Posted: 10/7/2012 12:30:39 AM EDT
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Why does everyone seems to go with heavy, longer barrels? Is there a tangible benefit to it? I'm considering cutting my 16" barrel down to 14.5" with a pinned brake then re-contouring, and fluting it in order to shave weight. It’s really front heavy and this seems to be what most people do for the ACR to solve it and it seems to work great.
Would this hurt my rifles performance? If so why? I'm wondering both about the length change and the making it thinner. I've heard that making it thinner also screws with accuracy at long ranges plus I'm worried about overheating. |
| A longer and heavier barrel makes the gun recoil softer, feel more stable, and shoot flatter and more accurately. A short, light barrel might be marginally beneficial on a match that is all close-range (under 200 yards), but for most matches an 18-20" rifle length medium weight barrel is a better choice. I have both and choose according to the match conditions. |
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Quoted:
A longer and heavier barrel makes the gun recoil softer, feel more stable, and shoot flatter and more accurately. A short, light barrel might be marginally beneficial on a match that is all close-range (under 200 yards), but for most matches an 18-20" rifle length medium weight barrel is a better choice. I have both and choose according to the match conditions. How does it make it shoot flatter and more accurately? How much does it actually affect this? Is it the weight or the length thats more important? Like would a shorter heavy barrel be ok? |
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Heavier barrels and fluted barrels handle heat better. A hot barrel light weight barrel can deflect which can cause POI shift. There are a bunch of other hypothesis out there on why a heavy barrel is more accurate than a pencil barrel. Some science some witch craft if you ask me. I don't understand it all and won't pretend too. What I do know is you can help and/or hurt a barrels accuracy when you reprofile or shorten it. If your barrel shoots adequately now and you put it in a lathe it may shoot better or worse when it comes out. Personally when I want to try a different shape, length, or profile barrel I buy the one I want and don't mess with one that already shoots.
For our game their is no reason you can't run a 14.5" barrel and succeed with it. In fact I am pretty sure Daniel Horner has been doing just that most of this year. |
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A longer and heavier barrel makes the gun recoil softer, feel more stable, and shoot flatter and more accurately. A short, light barrel might be marginally beneficial on a match that is all close-range (under 200 yards), but for most matches an 18-20" rifle length medium weight barrel is a better choice. I have both and choose according to the match conditions. How does it make it shoot flatter and more accurately? How much does it actually affect this? Is it the weight or the length thats more important? Like would a shorter heavy barrel be ok? A longer barrel gives you extra fps resulting in a flatter trajectory. |
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A longer and heavier barrel makes the gun recoil softer, feel more stable, and shoot flatter and more accurately. A short, light barrel might be marginally beneficial on a match that is all close-range (under 200 yards), but for most matches an 18-20" rifle length medium weight barrel is a better choice. I have both and choose according to the match conditions. How does it make it shoot flatter and more accurately? How much does it actually affect this? Is it the weight or the length thats more important? Like would a shorter heavy barrel be ok? A longer barrel gives you extra fps resulting in a flatter trajectory. How much would 2 inches affect that? The barrel is 1/7 and I mainly use handloaded 69gr Sierra MKs or factory loaded Federal or PMC 62gr. As I've researched its seeming like the main reason for the longer barrel is that the longer gas system has a softer recoil. I dont have a DI gas system, the ACR is a piston system and it will be the same length either way. So this part is a non-issue with me. |
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I started with a Noveske N4 with a 14.5 inch barrel with a surefire muzzle brake. This gun was fine for my level at the time but the short barrels with carbine gas systems are not as soft of shooters as are 18 inch guns with rifle gas. Also they are more of a challenge to use on the long stages past 300 yards. Use what you got but I would not build a 3 gun specific rifle with a short barrel. I already made that mistake on my first gun. (the Noveske mentioned before) My 18 inch Rogue Hunter is a much softer shooting gun and hits targets further out a bit easier as well.
