what Barrel length is best

[fishingfool]

  want to order a barrel in 243 or 22-250, i read somewhere to much barrel length can cause to much vibration, so what is the best barrel length, for this caliber

[martineta]

my 243 and 22 hornet barrels are blue 24 inch and shoot excellent groups.  My 308 and 50 cal. muzzleloader are 28 inch and they do the job well also. no help from me.  I feel it a personal preference thing.

[Ranger413]

I read an article about cutting down an Encore ProHunter barrel from 28" to 23".  At 23" the best accuracy was gained in all of the test barrels of a variety of calibers.  I have a thread on this page about my .308 barrel that I had cut and so far I'm extremely pleased with it.  I also have a 26" .223 barre that I'm considering having cut and re-crowned.  Not sure if I want to stick with 23" or go a bit shorter, I was initially thinking 20".  The nice thing about the Encore and Contender set up is the lack of action length.  Makes a 20" barreled single shot feel a whole lot shorter than the same set-up in a bolt gun.

[Encore28]

I like the 24inch best-------I have a few and they shoot great!!!!!!!!!


Encore28

[Grumulkin]

  want to order a barrel in 243 or 22-250, i read somewhere to much barrel length can cause to much vibration, so what is the best barrel length, for this caliber

Be careful about beliveing what you read.  All barrels vibrate to some extent when shot but this doesn't mean accuracy will suffer with a longer barrel.  I have 24, 26 and 28 inch Encore rifle barrels and I haven't found any correlation between resultant accuracy and barrel length.  That said, I think it's fairly common, though it doesn't apply to me, for shooters, after they try a 28 inch barrel, to want a shorter one.  For the cartridges you mention any of the above mentioned lengths would be fine.

[David D.]

I would think a longer barrel would move more due to the bullet being in the barrel longer plus a shorter barrel I would think would be stiffer. That's the good thing about reloading is tuning the barrels harmonics. Do I think the longer barrel is going to shoot less accurate, not really. I did once have an Encore 26" factory heavy that I tried load combo after combo in and it would not shoot to suit me. I had a smith chop it to 14" and recrown it. Wow dose it ever shoot now. The difference was unbelievable. Was it because the barrel was shortened or a better crown than before? Guess I'll never  know!

[Flynmoose]

I use 20" barrels on my G2s, handy and accurate. I have 24" barrels for the Encores, very
accurate also. What I shoot in a given day is decided by lottery...that's my story....
FM

[yooper77]

I took a look at some 26" Heavy and 28" Pro Hunter barrels, but they were all too heavy for my needs. If I found one too good to pass up, I would most certainly have it cut down and re-crowned to 23" by SSKIndustries.com. Pro Hunter would be the better since its already fluted to stiffen, cooling and reduce weight.

I found T/C Encore factory tapered 24" barrels are the best length for me. My T/C Encore factory 26" 209x50 barrel is also a good length, since the bore is larger and takes away from the weight.

My only pistol barrel was a T/C Encore factory tapered 15" in 454 Casull, but I had it cut down and re-crowned by SSKIndustries.com to 12" and had them install their T'SOB 6 screw base with 3 rings.

yooper77

[encore58]

20 inch heavy for me for 308 class calibers. 24 inch for 7mm mag class.