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I do like to be in the presence of genius, and I recently found me one, David Minchew owner of Cajun Cryogenics in Baton Rouge. Cryogenics, isn't that some Star Trek thing that Gene Roddenberry thought up to put people into suspended animation for extended space travel? No, something entirely different but just as amazing and quite real.
Now if you talk to David you will get an earful on the education of cryogenics, he is one of the top students of the subject in the United States. Then you find out what it really is. To make things easy to understand, it is a process by which you take a metal object and freeze it to 300 degrees below zero and when it comes out your metal object is better.
Lets say you have a pocket knife of good quality like a Case. If you cryo it, the knife will hold a better edge. Lets say you are a wood worker or have a metal lathe. If you cryo your bits they will last longer and cut better. A trumpet player will find his instrument will sound better.
In the world of firearms the sky is the limit. A reloader can cryo cartridge cases and bullets for hand loading with marked increase in accuracy and the process even works on loaded rounds. Gun parts and springs will be better and last longer. Police weapons will last longer and not need to be replaced, just ask the Secret Service they guard the President with cryoed weapons.
Reports from experts including Benelli Firearms show that just about everything you put in the “fridge” comes out a lot better. What you are doing is relieving the natural stress inside the metal by changing the molecular structure. Think of the word "metamorphosis". A caterpillar goes into a cocoon and comes out a butterfly, same thing with a good quality firearm.
I know from prior experiments with shotgun chokes and barrels that a slick clean barrel will shoot a tighter pattern and a more uniform pattern. This is achieved with cryogenics along with making the barrel easier to clean. I also knew that the cryogenic process will enrich the bluing process of firearms.
The late Sharpshooter, Lou Ellison reported extreme accuracy improvements with Varmit rifles and ammunition using cryoed bullets to take 1472 prairie dogs in one weekend with 1500 rounds. The groups in a 22 Hornet, a 223 and a 22-250 had improved up to 50% in accuracy. A cyroed barrel resists heating and maintains accuracy in such prolonged shooting.
The process is gentle and does not harm the material exposed. However, you don't want to drop your sunglasses in the cryo freezer as plastics are not metal and have a tendency to crack and disintegrate at 300 below zero.
Therefore, I'm about to embark on a Cryogenics Project to find more things in the gun world to make better. You can bet there will be more to report.
