No I have NOT personnally tested a R1 for this, BUT all sporting rifles are made for just that and NOT combat. The be accurate a sporting rifle is made for closer tolerances that a military rifle is not and for the very reason of accuracy and reliability. I don't care how much you freeze a barrel it will NOT help it when firing in a combat situation and basically that is what cryogen treating a barrel does. It does help by making the barrel easier to clean, but does nothing to help it in combat where anywhere from 100-1000 could be fired. If you want a 30-06 for combat then buy a Garand as there is no finer rifle for combat made in that caliber. I will agree with you that finding 308 in the US will and is easier to find than 7.62x39. personally I like and use the 308/7.62 NATO more than the AK round as it is harder hitting and has a much longer effective range.
Now if you are basing your 'opinion' on the R1 by what you have read in gun magazines then know they will NOT bad mouth them as they are dependant on the various manufacturers for advertising dollars to stay in buisness. I base my views on H&K products from having worked for them as a consultant on their sniper rifles. While they are good guns, they are way over priced here in the US due to the fact they care not for the average American sport shooter. They make their main money from government contracts. BTW they have two price schedules for the same gun. One for the Gov and one for us peons. Prime example is the MP-5 SMG when they were allowed to be sold to the American citizens. Citizen price was $2500+ where as the gov price for one was $550.
Now for a real world test take out any sport rifle you choose. Fire it slow to establish its accuracy. Let it cool completely. Now fire 50 rounds thru it as fast as you can. Then reload it without letting it cool and see if it hits anywhere close to when it was fired cold. More than likely it will be hitting about 6 to 8 inches from where it should be hitting. The group will also look like a shotgun pattern.
I completely agree that MOST hunting rifles will not handle such temperature variance accurately.
However, there are a very very few hunting rifles that I would think would be able to handle it, and I think the R1 is one of them.
And no, I am not basing this on any reviews, but on an examination of how the rifle is built, from an engineering standpoint.
I happen to love the Garand, and am currently in the process of brokering a purchase of one for my stepfather.
But based on the engineering specs of the R1, I will not dismiss it's potential ability to outperform the M1, simply because it's marketed at hunters.
The notion that a rifle cannot handle such temperature extremes accurately BECAUSE it's marketed at hunters, is a non sequitur, even if it can be demonstrated that most rifles marketed at hunters were not designed to be capable of such.
Wasn't the BAR *originally* designed to be a hunting gun, before it was realized that it's true purpose was combat?
Having looked at the engineering specs of the R1, I will not be so dismissive until I actually see it tested under such extreme conditions.
And a cryo treated barrel does a LOT more than make it easier to clean. It also aligns the molecules of alloy in the barrel, making it less likely to "travel" under extreme heat variance.
Engineering is engineering. Engineering does not CARE whether the final product is marketed to military or hunters.
So yes, you are correct from the standpoint of nearly every rifle marketed to hunters since the dawn of time was not engineered to handle such extremes. I believe, however, that the R1 was.
