bladeracer wrote:You may not have any interest in shooting the long bullets now, but why limit your future options if there's no downside to a tighter twist rate?
I more or less said this at the end of my post, mate.....
"figure out what type of shooting you're going to do and what ammunition will suit that purpose and buy an appropriate rifle"If you think you may want to get into longer range shooting and require heavier pills, then consider a faster twist. I agree, that makes perfect sense.
There is in fact a potential downside to faster twist (updated my post to touch on that). A faster twist is not better than a slower one, it's intended for a different function.
The faster you spin a bullet the more you amplify its inconsistencies, the increase in centrifugal forces will pull the bullet further off it's axis and hurt accuracy.
If you're really trying to squeeze out
every last bit of accuracy what you actually want is the slowest possible twist to stabilize your selected bullet.
Palma is a prime example of this. For 155gr grain loads you'll find almost universally people are shooting 1:14 twist barrels. You'll be hard pressed to find a soul shooting anything faster with these loads as it hurts accuracy for the reason explained above.
It's not until people are shooting 180gr, 190gr, 200gr, 210gr projectiles that they'll move to 1:13, 1:12 and 1:10 twist barrels because they have to.
The slowest twist is recommended by many manufacturers for their match ammo.
Do some Googling on twist for Palma specifically and you'll find plenty more on this.
bladeracer wrote:There was a guy on FB the other day bought himself a .22-250 to shoot coyotes out to 700yds with a 14"-twist barrel. I'm sure it's doable but it would've been so much more effective if he'd researched twist-rates before spending his money.
Again this is basically what I said...
1:14 twist in a 22-250 is for achieving maximum velocity with light bullets. Not extended ranges.
If his plan was to shoot 700 yards he would have been better off with either a 1:12 twist and trying 65gr loads, or a 1:9 to shoot 75gr
"figure out what type of shooting you're going to do and what ammunition will suit that purpose and buy an appropriate rifle"He bought the wrong rifle.
bladeracer wrote:Sierra has a 90gn .224" bullet that requires a 6.5"-twist rate.
Not sure what the point of this mention is? In any case, when a manufacture tell us a 1:6.5 (or whatever) twist is required for a certain projectile, that's exactly what they're telling us.
They're not saying its better, they're not saying it's more practical, and they're not saying it's more versatile. They are saying this is the twist required or this projectile. There is no implication or assertion that a faster twist is better and anyone interpreting twist requirements in this way is doing so in error.
I'm not panning fast twist rifles and I'm not knocking anyone who has one. I'm saying it's horses for courses, that you should understand what different twists rates are for and pick the right one for your job.