223 barrel length

[Trebor Snave]

Thinking of building an F-TR rifle in 223 and wondering if 26" is long enough or should I spring for some extra? Competitions around here are usually 600-1000 yard affairs, if that has any bearing on your opinion.

 

[mac86951]

Thinking of building an F-TR rifle in 223 and wondering if 26" is long enough or should I spring for some extra? Competitions around here are usually 600-1000 yard affairs, if that has any bearing on your opinion.

I would highly recommend 30"-32". This will allow you to run velocities to keep supersonic and keep the high BC 90s or 80s in a good node without needing super max brass destroying loads. It will also allow you to set back if you select the right profile, not that 223 shoots out fast, but if you chamber for 90s the throat is waayy out there.

-Mac

 

[alintx]

Mac, how much velocity can you expect over a 24 inch ? I just finished a 28 inch 22/250 and haven't got to chrono it yet. I'm 1/8 twist. It lives 70 gr vld , but I'm more into hunting so still looking for that perfect bullet. Barnes x is to tough, so im trying some 55 Sierra gamekings and 70 speer semi spitzers. Am told both will expand fast but still penetrate. Any info is good info !

 

[Dgd6mm]

There is some very good information in the archives. Hopefully the guys on here that shoot pretty successfully at a grand with the .223 will respond to your thread. Mine is strictly a mid-range ftr rifle, 1-8 twist 26" Benchmark throated for 75-80 Amax.

Don Dunlap

 

[jsthntn247]

Get a 30" 6.5 or 7 twist. Throat it out with about .200 freebore. The only consistently competitive bullets are the 90 Berger and Sierra.

 

[Mozella]

I just replaced a 26" barrel on my .223 F/TR rifle with a 30" barrel. There is a bit of "apples-to-oranges" when you talk about increased velocity with the longer barrel. That's because I prefer to shoot a load which produces the best precision. It happens that my new 30" barrel gives me right at 150fps more velocity than the shorter barrel using Berger VLD 80s and Vihtavuori N-140 powder. However, part of that velocity gain is because the longer barrel gives me smaller groups using slightly greater charge weights. In other words, the longer barrel is a definite improvement, but I can't say how much velocity gain I have purely because of the length and how much is because of a slightly increased charge weight. These two barrels also have different throat lengths and prefer different amounts of jump, so part of the performance difference is also attributable to how case volume is effected by seating depth and the impact of that factor on velocity. The overall precision of both barrels is very similar, but it's hard to pass up extra velocity as long as the precision is good. In other words, I'm happy with my 30" barrel. You gotta do load development and see what happens.

But looking around on the firing line, most guys doing well with the .223 use barrels around 30". Those shooting 26" barrels are doing so mostly because the barrel came with the rifle, not because they selected that length as optimum. If you have a choice, I'd go for 30" or darn close to it.

 

[mac86951]

Mac, how much velocity can you expect over a 24 inch ? I just finished a 28 inch 22/250 and haven't got to chrono it yet. I'm 1/8 twist. It lives 70 gr vld , but I'm more into hunting so still looking for that perfect bullet. Barnes x is to tough, so im trying some 55 Sierra gamekings and 70 speer semi spitzers. Am told both will expand fast but still penetrate. Any info is good info !

Rough estimate from several external testers... ~20-25 fps per inch.
Not sure I'd want a 30" barrel for hunting; but for F-TR its needed.

-Mac