.243 barrel chop

[freereload]

I won't bore you with the details, so here's the question.

I'd like to have my barrel chopped to 16". I know you can do that on a .308 and deal with loss of velocity, but what about a 16 inch .243?
Too much velocity lost? Should I just put a .308 barrel in?
Does anybody have any data for a 16 inch .243?

 

[juliomorris]

Re: .243 barrel chop

I have one that was chopped to 16.75 after a screw up on my part. It turned out to be very accurate and I only lost about 250fps the loads originally chronied at 3050 with a 105 amax after the chop job it is pushing 2800. Boy it is exciting to shoot at dusk, it throws about a 10' fire ball. It lights things up and I have to be careful when shooting prone not to start a grass fire. I could probably back off on the charge some without loosing any velocity just some pyrotechnics but I afraid to because the dam thing shoots 1" at 300 and 4" at 800 off the bench. It happens to be a great varmit rifle because it is short and handles fast even with a heavey barrel.

 

[Silver_Bullet_00]

Re: .243 barrel chop

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: goatmurray</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I won't bore you with the details, so here's the question.

I'd like to have my barrel chopped to 16". I know you can do that on a .308 and deal with loss of velocity, but what about a 16 inch .243?
Too much velocity lost? Should I just put a .308 barrel in?
Does anybody have any data for a 16 inch .243? </div></div>

The .243 produces a velocity of about 2,900-3000 fps from a 24 inch barrel. That round can lose up to 70 fps bellow 22 inches to 16. You will lose about 70 FPS per inch bellow 22" So 22-16=6 70x6= 420fps that you could lose.

 

[BgBmBoo]

Re: .243 barrel chop

Below is a pic of my old Tikka T3 Lite in .243 that I had the barrel cut down to 16 1/2" and a Vais muzzle brake put on it. This was my go-to coyote rig.
I never ran mine over a chronograph, but my buddy set his Tikka up about the same way and we shot his over the chrony the other day. We were seeing 2800 FPS with 87gr Vmax's.

Take care,Stan