Pat |
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I started with a Noveske N4 with a 14.5 inch barrel with a surefire muzzle brake. This gun was fine for my level at the time but the short barrels with carbine gas systems are not as soft of shooters as are 18 inch guns with rifle gas. Also they are more of a challenge to use on the long stages past 300 yards. Use what you got but I would not build a 3 gun specific rifle with a short barrel. I already made that mistake on my first gun. (the Noveske mentioned before) My 18 inch Rogue Hunter is a much softer shooting gun and hits targets further out a bit easier as well. Pat Its certainly a lot to think about. As I said though the barrel length on the ACR won't affect how soft it shoots but I'm wondering about the accuracy at distance. I'm thinking since barrel changes are so quick with the ACR, and this barrel is the stock barrel, I'll go ahead and cut it down to 14.5 and have a 16 or 18 inch match grade barrel made to fit for matches that have those long distance shots. Even if I keep the length at 16" the stock barrel isn't a competition barrel and has an M4 profile, so it might be wise to have a dedicated competition barrel. Plus I would get to keep the Titan on the match barrel and use the SureFire QD on the 14.5. Having to lose the Titan has been the hardest part of getting a suppressor. Now I just have to find a match barrel. Any suggestions? |
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I vote get a new 14.5" barrel. I run one and have had 0 issues. In fact I think it gives me an edge up. I have never once caught my rifle on a barrier/wall but I have seen several shooters do so during matches. At 3gun ranges I see 0 need for a 18-20" barrel. Our 3-gun rifle targets are out to 500 yards. I am much more comfortable with an 18" medium contour barrel than a 14.5" pencil barrel for those shots. |
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I vote get a new 14.5" barrel. I run one and have had 0 issues. In fact I think it gives me an edge up. I have never once caught my rifle on a barrier/wall but I have seen several shooters do so during matches. At 3gun ranges I see 0 need for a 18-20" barrel. Our 3-gun rifle targets are out to 500 yards. I am much more comfortable with an 18" medium contour barrel than a 14.5" pencil barrel for those shots. A pencil barrel can be just as accurate - not so much after 40 rounds of rapid fire... Nothing wrong with 14.5 other than the recoil impulse. I wen't from 17" to 16" and felt a noticeable difference. I'm tweaking my rifle as we speak... |
| I'm not going for a pencil barrel, I'm going to conour out the M4 cut and have it fluted. Would this still have the same disadvantages? I kind of figured that since the M4 cut has that really low spot that it would flex there no matter what under heavy rapid fire. I was hoping conouring it out and fluting it would help it with heat and flex. Am I way off? |
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I'm not going for a pencil barrel, I'm going to conour out the M4 cut and have it fluted. Would this still have the same disadvantages? I kind of figured that since the M4 cut has that really low spot that it would flex there no matter what under heavy rapid fire. I was hoping conouring it out and fluting it would help it with heat and flex. Am I way off? I would leave it alone. I have been told (no personal experience on this one) that when you recountour a barrel you can lose accuracy. Pat |
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Cam is the 16" a middy? Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I vote get a new 14.5" barrel. I run one and have had 0 issues. In fact I think it gives me an edge up. I have never once caught my rifle on a barrier/wall but I have seen several shooters do so during matches. At 3gun ranges I see 0 need for a 18-20" barrel. Our 3-gun rifle targets are out to 500 yards. I am much more comfortable with an 18" medium contour barrel than a 14.5" pencil barrel for those shots. A pencil barrel can be just as accurate - not so much after 40 rounds of rapid fire... Nothing wrong with 14.5 other than the recoil impulse. I wen't from 17" to 16" and felt a noticeable difference. I'm tweaking my rifle as we speak... |
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I too and curious about a shorter barrel. I am just learning about 3-gun and plan on using my 9" JP Enterprises 300BLK. I see little to no drop under 300yds, so I assume this would be a good choice. Thoughts on both 300BLK and 9"?
Thanks in advance for advice to a newb. |
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Quoted: I too and curious about a shorter barrel. I am just learning about 3-gun and plan on using my 9" JP Enterprises 300BLK. I see little to no drop under 300yds, so I assume this would be a good choice. Thoughts on both 300BLK and 9"? Thanks in advance for advice to a newb. If you've got little to no drop with a 9" barrel and 300BLK, you must be shooting lasers instead of bullets, because I've got 8-10" of drop from 200 to 300 with .223.  That would probably work, but by no means would it be ideal. |
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This is just the kind of thing I was looking for.. I'l trying to decide what rfile setup i want.. 14,5" mid-Length pencil, 16" mid-Length Pencil or just go for the 18" fluted..I'm trying to balance weight against performance..realistically i KNOW the rifle will be capable of shooting better than me, But is the shorter barrel easier to drive on the move?, and what is the normal "Long" distance in an average 3-gun stage for rifle??
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This is just the kind of thing I was looking for.. I'l trying to decide what rfile setup i want.. 14,5" mid-Length pencil, 16" mid-Length Pencil or just go for the 18" fluted..I'm trying to balance weight against performance..realistically i KNOW the rifle will be capable of shooting better than me, But is the shorter barrel easier to drive on the move?, and what is the normal "Long" distance in an average 3-gun stage for rifle?? A shorter, lighter barrel might 'drive' faster between targets, but what will it do to your split between shots on each target? I prefer a heavy-ish 18 or 20 with rifle gas for 3-gun. I also prefer adjustable gas and LMOS carriers/buffers. I like my 3-gun rifle to shoot soft and flat. The farthest I have shot in a match is ~450. A more western shooter would probably expect to shoot farther more frequently. |
Well to update. I got the 14"ish barrel in. I haven't shot it yet but it is much much lighter and more maneuverable. It was contoured down a little smaller than I wanted but it was fluted so I'm hoping that’ll make up for it. Going by the picture does it look like the barrel is too thin and will start to have heat related accuracy issues? usually shoot very fast in a match and my old heavy barrel would melt my bag if I set it down on it between stages using 60-90 rounds. Will the fluting make up for this? Before I had it done I asked the barrel maker and he assured me it would take a lot more to cause problems.
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I finally got the rifle to the range and a match with the new barrel. The accuracy is great I got consistent 1"(+or-) groups at 100 meters. The SF brake is noticeably less effective than the Titan I had on before but there's no other way to mount my suppressor so its what I'm stuck with for now.
Unfortunately for the first time ever I had about 4 or 5 double feeds in about 90 rounds. I didn't have time to check and mark the magazine I used so I don't know if it was the same mag each time. Is there any chance it was the shortened barrel? What makes it harder to narrow it down is that I had Bushmaster swap out the piston, piston spring, gas regulator, and the ejector and extractor right before the barrel swap. I did fire about 100 rounds with all of the replacement parts before I sent the barrel in without any issues. I've also manually run rounds through the 3 magazines I used in the match and haven't been able to duplicate the problem by hand. Any thoughts or ideas? This type of malfunction isn't exactly cleared super quick so its a pretty big problem obviously. |