Re: New Sabbitch
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: flounderv2</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Not to mention I thing everyone on here knows the benifits of having a shorter barrel. </div></div>
And the downsides, not least of which would be velocity and harmonic changes. It completely depends on what is being done with the rifle, and I have some with 18" barrels for a walking carbine and a 26 or 28" barrel for shooting longer than most people will give a caliber credit for.
You actually CAN screw something up like this if it shoots very well already. Just because the stiffer barrel studies show better accuracy for some things it's not ALWAYS the rule that cutting a barrel shorter will improve it's accuracy.
I have yet to see a well developed harmonic model of a barrel on this site. I have seen a well developed model dealing with barrel tuners on small bore match rifles for another company and there's some more important things than just cutting a barrel down.
Greg makes a solid point, shoot it first, evaluate how things go, and ONLY THEN start making changes. If the rifle needs to be a shorter barrel for transportability reasons, then what's to say it can't be cut back to 16.5" if he needs or wants that. If it's going to be a 1 way range rifle there's no reason to NOT shoot it before making changes.
LL's Gladius shoots to 1k and wears an 18" barrel and doesn't have issues doing that, and it's a very mobile rifle that also wears a can. Putting a suppressor on the end of a 26" barrel is annoying, I've done it. I feel like I'm aiming a flagpole.
That 26" barreled 30-06 that I have manages to shoot well under MOA and still throw a 208gr Amax up around the velocities that a 300 WM will do regularly. The harmonics of that rifle have been nipped and trimmed on the barrel to where the anti-node in the harmonics is very very close to the muzzle, and THAT is something you can easily F up by simply cutting the thing down for nothing more than the "cool" factor.
I've said this before, and I stand by it.
STIFFNESS does not beget accuracy, REPEATABILITY begets "accuracy".
You can have a stiff barrel and action and stock and if things don't work well together because they're not repeatable and well matched, then that long, whippy 26" barreled factory gun next to you could very well outshoot you all day long.
Stiffness buys you the ability to take less notice of harmonics and ignore their role more. If you account for the harmonics and natural modes that are inherent to structures that 26" whippy barrel just became something that can be predicted, repeated, and tuned for the same level or better accuracy as a 18" barrel.
Overwhelming evidence of this is exhibited each time you look in the sky and see an aircraft flying. Structural harmonics are key to the design of aircraft of all types. Our "rocket science" bullet launchers are models of simplicity compared to what happens with much of the other things we see on a regular basis.
Ok, enough soapbox.
This thing deserves a $10 krylonizing.
This thing deserves a $10 krylonizing.
