denton
Member
One of my favorite long guns is a 600 in 308, with an 18" barrel.
It does not give me as much MV as a 22 or 24, but it is light, handy, and plenty potent. And when you touch it off, there isn't any question about whether it lit or not!
How much you lose by cutting off an inch of barrel depends on the bullet, the powder, and how long the barrel was before you cut the inch off. Cutting an inch off a 29" barrel probably costs you roughly 15 FPS. Cutting an inch off an 18" barrel probably costs you more like 35-50 FPS. The powder burns out long before the bullet reaches the muzzle, but the compressed gas continues to accelerate the bullet.
The muzzle flash you see is because the compressed gas is out of oxygen but hot enough to glow. When it hits the air, some components in the gas re-ignite. It would be really unusual for still burning powder to reach the muzzle.
With a short barrel, bullet selection becomes more important. Sierra hunting bullets tend to need to impact at about 2100 FPS to open reliably. Nosler Partitions open reliably at 1800 FPS. So with a Partition, your bullet will open at longer range. There are plenty of bullets that will do this.
IIRC, with 165 grain bullets a max load gives me around 2650 FPS but I load down to 2550 FPS for comfort. It's quite adequate for anything within 350 yards. If I need to reach beyond that, there had better be a darn good reason.
It does not give me as much MV as a 22 or 24, but it is light, handy, and plenty potent. And when you touch it off, there isn't any question about whether it lit or not!
How much you lose by cutting off an inch of barrel depends on the bullet, the powder, and how long the barrel was before you cut the inch off. Cutting an inch off a 29" barrel probably costs you roughly 15 FPS. Cutting an inch off an 18" barrel probably costs you more like 35-50 FPS. The powder burns out long before the bullet reaches the muzzle, but the compressed gas continues to accelerate the bullet.
The muzzle flash you see is because the compressed gas is out of oxygen but hot enough to glow. When it hits the air, some components in the gas re-ignite. It would be really unusual for still burning powder to reach the muzzle.
With a short barrel, bullet selection becomes more important. Sierra hunting bullets tend to need to impact at about 2100 FPS to open reliably. Nosler Partitions open reliably at 1800 FPS. So with a Partition, your bullet will open at longer range. There are plenty of bullets that will do this.
IIRC, with 165 grain bullets a max load gives me around 2650 FPS but I load down to 2550 FPS for comfort. It's quite adequate for anything within 350 yards. If I need to reach beyond that, there had better be a darn good reason.