This thread reminded me of the one and only LTE that I wrote to a gun publication a few years ago about an article written by Col. Craig Boddington (why he uses the Col. title escapes me. We have a retired Lt. Gen in our horse club and he goes by "John", his given name.).

The article was about the Christensen carbon wound barrels/guns. In the article, Boddington stated that the carbon covering did a number of things for accuracy/stability while allowing for lower weight, etc., but also stated that the carbon facilitated quicker cooling and the barrel could be shot many times within a short time and not have a very hot outer surface, which he somehow extrapolated into quicker cooling.

My LTE pointed out that this conclusion of quicker cooling was an error and that quite the opposite was true. My LTE stated that carbon covering actually insulates the heat transfer and referred to my background in composites and tests I had witnessed on the subject and even acknowledged that in some specialized configurations, carbon nanotubes could facilitate good heat transfer. But, not in a configuration like that needed for the application at hand.

I looked for months. The magazine never printed my LTE nor did I recieve any acknowledgement of its reciept. I guess some guy that has read that article will find out the hard way that shooting a carbon wrapped barrel a large number of rounds quickly will superheat the barrel core because it can't loose heat effectively. The magazines don't care as long as they sell print.