 2025 at 9:36pm:


Yes, Pedersoli barrels are broach rifled.  After drilling, reaming & honing, each barrel is broach cut using two broaches.  The first broach brings the rifling up to within .002" of the final dimensions.  The second broach brings the rifling up the last .002" to the final dimension.  Concerning their chock or bore tapering process, I have no idea how it's done but offer the following quote from Pedersoli.

"So... given that we broach rifle our Pedersoli barrels and obtain straight lands and grooves with match grade tolerances, we then add our final high-quality feature which is to impart a very small taper on the rifling, from breech to muzzle!"

Wayne