8/6/2019 Estriado exterior caones (2)

1/2

ORIGINS AND SOURCES bore n the usualway,whereasBen'smethodBen Taylor is permanently processing deas. involved the outside of the barrel blank only.It's how he functions and having knorvn him Thus apatent was applied for and protectionfor over 2O years, can't recall a tme rvhen- installed.. Once hi s invention had beephe wasn't working on some item of secured the development work continued,advancement or other. I first met Ben shortly with every permutation explord. Theafter the launch of Theoben Engineering, results make fascinating reading for sadrvhere in partnership with Dar.e Theobald, people like me, and I suspect ,you.he was developing h" no* celebratedgas- - buring his test-firing' sessions Benram power system. Over the vears,Ben has worked his way through every populareither devised or been conected with a brand of .22 pellet he could finand theseseries of proven, patented inventions, were tested side-by-sidewith a selectionofincluding the Rapid 7 multi-shot sporter; he proven conventional barrels.As the data andscope-saving Dampamount, a medical test targets stacked up, the ftndrrgi dl dinjection ,yit"- un a vaned .lut.h- oi tikewise] Here are the results e." :fuyiotmechanical nnovations.Everl' one of these would allow me to publish. Please bewas patented to within an inch of its life and dvised that Ben has cnsistently been thevigoiousiy J"f."J*d. Ben Tavlor *ott r ioo most 'protective' *"rnbo ; ih rirg,rtthard at what he does to allow anyone to trde I've ever tried to work around, and aswalk away with it without paying. Having ver with his stuff what I'm revealingseen he effort he invests, don't blame him. represents only a proportion of what'sSo, Ben's got a healthy track record of actually going on. Bn Taylor's work is thecoming up with innovative thingq but even airgun equivalnt of an iceberg, n that youhe was surprisedwhen the results began to only see a bit of it at first glance and goingroll in from the Smooth-Twist programme. deeper to get a look at the rest can beIt was during some development work hazardous. Anyway, here's what's emergedFX Aitg""s of Sweden that Ben had the so fa1.idea thai l to the Smooth-Twist . The Smooth-Twist is incredibly pellet-breakthrough. He was working on choking friendly.barrels and something went 'ping' in his This barrel shoots well with a greater lengineer's brain. Ben thought 'what will variety of pellets than any conventional happen to the bore if I apply concerted barrel tested so far. Ben doesn't jump to ipressure from the outside of th brr17' conclusions but the signs ndicate that this From this thought to machining up some might be due to the 'gentle' way the ISmooth-Twist launches its pellets. The lackof distortion from the Smcath'Twist isemerging as a major player ir Ben's tests sofar.. The Smooth-Twist is more energy-efficient. .,,'would work that he tried to use the dieswithout hardening them. Result - flatteneddies and a secondmachining session.'-"Th;'i'-""rhl'?r'*;: ffi hurd"r,"dand polished and a .22 barrel blank wasmade ready in the forming machine. The

dies - not with any:great precision, Benrecalls was a rnatter of hours, andcompletely ruining them was a matter ofseconds.Ben was sl keen to see if his idea

machine applied a'squeeze' to the terminalsection of the barrel and Ben was a barrel-swap away from test-firing his newinvention. It worked. In fact it worked betterthan Ben thought possible. Now the real

The air-sealing properties of theSmooth-Tn'ist bore, which is essentially asmoothbore during the phaie of the pellet'stravl t}rat generates its speed and therefore-poweq appear to be superior to those of ',conventional!' rifled barrels. This factor isstill under scrutin\ but the fact is that pelleti -from a Smooth-Tivrt barrel eraerge with upto a foa-pound more erler5 than they .lwould from the sarie action feeding aconventional barrel. This means rnore shotsper charge from pre-chwo .,s611ldegin. in

