Barrels under 20"

[223Randy]

Is there a best length fo a .223 under 20"?

[Mb1500]

http://www.sadefensejournal.com/wp/?p=1093

[squirrel_slayer]

best for what?

general rule of thumb is more barrel=more velocity=more effective range

shorter barrel=lighter=handier=can increase accuracy due to it's more rigid nature and possibly fixing a damaged crown. sometimes they can get louder the shorter you go.

[223Randy]

Ok - was thinking accuracy, is there a best length for accuracy under 20" - in my area a 200 yr shot is a long shot. I have a 25" x 1.060 223ai bull barrel that i am thinking about shortening to reduce the weight a bit.

[celltech]

Barrel length really only affects velocity and not accuracy. In fact, if you have a thin barrel to begin with making it shorter can make it stiffer and more accurate. I might personally go for something in the 18" range if you are only shooting 200 yards. Are you going to cut it down yourself or have it done?

[savagecornmuffin]

With 223, my personal opinion is to go extreme. Either really short or really long. I had a 16.5 inch H&R that was just the bee knees. I could still get 3000fps from 55gr bullets. 65 grainers got just under 2900 with handloads. Also had a HBar 24" AR for about 3 months. Never shot that barrel through the chrono, but dang was it accurate. It was very unwieldy. One of those things I that was great on paper and at the bench, but mostly sucked in real life. I actually did a lot of deer hunting with the 16.5 inch gun. 22 cal is legal in my state. Barnes bullets turned lungs to pudding.

So, if you want short, go short with a muzzle break or flash hider. It'd be super cool.

[joeb33050]

I hacksawed an M11 22" sporter bbl to 16.5", filed the muzzle sorta flat, chamfered the bore with a "cricket" = RCBS case mouth tool. Use it in Striker, M10 and M12.

In M 10, Nosler 40 gr varmageddon, 100 yards, 5 shot groups, average for 11 groups was.808". I've been hacksaw/file/chamfering bbls for 40 years, never had the dreaded (imaginary?) crown problem.
joe b.

[clm2112]

Ok - was thinking accuracy, is there a best length for accuracy under 20" - in my area a 200 yr shot is a long shot. I have a 25" x 1.060 223ai bull barrel that i am thinking about shortening to reduce the weight a bit.

Length is only for maximum velocity. There are plenty of service rifle shooters launching 223 bullets out to 600 yards with regular 20" M16A2 style rifles. I would suggest starting with the bullet weight you want to launch and work backwards... How fast do you want it to go, and what twist rate will adequately stabilize it? Then you can figure on the length of the tube you need to hit that velocity number. All of the decisions are inter-related.

For example, I use a 24", 1-6.5 twist barrel to launch 80 and 90 grain VLD bullets in a match rifle out to 600 yards. Those are pretty heavy bullets to accelerate and spin up fast enough to be stable. Someone shooting 55 grain bullets at closer targets could do just as well with an 16 to 18" 1-9 twist barrel. Again, the decisions were driven by the bullet weight and velocity first, then length of the tube chosen last. If you check a number of load data pages (Sierra, Nosler, Hodgdon, etc,) you can get a feel for how much barrel you need for the bullet you want to use, as they routinely give the length & twist rates used to create the test loads.