.223 barrel profile

[high country]

I am thinking of adding a .223 bolt action "practical rifle" to my collection. The use would be a general purpose rifle to carry when I am on the property for prairie dogs and coyotes, and plinking/steel targets out to 400 yards or so.

I would like to keep the weight as low as possible since it will be carried, and .223 doesn't need the heft for recoil control. But, I want to be able to shoot a decent amount without the barrel heating up and stringing shots. My thought is a 20" thin barrel for weight. But, will I be able to shoot 5, 10 or 15 shot strings with 30 seconds to a minute spacing shooting prairie dogs or targets without stringing shots with a pencil profile, or do I need to look to standard sporter or even heavier profile barrels for that?

 

[The Earl o Sammich]

Difficult to say. What's the ambient temp. Barrel black or stainless. Black radiates heat better. If you leave the bolt open it helps cool the barrel faster. You can also vent the bottom of the fore stock to increase air flow.

 

[someguy2800]

A properly stress relieved and floated barrel will not string shots even when they are too hot to touch. At 30 seconds between shot it won't even get hot with a 223. I would recommend a 20-22 inch sporter profile. For my money I would get the standard model ruger american or a Tikka T3 compact. Tikka T3 is the better rifle.

https://ruger.com/products/americanRifle/specSheets/6921.html

http://www.tikka.fi/rifles/tikka-t3x/t3x-compact-0

 

[The Earl o Sammich]

Actually they will string. Take a piece of steel dowel and heat it up. It will expand. Drill a hole through the center and heat it up. The hole will expand also. This reduces the friction on the bullet/barrel from cold to hot.

 

[LoonWulf]

I am thinking of adding a .223 bolt action "practical rifle" to my collection. The use would be a general purpose rifle to carry when I am on the property for prairie dogs and coyotes, and plinking/steel targets out to 400 yards or so.

I would like to keep the weight as low as possible since it will be carried, and .223 doesn't need the heft for recoil control. But, I want to be able to shoot a decent amount without the barrel heating up and stringing shots. My thought is a 20" thin barrel for weight. But, will I be able to shoot 5, 10 or 15 shot strings with 30 seconds to a minute spacing shooting prairie dogs or targets without stringing shots with a pencil profile, or do I need to look to standard sporter or even heavier profile barrels for that?

From a .223 a sporter contour barrel should do 20shots back to back without the groups opening up significantly.

I have a 6x47, 700 set up pretty much the way you are wanting. Its got a synthetic stock 20" rem contour sporter barrel.
I would also second the Ruger American, perhaps a RAR. I had a RAR in .300aac that was both light and accurate.

Ive also got a RAM in 7mm that ive fired 20+ rounds thru in less than 15mins. POI never changed....that rifle does have a .735" barrel at the thread shoulder tho.

 

[Varminterror]

Actually they will string. Take a piece of steel dowel and heat it up. It will expand. Drill a hole through the center and heat it up. The hole will expand also. This reduces the friction on the bullet/barrel from cold to hot.

Theory is great, but in practice, the same 1,000yrd DOPE delivers first round impacts, and 10th round impacts in different stages, when my heavily fluted barrel is hot enough to blister skin.

 

[DannyLandrum]

Well, let's think about this for a second logically.

First off, barrels *do* have imperfections, even custom ones, so pretending like a pencil is just fine for something like p-dog shooting is being naive.

Second, shooting every 30 seconds WILL heat up a .223 rem, a lot, when it's 95 F outside, which is fairly common even up in Eastern MT at the times people go for dogs. It is highly dependent upon the ambient temperature.

Next, let's look at the big picture: Generally, there are 4 broad classes of barrel profile, with increasing weights: Sporter, Palma, Target, and full Bull (ultra heavy).

So for this use, you'll want to stick with a Sporter class or maybe Palma, since you said "carry" (which presumably entails more than keeping in pickup and pulling out to shoot just over the hood of said pickup). However, there is no "standard sporter" weight - there are many variations in this general class - take a look at how one barrel maker breaks down sporter contours:

https://kriegerbarrels.com/contours#sptr

As you can see, there are seven different wildly-varying options in that general class. So would you want to pick a #0 or #1 for that use? No, probably not. That's asking for stringing if you don't have a perfect barrel. So which one? Hard to say, but sounds like a job for a #3 or #4 on the Kreiger scale, perhaps. There are lots of options if you go custom and it all depends upon how far you have to hump it, versus how much heat dissipation you need. There's a reason why even great barrel makers don't have only one choice - the pencil or featherweight.

 

[MistWolf]

With modern barrel making your choices boil down to two-
1) A lightweight profile that is a joy to carry but to control heat, is shot at a lower rate of fire.
2) A thicker profile to control heat for a greater rate of fire but is heavier and more work to carry.

Which choice is best depends on your priorities.

 

[DannyLandrum]

"With modern barrel making your choices boil down to two-
1) A lightweight profile that is a joy to carry but to control heat, is shot at a lower rate of fire.
2) A thicker profile to control heat for a greater rate of fire but is heavier and more work to carry."

