AR Platform Barrels: 10.5" vs 16" vs 20"

[Music] all right we're not on the range today were at one of our training facilities and recently a lot of people have contacted me asking various questions about short-barrel AR platform firearms well because of donations to the patreon account thank you everybody I was able to purchase this Ruger AR 556 with a ten and a half inch barrel now many questions have been asked but I want to today deal primarily with two of them and those are how do these short barrel a our platforms compared to 16 inch and 20 inch barrel they are platforms in terms of power and accuracy well I have AR platforms with 16 and 20 inch barrels let's shoot them side-by-side with this and see what we can learn first let's discuss velocity I've got my chronograph set up at 7 yards and as a basis of comparison I'm going to start with my colt ar-15 a2 which has a 20 inch barrel and a have it loaded with federal XM 193 ammunition that's 556 NATO with a 55 grain Full Metal Jacket spearpoint projectile let's see what kind of velocities we get with this thirty to sixty three thirty to fifty two thirty to fifty thirty to sixty seven thirty to sixty seven thirty to forty nine and thirty to sixty eight now when you get to readings that are the same in a row that's indicative that you may have had a malfunctions so we'll throw out one of those thirty to sixty sevens but now let's see how this compares to a 16-inch barrel platform this rifle is also loaded with the XM 183 ammunition but the upper on this is Rock River arms and it has a 16 inch barrel 2397 3077 3101 3069 3108 38 e 31 31 and 30 95 now that first reading was very odd we're gonna throw that one out and go with the other numbers but now let's see how both of these compare to the ten and a half inch barrel and now our Ruger AR five five six with it's a ten and a half inch barrel and it's also loaded with the federal exam 193 ammunition 2808 27 21 2802 28:36 28:45 27 58 and 2780 now let's go crunch the numbers well I crunched the numbers in here they are and it comes with the usual caveats that coronagraphs don't always agree with each other and certain environmental factors like elevation and ambient temperature can affect cronograph results but with the 20-inch barrel I got a mean velocity of 32 58 now when we drop to the 16 inch barrel we lose velocity as expected we got a mean velocity of 30 94 that's a loss of 164 feet per second but when we drop to the 10 and a half inch barrel we lose a lot of velocity the mean of 2792 and a loss of 302 feet per second from the 16-inch barrel and if you compare the ten and a half to the 20-inch barrel that's a loss of four hundred and sixty six feet per second so the shorter barrel does result in a significant loss of velocity so our shorter barrel effects power but how will it affect accuracy let's shoot this target from 50 yards and see what kind of accuracy we get I don't have my earphones on but I do have my earplugs in now the concept is that the shorter barreled rifle will be less accurate and that can be true in a very limited sense but typically in the hands of the average shooter the shorter barreled rifle will produce less accuracy and that has a lot to do with sighting plane the shorter barreled rifle will have less distance between the front and rear sights so in the hands of the average shooter it can produce less accuracy so to put that to the test I'm going to shoot our 50 yard target offhand and I'm going to start with the 20 inch barrel let's take a look at the target and here's my group from 50 yards offhand with the 20 inch barrel now I'll put up a new target and we'll see how the 16-inch barrel compares to this now we'll try the 16-inch barrel carbine and I have to point out that this is not my rifle so it is not zeroed for me so we don't need to concern ourselves as much with the location of the group as we do with the size of it and let's go take a look at the group so here we see our group of five and one flyer so not too bad now we'll put up a new target and try this with our ten and a half inch barrel and now our ten and a half inch barrel let's take a look at the target so here's our group with the ten and a half inch barrels and I put up the groups of the 20 in the 16 inch barrels is there a difference in accuracy with the three barrel lengths a little bit is it enough to make a difference you be the judge so not a lot of difference in accuracy and 50-yard deliberate slow fire what if I'm trying to shoot a little bit faster and at multiple targets I'll go back 25 yards and I'll shoot one two three three two one firing as fast as I think I can hit and we'll see what differences there are in speed and accuracy between short and long barrel and we'll start with the twenty inch barrel let's take a look at the targets here's four hits here's four hits and here's four hits now we'll put up three new targets and try that with a short-barrel and now the ten and a half inch barrel let's take a look at the targets so here's four hits here's four hits and here's four hits so the firearm with the ten and a half inch barrel was significantly faster