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Barrels extension tubes, sometimes called “Bloop Tubes” due to the sound they make, have been in extensive use in Olympic Rifle shooting for well over 20 years. The clear advantages they provide have made them extremely popular, to a point where today one can say that most top competitive shooters use one kind or another of Barrel Extension Tubes on their .22 rifles.
There are several advantages to the tubes, the first being the increase in the sight radius. By increasing the distance between the front and rear sights, the shooter can aim more precisely and more consistently at his point of aim. An additional advantage is the weight added to the front of the gun, which allows for more balance adjustments and often helps improve the gun’s felt recoil. A secondary advantage is the protection such a device offers to the crown of the barrel, any damage to which is detrimental to the barrel’s accuracy.
Extensive testing over the years has lead me to the conclusion that many of the barrel tubes available are not good enough! They work to some degree, in that they do increase the sight radius, but their fit to the barrel is their weakness. A perfect fit to the barrel is crucial for eliminating vibrations and unwanted tremors in the tube and front sight.
There are two common solutions now in use for attaching the tubes to the barrel:
the first and most common, is simply to use a couple of set screws, which crew through the tube and press up against the barrel, locking to it. This creates a very limited contact area between the barrel and tube, thus resulting in a lot of unwanted vibration while shooting.
The other common solution is to tighten the screws through the side wall of the tube itself, tightening them over a slit in the tube, thus crimping it over the barrel. This works, but again, this manner of tightening deforms the tube at the point of contact with the barrel, and leads to an imperfect fit between the barrel and inner side of the tube – again leading to undesirable vibrations while shooting.
The Starik tube connects to the barrel very differently. It utilizes a precisely machined collate chuck system to tighten up and fit onto the barrel. When you tighten it around the barrel, it compresses inside evenly around the 360 degrees of the circumference and applies equal and firm pressure all the way around the barrel, making full and even contact around the full diameter. This translates into minimum vibration between the barrel and tube as the gun fires. This advantage alone sets the Starik Tube above the competition. But there is much more to it!
The other big advantage to the Starik Tube is its built in Barrel Tuner.
The tuner is a dual set of weights, which can be precisely positions by minute steps, allowing you to find the “Sweet Spot” of the barrel. By precisely adjusting the position and weight of the tuning weights, until the barrel vibrations are minimized, thus greatly improving the accuracy with ammo of higher or lower velocity.
Being able to “tune the barrel” is an art long since studied by long distance bench rest shooters, but largely ignored by many Olympic Rimfire competitors. This is a shame, as the tuning can make a real and meaningful improvement to your rifle’s accuracy!
As a bullet speeds through the barrel it creates a whipping effect in the barrel, much like a Sine wave form. This is minute of course, but it does mean that a faster and a lower bullet will launch from the crown of the barrel at a slightly different angle within that sine wave form. This leads to a vertical displacement on the target. Bearing in mind that even with good ammo, the variance in speed can be as much as 30 fps – this is a big deal! Usually, the faster bullet will hit higher on the target, and a variance of 30 fps will translate to about an 8mm height difference on a 50m target. Too much! Way too much.
In order to compensate for the variation in velocity, we need to verify that both slow and fast bullets will exit the barrel on the upper slope of the cycle, so that slower rounds, which stay longer in the barrel, will exit it on a higher angle that faster rounds, thus compensating for the difference in velocities, and avoiding vertical dispersion.
The new Starik Extension Tube allows for not only a better and more secure fit to the barrel, but also provides a top class barrel tuner, which enables you to greatly improve the precision of your rifle.
The Starik Tube is manufactured in Germany by Centra, the leader in quality Olympic shooting accessories. With Centra making the parts, you can be certain the Starik Tube is manufactured using state-of-the-art technology and with the tightest possible tolerances to ensure consistency and perfect performance.
Over all length: 220mm
Sight radios extension: approx. 170mm
Weight with steel weights installed: 340gr.
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