Light varmint taper

[mshelton]

Odd question but how long would be too long for a light varmint taper?

I know that from tests, 20ish inches gave the best accuracy, this was 6ppc 100yds but I'm thinking of a varmint rifle (for shooting varmints) and like that taper just wondering if it's going to get too small and maybe have some weird vibrations out to say 26".

Anyone have any experience with something like that?

 

[Toby Bradshaw]

For live varmint shooting, make the barrel as long as you like. A LV (or HV) tapered barrel is pretty heavy, though, and will be muzzle heavy unless there is some weight in the butt end of the stock. Muzzle-heavy rifles will cause problems with gun handling Here's a barrel weight calculator:

http://pac-nor.com/cgi-bin/pnb/bweight.cgi

Most LV/sporter barrels have short-ish barrels to meet the 10.5 lb weight limit, not because a very short barrel is necessarily more accurate. My last LV had a 21.75" barrel in HV taper and could just squeak in under the weight limit.

One advantage to having a stock inletted for LV or HV tapers is that you can get used BR barrels fairly cheaply. The downside is that most of those barrels will be short, which isn't ideal for large capacity varmint chamberings. If you're shooting a smaller-capacity case, no problem.

 

[areaone]

what type of stock are you using. I have HV and LV in 26 inc. and they are great. One is on an Older 40X wood stock and the other is on a Mcmillan A3, Balance well and shoot great in 6 Br, 6.5x47L

 

[mshelton]

It's going to be an old 40x that I'm going to work on, going to see if I can get a Panda in there if not I'll use an Atlas. And yep the thought is to use old benchrest barrels but I was thinking of getting a barrel made for some longer stuff and wanted to keep the weight down a little with a LV over a HV.