Except that I *just* described above how that false dichotomy is exactly not the case. There is a wide continuum that you can fine tune, to the balance your need between heat dissipation and carry-ability - as mentioned, Kreiger for example has seven profiles just in the Sporter general category, let alone in the Palma, Target, and Bull Categories.

 

[Offfhand]

Actually they will string. Take a piece of steel dowel and heat it up. It will expand. Drill a hole through the center and heat it up. The hole will expand also. This reduces the friction on the bullet/barrel from cold to hot.

Wow! this is instructive. For instance, if I shoot my standard wt M-700 .223 Rem. fast, like 10 shots in two minutes how much will the bore expand? And "stringing" generally refers shots going more or less n a general direction. How much (how far) will the fast-fired 10 shots from my .223 string?

 

[someguy2800]

One note to add on the thin vs heavy barrel argument, the heavy barrels take longer to heat up than a sporter weight barrel due to the larger thermal mass but they also take longer to cool down.

I don't have problems with my free floated barrels stringing shots when hot, even the light profile ones. I shoot them till they are uncomfortable to touch and then set them aside. One shot every 30 seconds is not enough to do that in my 223's.

 

[MistWolf]

"With modern barrel making your choices boil down to two-
1) A lightweight profile that is a joy to carry but to control heat, is shot at a lower rate of fire.
2) A thicker profile to control heat for a greater rate of fire but is heavier and more work to carry."

Except that I *just* described above how that false dichotomy is exactly not the case. There is a wide continuum that you can fine tune, to the balance your need between heat dissipation and carry-ability - as mentioned, Kreiger for example has seven profiles just in the Sporter general category, let alone in the Palma, Target, and Bull Categories.

Boiling the choices down to two does not mean one does not balance them to meet the mission. Making it more complicated than that invites "analysis paralysis".

If you hit the "Reply" hotspot of the post you wish to quote, it will put that post in a quote box for you.

 

[MistWolf]

One note to add on the thin vs heavy barrel argument, the heavy barrels take longer to heat up than a sporter weight barrel due to the larger thermal mass but they also take longer to cool down.

That depends on what you mean by "heat up". If you mean heating up both barrels to the same temperature, yes. It takes more heat to bring a barrel with more mass to the same temperature as a barrel with less mass. As the barrel with greater mass is holding more heat, it will take longer to dissipate until it drops to ambient temperatures.

If you mean after applying the same heat, say if you fire 20 rounds of the same ammo through both at the same rate of fire, then no. The barrel with the greater mass will have a lower temperature. In this case, the barrel with the greater surface area will cool faster.

 

[someguy2800]

That depends on what you mean by "heat up". If you mean heating up both barrels to the same temperature, yes. It takes more heat to bring a barrel with more mass to the same temperature as a barrel with less mass. As the barrel with greater mass is holding more heat, it will take longer to dissipate until it drops to ambient temperatures.

If you mean after applying the same heat, say if you fire 20 rounds of the same ammo through both at the same rate of fire, then no. The barrel with the greater mass will have a lower temperature. In this case, the barrel with the greater surface area will cool faster.

No what I mean is that if you shoot until the barrel reaches say 160 degrees and then stop and wait for it to cool it will take less time for the sporter to cool back down. It might take 15 minutes to get the heavy barrel back down to a certain temp and the sporter might take only 10. Yes of course it will take more rounds to get the heavier barrel up to temp due to the greater thermal mass. The larger barrel has more surface area but that is also more distance for the heat energy to transfer through to reach the air so delta temperature between the barrel and the air is lower. So for example doubling the circumference of the barrel doesn't result in a doubling of the cooling capacity in practice since the sporter begins transferring heat to the air faster and at a higher delta.

I only note this because I find it tiring to sit and wait for my heavy barrel guns to cool. Again in my experience this is not that big a problem with a 223 bolt rifle to begin with.

 

[MistWolf]

No what I mean is that if you shoot until the barrel reaches say 160 degrees and then stop and wait for it to cool it will take less time for the sporter to cool back down.

That's what I said.

The larger barrel has more surface area but that is also more distance for the heat energy to transfer through to reach the air so delta temperature between the barrel and the air is lower. So for example doubling the circumference of the barrel doesn't result in a doubling of the cooling capacity in practice since the sporter begins transferring heat to the air faster...

If both contain the same amount of HEAT, the sporter weight barrel well have a higher temperature. Both will cool to ambient about the same time. Under these conditions, the barrel with greater surface area will dissipate heat faster.

This is the law of thermodynamics.

 

[someguy2800]

I'm not going to argue this because it doesn't do any good.

 

[Geno]

I personally would go with either a Savage M10 or M11 with a 22” mid-weight barrel like the Predator has. When (if) you wear it out, opt for an after-market barrel: (Accuracy barrel in .223 Wylde or Shaw barrel in 6X45).

That is what I have done. The .223 Rem barrel is nicely accurate, awesome trigger to boot. It’s modular and inexpensive to upgrade yourself in 15 minutes. For my likes though, heavier is always best.

JMHO,

Geno

 

[someguy2800]

For a rifle that's going to be carried around I think anything bigger than a sporter is kind of a waste with a 223. It's just humping around a bunch of extra steel for no reason.