[280PLUS]

i always thought longer barrel = more accurate

is this a common misconception?

is a longer barrel more accurate with open sights solely because of the longer distance between the sights?

does a scope negate this? meaning can i achieve equal accuracy results with any length barrel if i'm using a scope?

i'm shooting the ruger mkII target with the 6 7/8" bull barrel, heavy gun, i'm wondering if i chucked it for one with a 4" barrel maybe i could tighten my groups a little more by losing some of that weight,.

anybody got some input on this one?

some like the longer barrel because the extra weight helps reduce the recoil which results in better control in the timed and rapid fire stages.

just curious how others weigh in on this one

m

[Archie]

Longer barrels are more accurate due to longer sight radii. The scope should remove that limitation (assuming the scope is properly mounted and the rings don't bounce and so on.)

I've got a Ruger MkI with a long heavy barrel. It shoots very good, but the barrel tends to droop after a bit.... So I'm considering the same thing. Mount some form of red dot and trim barrel back an inch or two.

[280PLUS]

the thought of trimming the barrel back seems painful to me... :eek:

:D

i notice the hebard catalog has a compensator for it, i wonder how a short barrel with a compensator would work

darn,,,now i gotta buy another gun...one thing about rugers, theyre not a whole lotta dough so you can experiment with them and not go too far into hock...

incidentally, i bought a 30 mm ultra dot out of the hebard catalog and so far (300 rounds) its performance has been outstanding.

no parallax problems at all

m

[kotengu]

Very generally speaking, a SHORTER barrel will be more accuarate than a longer one, all things being equal (which they rarely are). The reasoning is that the shorter barrel (of the same diameter) will be stiffer than the longer, and give less harmonic variation.

That being said, you are correct that the longer sight radius will be easier to shoot, and therefore more "accurate."

Weight is another factor, as you also mentioned above. A heavier barrel (in a well-balanced gun) will be easier to stabilize, and easier to make faster follow-up shots. A poorly balanced gun, or a heavy gun held at arm's length (like a pistol) will only fatigue you and bring muscle tremors into the equation sooner than they otherwise would be there.

Another factor is velocity, and bullet stabilization. I mostly deal with rifles, so I'm not sure the minumum barrel length on a pistol to properly stabilize the bullets you're shooting - twist rate will play a part in this as well. Also - the shorter the barrel, the less velocity you'll have (again, generally speaking), so you may not get the external or terminal ballistics that you're looking for.

So to make it short - it's a trade off. Try both and see what works best in your case :D

[Graystar]

Beware of the longer sight radius. I do not believe it is all it's cracked up to be.

The idea, of course is that the further apart the front and rear sights, the easier it is to spot misalignments. And, of course, the reason for this belief is that the front sight, sitting further forward on a longer barrel, will shift a greater amount for any given movement versus a shorter barrel.

However, while these facts are mechanically correct, in sighting, as in life, things just aren't that simple. There are two significant issues that arise as the sights move further apart…front-sight dancing and rear sight blurring.

Front-sight dance – While the front sight of a longer barrel will indicate misalignment more easily, it will also act as proof positive that you just can’t stand perfectly still. Longer barrels increase the natural movement of the front sight to the point where the front sight seems to “dance” in the notch. It just doesn’t want to stay still. And when the sight dances around, a shooter may tend to hold too long, waiting to “settle in.” Fatigue and impatience set in, and the shot is forced (which always results in a bad shot.)

Rear-sight blur – As you know, you are supposed to focus on the front sight. The target is blurry, but sight alignment is more critical, so we accept that. However, the target isn’t the only thing that is blurred. The rear sight is also blurry. The further apart the sights are, the blurrier the rear sight will be. This increases the difficulty of aligning the front sight in the notch. Add to that a post that's doing the Jitterbug...and you've got trouble.

At one time I had two Rugers Mark IIs; a 5 1/2" Target and a 6 7/8” Competition (which I still have.) I found that I could shoot the 5 1/2" better than the 6 7/8”. The two Rugers had been setup exactly the same (factory front sight, Volquartsen rear sight, Volquartsen grip) and since the Competition is a slabside, the weight and balance was nearly the same (3 oz difference.) As such, I was able to easily notice what was different between the two. Clearly, the problem was difficulty in sighting, but it took a little while to realize the mechanics of what was happening. The front sight was dancing too much on the Competition, and the rear sight was more out of focus. That seemed to make all the difference.

As a side note, I shot both guns well with a red-dot sight. However, I’ve gone back to iron sights because there are things that I need to work on that a red-dot simply can’t help me with, such as a repeatable grip and sight alignment (both of which are still just as important with a red-dot as with iron sights.)

[10-Ring]

Isn't it also the shooter? If the shooter can be disciplined enough, barrel length shouldn't matter thant much, should it?

[Graystar]

Isn't it also the shooter? If the shooter can be disciplined enough, barrel length shouldn't matter thant much, should it?No amount of training will decrease the burriness of the rear sight.

Training and practice are important, of course. But in my own personal experience with my two pistols, no matter what my level of expertise, I feel that I'll always shoot the 5 1/2" barrel Ruger better than the longer.

[Old Fuff]

Many years Gil Hebard ran a series of machine rest tests that showed the optimal length on .22 target pistols was around 6 7/8". However shooters are not machine rests. When you are shooting a lot of things come into play besides barrel length. The observation that a heavy barrel is probably more accurate then a light one is true in rifles, but so much so in pistols. Given they're shorter length they are "stiff enough." The purpose of heavy barrels on target .22's has more too do with balance and recoil control then accuracy. I experimented with compensators and found they didn't do much for recoil reduction, but they did degrade accuracy. I sometimes scraped out enough lead from the inside of one to cast a whole new bullet.

When you mount a scope or most other optical sights on a handgun they can radically change the balance - sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

Before I did anything to the barrel I would try to borrow some different guns from fellow shooters at the range and see what worked best. Then decide which way you want too go.

[Black Snowman]

I found the Rugers to be excellent 22 pistols and very accurate BUT they felt far to nose heavy for me for rapidly getting on that first target. If it's a speed competition such as pin shooting (of which I did quite a bit, strictly amature) I could stabalize the gun on target MUCH faster with my 5.5" Browning Buckmark Target than I could with the Ruger Competition Slab Side of my Dads.

Once I felt I reached my limit with iron sights I mounted a nice big dot sight on it and my times dropped dramaticly. I mounted the sight as far foreward as I could to help reduce muzzel flip (of which there was very little) and it was still much lighter balenced than the MK II.

So basicly, try out a bunch of guns. Depending on your needs you could look into something like the EAA target pistol which is almost identical to what the Russian olympic shooters use but in LR instead of short. There was one at my local gun store and they swore by it's performance and said they sold quite a few of them.

[280PLUS]

i DO appreciate it!!

the point of trying different guns is well taken...

m