Texasgrillchef
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- Jun 29, 2019
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for the purpose of examples only I will refer to 22LR.
I have been doing some research online, and have yet to find anyone that has done any actual studies showing actual results in how barrel length has an effect on velocity.
Obviously the longer barrels of rifles increase FPS over firing the same ammunition in a shorter barrel of a pistol. This is of course due to being able to obtain full powder burns in a longer barrel.
But what differences we would get say from a SBR 12.5” barrel to that of 16.5”, 18.5”, 20”, and say even 22”. At what length would we be getting full powder burns, and now barrel friction starts to have a noticeable impact on maintaining maximum velocity?
I have seen discussions of this in other forums relating to 22LR claiming maximum velocity from either 16.5” or 18.5” and much slower velocities from SBR lengths of 12.5” and 14”, as well as slower velocities from 20” and 22”. Although they did not provide any chronograph data for any barrel length.
I have a Ruger 10/22 Carbine with the 18.5” factory barrel. I ran 100 rounds each of 36 grain browning ammo, and Remingtons 40grain Thunderbolt ammo. Browning’s ammo gave me an average of 1156fps, with 1221fps as the high, and 1053fps as a low.
The thunderbolt ammo from Remington gave me 965fps as a low, 1056fps as the average and 1109fps as the high. All of these speeds are well below the published speeds on the box of both Browning and Remington. Which was not a surprise to me at all.
Which makes me wonder. Hypothetically speaking. If I had the following barrels to test,
Would the speeds be faster or slower then my current 18.5” barrel?
Barrel speed in question, 12.5”, 16.5”, 20” and 22”
My thoughts are that the speeds would be slower in all the barrels except the 16.5” barrel in which speeds would be the same or just slightly a bit higher.
What are your thoughts? Would this same rule apply to other barrel lengths in other calibers? This is a discussion on how barrel length affects velocity, not which barrel length is best or worst, nor is it a discussion if the highest velocity barrel length will or won’t give you the best accuracy.
I have been doing some research online, and have yet to find anyone that has done any actual studies showing actual results in how barrel length has an effect on velocity.
Obviously the longer barrels of rifles increase FPS over firing the same ammunition in a shorter barrel of a pistol. This is of course due to being able to obtain full powder burns in a longer barrel.
But what differences we would get say from a SBR 12.5” barrel to that of 16.5”, 18.5”, 20”, and say even 22”. At what length would we be getting full powder burns, and now barrel friction starts to have a noticeable impact on maintaining maximum velocity?
I have seen discussions of this in other forums relating to 22LR claiming maximum velocity from either 16.5” or 18.5” and much slower velocities from SBR lengths of 12.5” and 14”, as well as slower velocities from 20” and 22”. Although they did not provide any chronograph data for any barrel length.
I have a Ruger 10/22 Carbine with the 18.5” factory barrel. I ran 100 rounds each of 36 grain browning ammo, and Remingtons 40grain Thunderbolt ammo. Browning’s ammo gave me an average of 1156fps, with 1221fps as the high, and 1053fps as a low.
The thunderbolt ammo from Remington gave me 965fps as a low, 1056fps as the average and 1109fps as the high. All of these speeds are well below the published speeds on the box of both Browning and Remington. Which was not a surprise to me at all.
Which makes me wonder. Hypothetically speaking. If I had the following barrels to test,
Would the speeds be faster or slower then my current 18.5” barrel?
Barrel speed in question, 12.5”, 16.5”, 20” and 22”
My thoughts are that the speeds would be slower in all the barrels except the 16.5” barrel in which speeds would be the same or just slightly a bit higher.
What are your thoughts? Would this same rule apply to other barrel lengths in other calibers? This is a discussion on how barrel length affects velocity, not which barrel length is best or worst, nor is it a discussion if the highest velocity barrel length will or won’t give you the best accuracy.
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