Accuracy comparisons of heavy barrel vs. standard?

wahoowad

wahoowad

Member
Has anybody read any recent articles where formal comparison testing was performed between a heavy barrel and a standard barrel? I'm wondering if a well made, modern firearm truly benefits from a heavy barrel or if it is mostly marketing? I'm considering a new varmint rifle (out to 400 yards) and would like to read up on some experts testing and opinion. The extra weight is just something I do not want to lug around.
 
Nothing factual here but my understanding is that heavier barrels take LONGER to overheat. A friend has a AR15 he out together with a Vietnam-era take off pencil barrel and it shoots very well..might be the Jewel trigger, LOL.

Look at lugging that heavy barrel as a workout without the gym membership cost.
 
Originally Posted By: wahoowadHas anybody read any recent articles where formal comparison testing was performed between a heavy barrel and a standard barrel? I'm wondering if a well made, modern firearm truly benefits from a heavy barrel or if it is mostly marketing? I'm considering a new varmint rifle (out to 400 yards) and would like to read up on some experts testing and opinion. The extra weight is just something I do not want to lug around.

If you don't want to carry the extra weight and your caliber choice is .223 or smaller than you could be well served with a light rifle. The biggest advantages to the heavier barreled rifles are less recoil energy (faster recovery & more seen hits) and less shot to shot dispersion for rapid shot strings.
 
Wahoowad, I can tell you only from my experience...as I have both in small calibers....For one shot shooting, there really is not much difference in the accuracy factor...but when you introduce successive shots a difference in shot placement starts to show up, depending on the rate of fire..

My .204 AR (heavy Douglas Match barrel) can handle sustained fire rate for quite a while before there is any noticeable PoI change...but once hot, it does take longer to cool down under natural conditions...

My .204 Savage (sporter/pencil barrel) is great for accuracy if the rate of fire is one shot every 2-3 minutes, but any faster and the heat factor causes the group to start dispersing in an upward-left direction and as the rate if fire increases, so does the enlargement of the group.

My .223s will mirror the same results..That's one reason I use a bull barreled AR in action competitions, as some of the stages are using 30-40 rounds in a matter of as many seconds and the barrel heat up is quite rapid..and the scoring in on an accuracy & time factor..Some stages may involve 15-20 targets at fairly close range and then several bowling pins at 75-125 yards..You need the most accuracy factor available for those...
 
I only have standard barrels, but my thought is standard barrel is ok for coyote/predator hunting where you shoot 1 to 5 shots a day. Heavy barrel for prairie dogs or simular, where volume shooting is involved.

Shayne
 
One of the most accurate rifles I ever owned was a Remington 700ADL in 22-250(one of the older wood stocked guns) shot lights out with plane jane factory ammo.
 
i agree with the posts above but if you want a absolute expert advice you could email Kreiger, Hart, Shilen etc. and i'm sure they would be happy to share their opinions.

if you do email them we'd love to hear the response.
 
Light barrels shoot just as accurately as heavy barrels as far as hunting rifles are concerned.

Heavy barrels take longer to heat up. You need to decide if this factors in to it's intended use or not. Some seem to be able to hold them steadier also. Again, subjective to the use/user.

Unless I really plan on doin' a lot of trigger squeezin', I prefer lightweight rifles for most hunting.

Match shooting or prarie doggin' would be a couple of exceptions........
 
Yes heavy barrels on average will out shoot light barrels. The stiffness does help. It all depends upon how picky you are about accuracy. As others have mentioned, they heat up slower as well which helps with the point of impact shifting.

Of course not all barrels are created equal. I've seen some standard barrels rifles that shot better than many heavy barrels.
 
I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, but when you fire a round, the primer goes off, ignites the powder, which burns at a high rate of speed creating gases that then push the bullet down the bore. When this happens isn't the bore subjected to the same amount of heat regardless of the weight of the barrel?
 
Look and see how many pencil barrels are used in benchrest competition for your answer. The answer is ZERO.

