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Carbon Fiber barrel
CapnMidnight
Member Posts: 8,038 ✭✭
A friend of mine asked this question, and I couldn't answer him.
Is it alright to put oil on a Carbon Fiber barrel?
He has an after market carbon fiber barrel on one of his 10-22s, and was wondering what proper care and feeding procedure was.
W.D.
Is it alright to put oil on a Carbon Fiber barrel?
He has an after market carbon fiber barrel on one of his 10-22s, and was wondering what proper care and feeding procedure was.
W.D.
Comments
Numrich has the Butler Creek stock and barrel with a magazine combination for $120 and the barrel is described as a blue bull barrel.
Reading around the net, I'm finding descriptions saying it is a carbon fiber barrel.
I know there are better barrels around, but for the price, I thought I'd give it a try.
Thanks in advance.
Kind of funny how they go out of there way to find and use euphemisms for plastic. I use to work in the aerospace industry, where this particularly rife. They about poop their britches, if you would tell folks a lot of the new planes are made of plastic. Synthetics is the weasel word, they like to use.
Unless I'm mistaken? All carbon fiber is a fancy name for plastic.
Not exactly.
Yes, things called "carbon fiber" typically aren't made of PURE carbon fiber. Instead they're made of graphite/carbon fibers embedded in a plastic matrix to form a composite. They are emphatically NOT just "ordinary" plastic, but might better be termed "carbon reinforced plastic".
This is somewhat similar to "fiberglass" which isn't really "glass", but rather glass fibers embedded in a plastic binder.
In this case, somewhat like fiberglass, the carbon fibers add tensile strength, durability, chemical resistance, and light weight, offering significant functional advantages over "pure" plastics. That's why carbon fiber parts are used in aircraft, racecars, guns, etc.
Anyway, to answer the question, as already mentioned, the actual BARREL is going to have a steel liner, and its OK to run ordinary gun cleaners through that.
The OUTSIDE of the barrel, the part with the carbon fiber, is going to be more like a conventional plastic. While the actual carbon fibers should be solvent resistant, the plastic binder holding them together won't be, and some solvents (eg "brake cleaner") could potentially completely ruin it.
In general, anything safe on plastic is *probably* going to be safe on the carbon fiber bits, but before doing any cleaning/maintenance, I think your best bet is to ask the manufacturer how to maintain this.
EDIT. FWIW, more on carbon fiber here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_(fiber)
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-economy/carbon-fiber-oil-crisis1.htm
quote:
Carbon fiber is a super strong material that's also extremely lightweight. Engineers and designers love it because it's five times as strong as steel, two times as stiff, yet weighs about two-thirds less. Carbon fiber is basically very thin strands of carbon -- even thinner than human hair. The strands can be twisted together, like yarn. The yarns can be woven together, like cloth. To make carbon fiber take on a permanent shape, it can be laid over a mold, then coated with a stiff resin or plastic
I figured oil or pretty much most chem would just bead off it and do no harm. Unless it's one of those chems that munches on glue. I wouldn't sweat oil.