You are talking about a black powder firearm and not a computation firearm. I doubt you will see any different under field conditions with or with out the ramrod on the barrel. I use to hunt with a 14 inch 209x50 contender barrel with out an attached ramrod and let me tell you this, it was a pain in the butt to carry the 14" ramrod what do you think the rifle one would be like? I sold off that barrel and bought a 15 inch 209x50 encore barrel and I can see no real difference in the two