Bull barrels are provably more accurate then sporter profiles, all else being equal. I could get all technical, but basically as mentioned, they are stiffer, and that means they are more consistent.

On the other hand, unless you are shooting competition or very long range, a sporter barrel may be as accurate as you need, and if carrying the extra weight around isn't your idea of fun, well...

Yes eclubine, the heat at the origin is the same, but the added mass of the bull barrel makes it take longer for the heat to penetrate. Imagine a butter knife held over a lighter, it wouldn't take long for the top of the blade to heat up to where you couldn't touch it. Now imagine a leaf spring held over the same flame. I doubt it would ever get too hot to touch on the opposite side. Same heat, different mass.
 
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Just to clarify for folks, barrel thickness generally does not matter in regards to accuracy, for the first few shots.......after that it does.

It matters greatly for heat (expansion and contraction) and stiffness. And when the barrel heats up if it is a sporter or lightweight barrel, things go quickly south in the accuracy department. A thicker barrel also tends to help the shooter and minimize their effects on accuracy (how they hold the gun, tight vs loose grip, how good is their bench technique, how firm is the cheek weld.) Try this sometime when shooting, try a light cheek weld vs a firm cheek weld in the middle of the group, followed by firm vs loose shoulder, a lot of times the gun will shoot differently on each of these methods of holding. The Barrel vibrations on a shot are affected by a lot of things and on a thicker barrel you do get generally more consistency,

I have two lightweight select match shilen barrels, one on my custom .308 hunting rifle, the other one is a sporter select match on my custom .35 whelen. On the .308 and it is a lightweight contour (Pencil thin!) it is equal in accuracy for the first two shots to my .30 cal benchrest hunter gun with a number 7LV taper. The third shots starts to spread slightly to maybe a half inch group, and after that, all bets are off.

Generally folks shoot heavier guns better, recoil is less, and after several shots the heating up of the barrel and other factors make it seem apparent that the heavy barrels are more "accurate" but in reality, if I was to shoot a shot every 15 minutes in the same conditions I can get super groups from my pencil thin select match barrels too, but how practical is that?

Wade
 
Originally Posted By: CommodorefirstJust to clarify for folks, barrel thickness generally does not matter in regards to accuracy, for the first few shots.......after that it does.

It matters greatly for heat (expansion and contraction) and stiffness. And when the barrel heats up if it is a sporter or lightweight barrel, things go quickly south in the accuracy department. A thicker barrel also tends to help the shooter and minimize their effects on accuracy (how they hold the gun, tight vs loose grip, how good is their bench technique, how firm is the cheek weld.) Try this sometime when shooting, try a light cheek weld vs a firm cheek weld in the middle of the group, followed by firm vs loose shoulder, a lot of times the gun will shoot differently on each of these methods of holding. The Barrel vibrations on a shot are affected by a lot of things and on a thicker barrel you do get generally more consistency,

I have two lightweight select match shilen barrels, one on my custom .308 hunting rifle, the other one is a sporter select match on my custom .35 whelen. On the .308 and it is a lightweight contour (Pencil thin!) it is equal in accuracy for the first two shots to my .30 cal benchrest hunter gun with a number 7LV taper. The third shots starts to spread slightly to maybe a half inch group, and after that, all bets are off.

Generally folks shoot heavier guns better, recoil is less, and after several shots the heating up of the barrel and other factors make it seem apparent that the heavy barrels are more "accurate" but in reality, if I was to shoot a shot every 15 minutes in the same conditions I can get super groups from my pencil thin select match barrels too, but how practical is that?

Wade

Very well put.
I have read where some tests were done with different length and thickness of barrels with all else being equal. It was suprising to read about how accurate some of the thin, short barrels were when compared to the long heavy or bull barrels in the same caliber when shot 'cold bore'.

Obviously the heavy barrel is more versatile on a prairie dog hunt or when you intend on sending quite a bit of lead down range at one shooting session but often a short, stout, thin barrel has already sent it's payload downrange before it can devlop the vibrations and harmonics that can effect external ballistics and accuracy.

