How heavy should a 223 barrel be in a practice hunting rifle?

[Bigfoot]

Sporter, light varmint? I'm trying to find the best compromise of weight and repeatable accuracy.

My hunting rifle is a 300WSM that weighs 6 3/4 lb scoped, slung and loaded. I want a similar weight 223 bolt action rifle so I can practice shooting a light rifle. I'll use it for field position shooting out to possibly 400 yards. I don't need target shooting accuracy with it and I'm not shooting long strings but it will be shot a lot.

The thin barrel on the WSM only has to be accurate for one or two shots but the light 223 has to shoot much more often.

I have a 20" bull barrel 223 Savage 10FP that I don't shoot anymore because it's a heavy bench beast. I've considered putting a light stock on it and either replacing the barrel or turning it down. Or I could buy a new rifle. Not sure yet.

 

[rjrivero]

I would match the weight to your hunting rifle. The heavy barrels aren't going to have any bearing on "barrel life" from a longevity point of view. I would make it as similar as possible to your actual hunting rifle.

If you would rather do the work on the savage you already own, so much the better, imvho.

 

[Bigfoot]

The problem with 7 lb scoped rifles are the pencil barrels that heat up fast and change impact.

Let me ask another way. How many shots does it take to heat up a sporter weight 223?

 

[NCsmitty]

Your Savage should be easily converted to a sporter weight barrel with a barrel nut wrench and a headspace GO gage. Add another sporter stock and git r done.

How many shots does it take to heat up a sporter weight 223?

A lot more than that 300WSM, probably 10 shots or so before giving some cool down time.



NCsmitty

 

[saddlerocker]

I think all the medium or heavy barrels are going to be 8lbs or more with no scope.
If you really want it to be light get a normal sporter barrel, just let it cool between groups.

Also If you want to shoot 400 yards, look for a rifle with a 1:9" twist, so you can shoot over 62gr bullets.

My .223 bolt action is 1:12" twist and 62gr is apparently the max it will stabalize.

 

[caribou]

You should always shoot what your gonna hunt with, in practise.

I see what you mean, I think, you want a simular weight so you can be used to carrying a certain weight rifle, and practise your general shooting skills with.

You should be concerned about accuracy, only Perfect practise makes Perfect. Only accurate rifles are functioning properly.Only accurate rifles are interestng.

Find the most accurate load you can for that .223 and buy mucho ammo, as planned, but do so with the idea that every shot counts.

You might think about adjusting the stocks length, pull and trigger weight to match your larger rifles.

Practise shooting that .300 as much as possible as well, but you might get so good with your .223 that you dont use the .300 anymore......

I use an M-39 Mosin alll the time, same load as well, its Awsome.

 

[TonyAngel]

I'm not really clear on what you want. I understand that you want a .223 to mimic the feel of your other rifle, but what do you want the .223 to do that has to do with how heavy the barrel needs to be.

Of course, the thickness of the barrel has a lot to do with how long it takes to heat a barrel up, but at some point any barrel is going to get hot, no matter how thick or heavy it is. This is especially true for a .223 because it's really easy to send LOTS of rounds down range with that caliber. It's like shooting a .22 with a bit more zing.

I do believe that all barrels are going to suffer some negative effects on accuracy as the barrel heats up, but I also believe that a quality barrel suffers less. I don't know how much it is that you want to spend, but having the barrel on your Savage turned down isn't going to be cheap and I really don't know that I'd invest the money in having any stock barrel worked on.

The barrels on Savage rifles are pretty easy to swap out. Given your intention, I'd just buy a good barrel with a lighter profile that will match that of your larger caliber rifle. Personally, I'm a fan of Krieger barrels. I've used them on bolt guns and ARs. I shoot 25 round strings quite often using these barrels in .223 and .308 and the effects of the heat on the accuracy is minimal. The worst I've seen my barrels do is to open .5" groups up to 1" (or a bit larger) at 100 yards once the barrel gets too hot to touch. I've seen no appreciable shift in POI either. I have one heavy barrel that measures 1.25" at the breech and tapers down to 1" at the muzzle that is 26" long and haven't been able to get that barrel hot enough to show any difference in accuracy.

In any case, I'd say that if you get a good barrel, you should be able to shoot until your heart is content knowing that if you miss something, it won't be because of the rifle. I've always paid right around $300 for my Krieger barrels. You might consider it a worthwhile investment.

 

[chrome_austex]

I would make it as similar as possible to your actual hunting rifle.

If you would rather do the work on the savage you already own, so much the better, imvho.

Do that. If its a trainer, then copy everything, including the quirks and downsides.

Even more so because you won't be shooting long strings (less time for barrel to heat up)

And spend an extra $50-100 and get a very high quality barrel, and you won't look back.

 

[Tirod]

It's a public myth you need a heavy barrel to get accuracy. What you really need is a well made barrel, machined to a high degree of precision, with a completely parallel bore, and an exacting target crown on the muzzle.

Cheap barrels don't use better grades of steel - meaning closely controlled and flaw free. That's why they bend around and change the point of impact, internal flaws and the imposition of varying stress as they warm up. A good lightweight barrel doesn't just start walking around - homogeneous steel with no flaws means no weird stresses to bend them.

What precision rifles do need is more weight, to reduce muscle tremors during long range shooting. That slows down the wiggling around we see in the sights, and reduces the errors when the hammer falls.

In a hunting rifle, or combat, heavy barrels really have no place. Other than antelope or prairie dog, most hunting shots are less than 250m, and only need 2MOA accuracy. It's the shooting publics misconception and testosterone influenced need to have bragging rights that sells heavy "precision" barrels, and the reality is you get what you pay for. If it's just a 10% upgrade in price, all you do is lug around a heavy barrel. Real precision barrels of any profile are in the $450+ class, and usually not stock on Boxmart rack grade guns.

It's a simple matter to give the customer what they think they want, and even charge more for it - when the heavy barrel actually has less machine time in with no specifically researched taper that tunes it. Just run that sucker out at .850 on a single cut and be done with it. Same button rifling the slim barrels get.