school me on bloop tubes

[hengehold]

Background: I am getting into smallbore prone as a means to practice for the competitive high power shooting I do. I purchased an Anschutz 1907 in a 1914 stock for this purpose. The barrel is an Anschutz factory 24 in. I would like to compete in NRA smallbore prone and would like to get smallbore distinguished.

Question 1: Should I put a bloop tube on the barrel?

The limited exposure I have had to bloop tubes on high power rifles has resulted in a layer of carbon that covers the entire muzzle end of the barrel and has to be soaked in carbon solvent and scrubbed to remove.

Question 2: Do bloop tubes on rimfire rifles result in the same severe carbon coating on the end of the barrel?

Thanks,

-Trevor

[1813benny]

In response to your questions, I offer the following:

1. An extension tube is a personal decision, however it can be an advantage to allow for a better sight picture. In the case of HP vs smallbore, one additional benefit is that (depending on the rifles) you can set up the same sight radius for both. Nothing wrong with maintaining the same sight picture.

2. Yes, powder residue does accumulate on the muzzle but is easily removed after each session with a patch. If accumulated, just add some solvent - heavy scrubbing not usually needed.

Regards,
ken

[Modena]

Clean after every shoot and you have no build up

[gspell68]

I was under the impression that it was a vibrations tuner, kind of a spin-off of this...

http://www.browning.com/support/frequen ... ystem.html

[Tim S]

Trevor,

A bloop tube will cause more soot to collect on the muzzle than on a bare barrel. However, as Ken noted, it's easy to wipe off; a 22LR cartridge burns about 1.5gr of powder vs 45-ish for a 308W, so there is far less deposit. Commercially made tubes are built to be removed after shooting, and have an indexing system so there is no change to your zero.

The tube itself needs to be cleaned, as soot is deposited along the bore. This is easily wiped away too. I use a strip of jcloth on a shotgun rod, others use 10bore or 12bore shotgun bore snakes.

[BobGee]

I’ve had some positive experience of using a welding anti-spatter spray on/in the compensator on my Hammerli FP60 free pistol which reduces the adherence of blast deposits and makes them easier to remove.

Bob

[Tim S]

I was under the impression that it was a vibrations tuner, kind of a spin-off of this...

http://www.browning.com/support/frequen ... ystem.html

Some tubes have an integral tuner weight, such as the Uptatuner, Beesting and Starik carbon tube. But others are just sight base extensions; the weight of the tube may effect the barrel vibrations, but there is normally no way to tune the vibrations.

[BR1942]

If you are aged and have losed eye acommodation then you have to use bloop tube for improve the sights seeing

[ZD]

For many years, I was a firm believer against them. I felt that most people used them since "all of the good shooters used them" (I am oversimplifying this). I stayed away from them (as I had been advised), as I felt that they were a tool that people put on their rifle in hopes that they would shoot magically better with one. However, I finally switched to one my last year of my serious competitive shooting per my coach. I ended up eating my words. My prone average jumped up dramatically and I found that with the bloop tube on my prone stayed consistently higher. Instead of shooting 194 and 195's (with the occasional 196) I consistently began shooting 198's and 199's. My kneeling also improved. I had a full length 1907 barreled action, which I believe is 26 inches long, with a 10 inch bloop tube on. However, there are some things to keep in mind about bloop tubes.

-Clean them religiously. I would wipe the end of my barrel after every practice session and I would clean the bloop tube once a week.
-Use a large enough aperture. So many shooters use a bloop tube and do not size up their aperture enough. A good rule of thumb is to increase the size of your aperture up one size for every additional length of barrel. For me, I used a 3.6 in prone (I prefer larger apertures), however with my bloop tube on I used a 4.9.
-I do believe that they have the potential to make you see better, and I believe that they have the potential to reduce your sighting errors (think about how maligning your front and rear sight on a pistol makes far more of a difference then on your rifle, since your sighting plane is shorter).
There is a trade off. You will see more movement. Since my hold in standing was not great, the bloop tube did not improve my offhand. It did not hurt it, but I did not receive any benefit. I am of the opinion that no shooter should even consider a bloop tube unless they are consistently shooting at least a 540 average in 3p smallbore. For prone, you really should be hitting low to mid 190's. Again, I stress that this is my opinion and experience, not facts. Many top US shooters do use them, but not all world class shooters use one.

I would recommend searching the forum for some previous topics on bloop tubes. Any other comments on this thread would be well appreciated.

-Zach

[Tim S]

Use a large enough aperture. So many shooters use a bloop tube and do not size up their aperture enough. A good rule of thumb is to increase the size of your aperture up one size for every additional length of barrel. For me, I used a 3.6 in prone (I prefer larger apertures), however with my bloop tube on I used a 4.9.
-Zach

That's a good point. At a match last Sunday, a local shooter had added an Anschutz precise tube to his 1907. When asked if he'd opened up the foresight, he said yes by. 05mm to 3.75mm. I suggested a larger size to maintain proportion. 5mm to 4.2mm would be about right, 0.5mm was the equivalent of dropping to a 3.3mm with no tube, which is tight for the NSRA 50m target.

I scale up from a 4.1mm/26in barrel, as I like a very large aperture.

[ShootingSight]

The real purpose of a bloop tube is to move the front sight further from you. This is like you holding up a piece of paper to read, and you have reached the age where your arms have to get longer and hold it away from you to focus.

So while they work, the real solution to the problem of presbiopia is to get an insert lens for your sight, or add lens power to your shooting glasses to move your relaxed point of aim closer to you.

Indeed, you can do a bloop tube AND a lens. For a match rifle 30" sight radius, the optical math suggests a 0.65 diopter lens is ideal. If you extend the sight radius to 36", math says a 0.55 would be ideal. Since lenses come in 1/4 diopter steps, both these solutions would suggest rounding to a +0.50 lens. A 0.1 diopter difference is just below the threshold of what people generally consider teh human eye can see. So I'd do lens and bloop tube, but doing just lens will clean up your sight picture immensely.

[mhampel]

Watch the ISSF 3-position finals on youtube.
How many finalists have bloop tubes? All of them.
How many have tuners as well? Seven of eight in the last two 2018 events.
I wonder why?