All of my hunting rifles have regular or even a thin, shorter barrel to reduce the amount of weight that has to carried over a given distance but most of them are only going to be fired once or twice during a hunt.
Those same rifles will show a tremendous drop in accuracy when multiple shots are fired back to back heating up the barrel. If I fire a three shot group they measure nice and tight but when shooting five shot groups (or more) with the same rifle the 4th and 5th shots open up the spread considerably all variables being the same.
If I rest the rifle in the shade for a while to cool off inbetween shots they perform like tack drivers.
 
The pressure developed during the ignition of the propellant in a cartridge causes ALL barrels to bend in a reaction that's like waves travelling towards the muzzle (harmonics).

For accuracy, you must do everything possible to ensure that the bullet leaves the muzzle when the muzzle is at exactly the same point in the wave with every shot.

To get the bullet to exit the muzzle at exactly the same barrel bending point every time is virtually impossible. The variables that will change this include tiny variations in powder weight, primer ignition speed, bullet weight, cartridge case consistency, ambient air temperature, humidity, etc, etc, etc. The quest for accuracy is one of trying to strictly control as many of those variables as possible, but it's impossible to control them all perfectly.

Stiffer barrels are more accurate than more flexible barrels because the bending reaction to the pressure wave caused by ignition are less. When those inevitable variations in harmonics occur, they will have a smaller effect in a stiff barrel than than they would with a more flexible barrel.

A thicker barrel is stiffer than a thin barrel of the same length. A short barrel is stiffer than a long barrel of the same diameter, but sometimes a longer barrel is needed in order to get a complete burn of the powder needed to achieve the desired muzzle velocity.

Firing a string of shots heats up the barrel and changes the tensile characteristics of the steel, causing a different physical reaction to the pressure wave generated by ignition, meaning the bullet will be exiting the barrel at a different nodal point. A thicker barrel is less susceptible to this since it takes longer to heat up.

While it is certainly possible that a specific long pencil barrelled rifle might out shoot a specific short bull barrelled rifle, the most accurate barrel, all else being equal, will be the stiffest/shortest barrel that will still allow the desired muzzle velocity.
 
nmleon,

Excellent post on barrel harmonics, I almost put that info in my post, but didn't want to overload a post that already had info. I use harmonic barrel tuners on several of my bench guns, and I have also chased the tail of cutting a barrel at a specific length, tested, cut the chamber back a touch, cut again, trying to find the harmonic sweet spot for those vibrations, and also cut barrels to length (particularly rimfire barrels) for the proper constriction locations near the muzzle.

Goal is as you stated to have everything the most consistent from shot to shot, and agreed, that a shorter stiffer barrel will do that most consistently.
 
Question AR 15 in a 223 with a 24 inch bull barrel it is front end heavy an I mean heavy I can have it cut and crowded for 100.00 what would be the ideal length I will be hunting coyotes live in Missouri so most shots being lest then 200 yards at times soon could be 300 have access to a 16inch light barrel what would be best for accuracy
 
Originally Posted By: pepaf100Question AR 15 in a 223 with a 24 inch bull barrel it is front end heavy an I mean heavy I can have it cut and crowded for 100.00 what would be the ideal length I will be hunting coyotes live in Missouri so most shots being lest then 200 yards at times soon could be 300 have access to a 16inch light barrel what would be best for accuracy

Welcome to the board.

Which will he the most accurate has nothing to do with length and weight. What you are most comfortable with has some impact. Quality of the barrel is so important as is a well worked up load. You can have a high dollar barrel shoot poorly and a cheap no-name hyped up tube shoot well. At the end of the day if you field 20 of each you'll probably find the barrels of known parentage average far better.

If you are talking cutting a 24 to 16 you may have problems with the gas lenght. That might be solved by a bigger port but that also might ruin your accuracy.

Greg
 
I was thinking of having it cut because it is so front end heavy it is uncomfortable to carry thinking of cutting it down to 20inch would I have any problems with the gas length an accuracy if there was a chance I would get another barrel an sale this one thanks
 
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