Lothar Walther’s Woodall Explains Barrel-Making Methods
At the IWA Trade Show in Germany earlier this year, a correspondent for The Firearm Blog interviewed Woody Woodall, who runs Lothar Walther’s USA operation. While many shooters assume that Walther hammer-forges most of its barrels like some other European barrel-makers, in fact Lothar Walther USA uses the button rifling technique for most of its US-made barrels.
In the video below, created for The Firearm Blog, Woodall explains that button rifling involves some extra steps to ensure a good result: “The extra work that goes into it is that you’ve got to make rifling, stress relieve it, and have it come out the right size. And it takes a lot of skill to do that. Lothar Walther invented button rifling in 1925, if a better way of making rifling came out, we’d be glad to go to it.”
Woodall explains that hammer forging is a good method for mass production, but it is costly to set up: “Hammer forging is relatively new, it came out in 1934, but did not come into prominence until the 1950s…. But the cost of [hammer forging] in the world today is getting above what the market will bear for barrels. [Hammer forging] is more complicated. As the hammers hit the barrel the barrel gets longer, but the hammers have to hit uniformly so the barrel [stays] straight. There’s a higher failure rate in that. There’s also some surface delamination that can occur, and some other issues. So if you’re hammer forging, you really have to pay attention to the details. So, it’s like button rifling, only ten times more complicated. It’s for super-high-volume production… The large companies tend to use the hammer forging, intermediate size companies tend to use the buttoning, and craft companies tend to use the cut rifling. All three [methods] can make an equally accurate barrel.”
Credit The Firearm Blog for this informative interview.Similar Posts:
- Barrel-Making Methods Explained in Walther Video
- Cold Hammer Forging of Barrels — How The Process Works
- How Hammer-Forged Barrels Are Made — Process Explained
- How Hammer-Forged Barrels Are Crafted — Process Explained
- Barrel-Making: How Ruger Crafts Hammer-Forged Barrels
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Tags: Barrels, Button Rifling, Cut Rifling, Hammer Forging, Lothar Walther
Mr. Woodall should run for public office, he sounds just like a politition. Talks alot and says little.
If I had to guess I would say he is a democrat.
Nat Lambeth
Lothar-Walther does indeed make a good button rifled barrel – The LW50 grade of stainless infact is very durable but presents some challenges to machine. (Walther has infact over-came these challenges as far as rifling and chambering these LW50 stainless steel barrels).
My personal belief is that Dan Lilja makes one of (if not “the”) very best button rifled barrels on the market.
@ Nat : it was about the same speech, Krieger did in his video.
LW makes in europe the best barrels.
Even the Hammer forging is made a ciance
over here, look at the barrels of Sako for instance, there hammer forged. And the best there ever made.
The TRG are 1/3MOA!!
Plus the LW SS barrels are made from a harder type of ss, means longer barrel life.
Place a good shooter behind a Lothar Walter barrel, and he, or she will winn!
While I have yet to shoot my LW barrel, I can tell you I was very dissapointed to find lots of tiny pits along the junction of the lands and grooves when I inspected it with a new “Hawkeye”bore scope!
These pits may not affect accuracy they will certainly make it more difficult to clean the bore and I can tell you from experience that a quality smooth hand laped barrel that is properly broken in is a dream to clean. Some clean up completely in eight to ten patches with no brushes while a rough factory barrel can be a real nightmare that takes days to clean!
If I had had the borescope for inspection when I purchased the LW barrels I would have returned them as unacceptable!