lDEVELOPMENT I.ODISCOVERY

new development.One thing was obvious from the start,

from pre-charged',pneumatics :\- greater power frorn FAC-ratednd possibl-Ben was excited, and when he's in that statehe gets things done. There were so manyvariables hat had to be nailed down. ryVhatwas the ideal bore diameter? How much ofa 'squeeze' is ideal? How much rrletalshould be removed before the dies get towork? What would be the ideal number;o configurationand composition of the dies?These and a world of related issueshad toresolved before Ben was satisfied with the

rifles.o The Smmth-Tiristbarrel s truly match-accufate.The ven-best groups produced by thSmcoth-Trtist barrel were occasionallyequalled, but rrever bettered, bi.ionventional rnatch-grade barrels. Howeveq,no con\-entiorlal barrel produced theamount oi tlght groupings with such avarierv of pellerc.. Th Smooth-Tilist barrelidoesn't'lead-up'like conventionl borEg ' :Again, probablv due to the lack of'impression efr?ct" on the pellets; plus the'smearing' and ieformation of the lead, theSmooth-Tt'ist bore doesn't generateI . Pellets from a Smooth-Twist barrel arequieter in flightfYes realh. The "hiss' produced by thepellet as it flies is noticeably less when that

#i

8/6/2019 Estriado exterior caones (2)

2/2

:eiiec lear-es a Smooth-Twist barrel. Again,tie 'srnoother' profile.-o,f he- spinning p""["icruld ruef have an e$ect on the turbulencgarsd amount of ,iou+-deigy, it creates.There's a more:imp-, na pJrribility h"r.,-,-----'ugh.If those Smooth-fwist pellets are::eating less sound-energy during flight,:hat means they are retaining their enrgyrrore efficiently, leaving more of it in placern the strike. The studies are bv no means: -.mplete but as stated, ther are some.criously interesting avenuesof exploration:pening here.FUTUREDEVELOPMENTBen Taylor has already decided toerperiment with a new five-die machine -the machine shown is his developmental

ifttr Fffi\rrN"ro - "f 3i>coFp.twl lltdYry /5{-'

more advances andnot. The only way to pthe tooling sorted, runor it may and the signs arerg is to get extremely positive.

but discovering the op$imum 'mix' for the benchrest testsusing ajob could b.e a he-ary old mission for fixed fle platform, and we'l1someone. t doesn't _takea genius to realise compare ,rot"r. It's all excitingthat, for every step forward, here, there are stuff and I'm tumed on to be a'

barrelq and repeat the test-firing process testing programmeuntil the tacts emerge. and its next stas isntil the tacts emerge. and its next stage iiS im i l a r l y , thecompos i t i ono f thebar re l toseewha thappensblanls themselves s an areacurrently under with a .177 Sm;th-investigatior.Thg steel type most suited to Twist, and to prrshthe convenUonal rifling pro."r, may not the ...*u.u *ti"*necessarily e the ideal one for the Smooth- out to 50 mtres,anTwist system. Changing the type of steel possibly beyond. Benused or barrels may not be such a huge step, will - mirior my

engineering involved in all of this. Ben haseiplained these to me in the equivalent ofyellow crayon and it gaveme a headache.do uuderstand the fundamental principles,howver, and I can see how the 'wave-pattern' effect spins the pellet and thusimparts gyroscopic stability. I also knowthat the Smooth-Twist pellets are quieterin the air because 've heard them, an d Ican see how quieter pe llets could be moreenergy-efficient pellets. Finally, having seenfl f;.:1 "':nt"*';f.":l,*?*:r,;conventional rifling from exactly the samesort of blank, the savings n time, toolingand complxi aie as obvious as they arehuge. \A4rat I'm saying s, at this early stageand from my limited perspective, I can sehow significant the Smooth-Twist birelcould be. I've already said it could changethe face of shooting forever; and that issurely the case.

sq btrcomfurco*nrs"nl

Below: The Smooth-Twist shoots wellwith moretypes of pellet than any barrel I have ever tested.

eonsiderably less damage than one from aconventially rifled bore.