Grizzlybear

In my hunt for a new rifle, I wondered if any of you had thoughts on blued vs. stainless barrells. Anyone had bad experiences with reflections off the stainless spooking game?

MA Jay

All they are ever going to see is an O

Deerslayer_37

no, stainless barrels dont spook game. actually, most stainless barrels dont shine that much, they' re pretty flat. Don' t go with blued, if you go non stainless, get a matte barrel. blued shines.

slayer

Nomercy

The men who taught me to hunt all said the same thing about rifle hunting, buy camo and wear it for bow season, then wear whatever is warm for rifle season, because by the time a deer sees you, you' re already standing over its dead body. If you get a glare that' s bad enough to see at 100yrds just off the bbl, you' ve got problems that I can' t explain. Remember, when you' re holding your rifle, the receiver is mostly covered and shadowed, so the largest glare plane on your gun is covered, if you get that much off of your bbl, you' re either trying to, or you' re standing in the middle of an open patch with NO shadows around you, where your outline would be spotted long before your glare. I' ve never noticed any glare on any of my guns, and like I said, if they got close enough to see it, they' ve already got a bullet in them.

MarkIIVT

I think that most game spooked in this fashion is not seeing the " glint" from the barrel or receiver, It is my opinion that the glints that spook the deer is off the scope objective or eyeglasses. I also think that it is not the glint that would freak out a deer, it is the MOVEMENT of that glint. Again, cover and conceal. Last season I had deer looking straight at me from less than 25 yards. They dould not see me, but I think that they were seeing the glint off the eyeglasses and scope. I was not even over the rifle, but it was 90 degrees to the sun and so was my direction of sight. They stamped and reised hell, but never did see me. Also watch for your water bottles and binos and that perpendicular view of sight in comparison to the sun angle...and always minimise movement.

whitetails & muskies

Pretty much covered above. I have a SS/synthetic and love it and have never had a problem with glare/refelction...at least that I know about. The area I hunt, typically has snow cover come rifle season, and to be honest, the brushed SS blends in quite well...much better than blued.

mauser06

i agree.....a good bluing job will shine when most stainlesses are silver in color but more or less matte and dont have that shine like chrome...and i also agree by the time the deer see you and react it should be way to late for them if you are going to take it...i hunt close quarters....most shots 30yds or so....ive moved on deer and they didnt have time to react...you can tell they seen you by the look they give you....but htey dont have time to run and id love to see a deer jump a bullet going 3000fps at 30 yds lol....id say buy what you like...

skeeter 7MM

It don' t matter if the sun hits any of them the right way they will create a glare, the best is black matte. However i would never choose the style based on glare, cause it hasn' t amounted to a lost opportunity (except goose hunting). I will tell you that SS does indeed glare and it is pretty close to regular blued. Last fall my buddy and I were ML hunting mulies, we were stalking a herd on very clear day(blue bird day to be exact). I saw his glare coming up the valley some 500plus yards away, long before I saw him..both are ML' s are ss/synthetics. When we met up he said the same thing about me, we knew they shined but didn' t realize how much. Now neither of us use a sling so the gun was picking up max. light as we carried them lateral to the ground. I only say this b/c in most cases you will be sitting in stand or ground, meaning shadows will reduce your glare considerably. BTW we both got our deer that day on a stalk, so as I said it did nothing to dilute success in the field.

Basically buy whatever you like.