How long is too much barrel?

[feedr]

Hey,

Obviously shortening a barrel for scrub rifles and that sort of thing makes sense.

For bench rifles or situations where it doesn't matter for size though, how do makers decide how long a barrel should be?

You look at different .300 win mags or whatever and they have anything from 20"to 30" barrel.

Just curious when they decide how many barrel is too much?

[SendIt]

It's aimed around how much powder the cartridge has to burn.

More powder = longer burn time = longer barrel.

[lole]

Too little barrel and some of the energy is just blown out the muzzle still burning.

With an excessive amount of barrel the powder has finished burning well before the bullet has excited the muzzle and will lose some velocity as friction wears on it.

[AusC]

Part of what you might be reading re: the 30" barrels too is blanks for custom builds.

Instead of making every barrel in 20, 20.5 21, 21.5 and so on all the way up, they just make 30" barrels which people can cut down and crown as required.

[Antie]

Don't know if anyone watches Sons of Guns, but those guys are almost drooling when they order in a 30" Krieger blank

[BBJ]

Don't know if anyone watches Sons of Guns, but those guys are almost drooling when they order in a 30" Krieger blank

I know the one. They're stroking it and stuff

[Noisydad]

Lots of black powder gear is 30 inches and better - front stuffers in particular.

[Warrigul]

There are a few scholls of thought, a long barrel is always better for iron sights as the sighting radius is far greater.

Then there is the velocity argument:
For a proper long distance .308 target rifle 26" is really the minimum if you want to maintain supersonic at 1000. 30" finished is even better, if only that it allows you to recut the chanmber a couple of times as the throat wears.

If it is only to 5 or 600 then you will get away with a 20" even.

For a .22 rimfire anything over 16" is only slowing the projectile down.

[SendIt]

Maxi posted this in another thread:



Seems legit

[Bourt]

For a .22 rimfire anything over 16" is only slowing the projectile down.

I reckon SendIt's rifle there might stop every bullet dead

[DaleH]

There is a good web site that shows the effect of barrel length on 22 different hand gun rounds - makes interesting reading. Web site as follows:

http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/

[RDobber]

Hmmm,

Interesting start on that BBTI site.

Only 22 calibres tested so far though, just a few hundred to go

[DaleH]

put my application in for a testing job but was unsuccessful

[Vati]

:( put my application in for a testing job but was unsuccessful

I'm curious how well BBTI will go without help...

They couldn't possibly test every calibre and barrel combo themselves.

[feedr]

:( put my application in for a testing job but was unsuccessful

Their loss