SmallCaliberCentral

How do you guys cool your barrel when the action gets hot n heavy? switch to another rifle? water soaked towels on the barrel?
how hot do you let the barrel get before letting it cool? if it is too hot to comfortably touch?
I cannot wait for the next Belding squeak season! I bought a Thompson Contender Encore Pro Hunter stainless steel handgun in .22-250 for a back up, don't know how well that will end up working out on the squeaks.
also thinking about a pre-charged pneumatic air rifle for the close in squeaks and for use around the ranch houses and buildings.

when the barrel is too hot to keep your hand on it, it is too hot. warm is getting to the point of being hot, so keep checking for heat.
as for cooling the barrel, i open the bolt, or action, and stand the rifle, barrel up to create a chimney effect. keep in mind heat always rises. while this is in progress, i do grab another rifle. when the weather is cooler, the barrel will cool a lot faster. when the weather warms up, later in the season, i will use a wet towel on the barrel to cool it for a little longer shooting time, but keep checking for barrel heat. with the wet towel, sometimes it is easy for the barrel to get very hot before you notice it.
i shoot the beldings, as do many others on this site, and it is easy to get carried away when the action gets hot and heavy just be aware of what is happening with your rifle!
as for the air rifle, i love mine, and i do use it on vermin around the house

I rarely let a barrel get "hot", anytime it is uncomfortable to hold skin (back of hand) against for 5-10 seconds I stop shooting, barrels are to expensive to chance ruining one.


Yes if you can afford it, the best solution is to have several rifles and leave the hot one bolt open standing up like futuretrades described, while you keep blasting varmints with the rest of your arsenal.

However if you are a poor man like me that is not an option. I only have my 204 and a 22LR so I need to be a bit more creative. Many fellas have shown photos of using a canopy to shadow the shooting table which helps a lot. On a sunny day the sunshine on the barrel alone can get it warm to the touch before a single shot is fired so I often keep the gun in the shade every moment I am not shooting. No sense adding heat that is not from rounds fired. It can be a pain getting it settled in the bags every time but I move my position usually 2-5 times in a day so I never get to settled anyways.

I also use the wet rag gimmick with some success, with the free floating barrel I can pull a soaked long shirt sleeve all the way to the recoil lug and then I keep spinning the wet cloth to try and equalize the temps. After doing this I let it cool on its own for several minutes to equalize temps so my POI is not changed. ( I did notice that my POI was signifcantly high if I shot right after a wet rag had been laid on the top of the barrel)

When I put the new barrel on I increased the clearance between the stock and barrel and plan to try more of the wet sleeve surrounding the barrel hopefully keeping it equally cool on all sides.

I use an aerator from a minow bucket, a new one of course.
They come with a foot or so of rubber hose that slides nicely in to the chamber, the diaphram pump creates no moisture and very little noise.