I am looking at a new rifle and do not know if I should get a stainless fluted heavy barrel or just a regular barrel. What is the purpose of the fluted barrel?
I see that the rifle, a Model 12vss short action Savage in 270 wsm weighs 8.75 and it is fluted vs the 16bss short action with normal stainless barrel weighs 7.75 lbs, both of these Im considering. I heard that a heavy rifle is better for recoil as the 270 wsm has some kick from what I heard and am leaning on the heavier rifle to buy. I shoot in very open flat prairies and plan to hunt whitetail and mule deer. So after all my rambling which would be the better rifle? The Model 12vss short action @ $799 or the 16bss short action @ $$859.
Cheers!!!

A fluted barrel is stiffer than an unfluted barrel of the same diameter. And incidentally, will probably cool faster between shots because of the increased surface area.

A fluted barrel of the same weight is stiffer than a fluted barrel of the same weight.Removing metal from an existing barrel will not stiffen it.

FYI...

http://www.charm.net/~kmarsh/fluting.html

My model 70 270wsm is a *****cat to shoot. Sense you will be most likely shooting the 130 bt's recoil wont be a concern. and my recoil pad is....pathetic. I wouldnt worry about getting a heavy gun to tame the recoil, simbs limbsaver pads get top marcks for there recoil reduction. You shouldnt pay that much for the savages when u actualy go get one. I dont like alot of recoil myself, but if you ever shot a 30-06, mine kicks noticeabley less.

Stubblejumper hit the nail on the head about stiffness.
Cooling between shots is a very marginal differance from fluted to unfluted.(how many military firearms are fluted)

IMO it's for looks and something to be differant which is not a bad thing if thats what you want

Ask most folks what the fluting is for and they'll tell you it's for cooling, which is just wrong...in order to cool substantially faster, the bbl would need to at least double in surface area, most fluted bbls might be lucky to get to 1.25-1.5x the surface area....the big advantage of them is that you get the same weight of a standard heavy bbl, but you get a larger diameter bbl, making it stiffer, or if the diameters are the same, you get a lighter rifle-one contention I often hear, which there may be some logic to- if the last 4-6" of the bbl aren't fluted, there's a small weight shift towards the muzzle, which acts slightly as a stabilizer.

Stubble got it right, if you take a unfluted barrel and then flute it, you might have weakened it. But you did increase surface area. Will it make any difference in cooling? According to one of my mechanical engieers here at work, it might cool 1 min faster to a X temp at 10 min. Big deal.

Where it counts is if you buy a 8lb barrel unfluted, and then buy a 8lb barrel fluted. Then it might be more rigid.

I am not a huge fan of them. One, its an extra crack to clean. Two, I like the smooth look of an unfluted barrel. Three, they charge a fortune to do the flutes on custom barrels. It I was building a super featherwieght, I would flute. Cause your whole purpose is to slice oz's off.

I actually now have all of my custom rifles built with fluted barrels.I like larger diameter barrels for the extra stiffness but I don't want to carry the extra weight.As far as accuracy is concerned I have seen no real differences on average but my two most accurate rifles happen to be fluted which I attribute to coincidence.

I guess that I am in the minority on this one but I feel that flutes do add at least some stiffening properties to a barrel as well as making a large diameter barrel lighter. The more surface area a barrel has the harder it should be to bend or flex it.

However some barrels can not be fluted. I forget which ones they are but I believe a hammer forged and one or two others can not be fluted with out weakening the barrel and adding more stress to the steel.