Thread: Barrel Tuner For 22LR

Do barrel tuners work for 22lr or are they are waste of time?

Originally Posted by maxz

Do barrel tuners work for 22lr or are they are waste of time?

I’ve seen old fellas at the small bore shooting put docking rings on the barrels to adjust the harmonics, not sure how well it works or even how it works


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Hard one to answer, I've seen them work really well and then on the next rifle do nothing at all.

I suspect a couple of possible issues might be cropping up here, one being a mechanical issue with the rifle that the tuning weight helps cancel out or another possibility is a technique or operator shooting style that the addition of some weight on the barrel helps with. Also, it might be a confidence thing that some shooters like?

The best bit of advice is if you identify what is available in terms of tuning weights, then grab a piece of lead sinker about the same weight and a hose clamp and wrap the barrel with tape to protect the finish and then stick the weight on. Lost cost test to see what it does, if it works get the fancy version if it doesn't not much invested.

Tuners work...full stop... especially on a rimfire....but you need to understand them

On a centrefire you need good flags & an extremely accurate (sub 1/8 moa capable) rifle to decipher what's going on, otherwise IMHO you are wasting your time at short range let alone long range

Shooting a proper benchrest 22LR at 50 meters with 4 good flags is the most humbling thing you can ever do with a rifle, hero to zero in a nano second & you won't even know why

Bought a Lowey tuner for my Lithgow about a year ago. Have yet to get back to the range to try it.

Some people swear by them other people are doubtful.
The same logic as centrefire applies in that thin barrels benefit more, heavy barrels less.

It really depends what you are trying to achieve though, it it's small groups at a known distance then yes I'd give one a go.
Or if trying to get a thin factory barrel to shoot well then also probably worth it.
If longer range shooting then I'd say it's considerably less important.

With 22lr though ammo is always the biggest variable, tight groups at 25 or 50m mean nothing if the ammo has a high ES and prints 12" tall groups at 150m.

Ammo lot testing should always be your first step with 22lr and don't assume different batches of the same brand of ammo will perform the same.

Yeah, a tuner will not make ammo into something it isn't. My own experience with them is quite limited which is somewhat by design - my theory being tuning a rifle is the last step after everything else is sorted and you are printing the same groups every time. I honestly cannot claim to have been at that point, everything going great and then for some reason or another with nothing else changing and it all feeling good, it turns to sh1te. And then after some head scratching, it's all back on song for the next several. Very hard to change something and be certain that the change you made had any result, or even the result you wanted.

This thread prompted me to drag out my Remington 41P with fitted barrel tuner weight.

I confess I havent shot this rifle at real targets so dont know if it makes any differance , and havent shot it without the tuner so ......

Im quessing this was a common thing back in the day.

Originally Posted by Beetroot

With 22lr though ammo is always the biggest variable, tight groups at 25 or 50m mean nothing if the ammo has a high ES and prints 12" tall groups at 150m.

Ammo lot testing should always be your first step with 22lr and don't assume different batches of the same brand of ammo will perform the same.

THIS!!!! In recent years, I've not found any 22LR ammo (regardless of manufacturer or price) that shot consistently enough to warrant wasting time trying to tune it.

Yeah, the guy I know that tries to poke holes in targets with .22LR has gone down a huge warren with this. Top brand ammo, top everything and he's chasing tiny improvements and I mean bumping a sandfly's wake turbulence as the bullet goes past tiny.

He's weight batching, then rim thickness batching, then diameter of the bullets etc etc. Interesting addition to the comment above re consistency is even with the really expensive brands he's still finding 'discards' after completing these steps, he's noting them with either a very odd weight compared to the rest of the batch or rim thickness quite different to the others. He doesn't use them as at the level he's trying to do it's a variable he can't factor in or out. I really don't know if it actually makes a difference in practice or if it is part of the head games you play trying to get to and stay at 100% right every time.

Noting as well that I don't think he's using a tuning weight or anything like that...

If you aren't using a tuner on a rimfire you are seriously limiting your accuracy potential