and if there's any difference in accuracy it's not much so we've seen the differences in accuracy shooting offhand from fairly short ranges but now I'll go back a hundred yards and shoot from a bench rest and I'll shoot the target on your left or the ten and a half inch barrel on the target on your right with a twenty inch barrel and now let's see how the groups compare [Music] and it would appear that our longer barrel rifle holds a slightly smaller group but only slightly now I've got two targets set up at 300 yards and I'll shoot the target on the left with the ten and a half inch barrel the target on the right with a twenty inch barrel normally I'd have the camera down there next to the target so you can see the shot holes as the bullets hit the target but with the wind that's just come up and with this rifle I'm going to keep the camera back here [Music] [Applause] now let's go take a look at the targets well here's our two groups with the ten and a half in the twenty inch barrel now a couple of things to point out first we know the chronograph told us that the shorter barrel would have four hundred and sixty six feet per second in the last velocity so we know there's going to be drop in both rifles but how much more drop will we get with a shorter barrel well at a hundred I was aiming Center at three hundred I was aiming at neck level to compensate for the drop and it would appear the shorter barrel did give us more drop although not that much more also you noticed the shorter barrel the group is off to the left well remember how two hundred the group was off to the left but off camera I fired a few more shots and zeroed that at a hundred so it's off to the left now that could be because of me and it could be because of the slight breeze we have blowing and with the lower velocity that rifle will be affected to a greater degree by the breeze than the longer barrel would however if you look at the size of the group now there's one flyer and that is just me but comparing the size of the two groups I'd be hard-pressed to say that the twenty inch barrel was any more accurate so when you go from the twenty inch to the ten and a half inch barrel you lose four hundred and sixty six feet per second and now the question becomes how much difference will that make in the effectiveness of your five five six round and to test that will use the meet target now for those who haven't seen it before the meet target is leather jacket skin followed by pork steak pectorals pork ribs a bag of oranges to simulate lung tissue more pork ribs on the back four layers of t-shirt on the front four layers on the back and today instead of the high-tech fleece bullet stop we're going to do something different and use two-liter bottles of soda also something different about this particular meat target is that normally it's leather jacket skin this is leather couch skin which was donated by a viewer thank you very much so I'm going to shoot this from fifty yards with our ten and a half inch barrel and let's see what kind of effect we get okay that was two shots let's try a couple more I said that our pork pectorals were pork steaks they're actually pork chops but either way all our five five six projectiles did was make five five six holes in our ribs on the front of the target the same story just five five six holes and none of the projectiles actually hit a rib but here's where those projectiles are starting to tumble and so our orange lung tissue has a lot of orange puree now we still see the evidence of tumbling and the ribs in the back of the target which is why our holes and the ribs in the back of the target are so much bigger and in this case where the projectiles hit ribs shattered them we also see no evidence of fragmentation all of these projectiles appear to have stayed in one piece and we saw that although our soda jugs make a very poor bullet stop they do show us that once these projectiles have gone completely through the meat target they still have a fair amount of power left in them so now I'll put together a new meat target we'll shoot it from 50 yards with a 20 inch barrel and see if there's any difference in effectiveness and here's the one projectile we did recover and you can see that it's flat but it is still completely intact and now we have our new meat target set up and I'll shoot this from 50 yards with a 20 inch barrel so with the 20 inch barrel we have a lot more velocity and it looks like that greater velocity is still just putting bullet holes in our porkchop pectorals however these bullet holes look like they're a little bit bigger than they were before as if that greater velocity is doing just a little more damage and the same story on our ribs on the front of the target we see bullet holes but they look a little bit bigger the greater velocity is doing just a little more damage now after going through those ribs when those projectiles are really starting to tumble and the result is that our orange lung tissue is just demolished we also see on the back of the target these ribs have a lot of damage much more than the ribs on the previous meat target and we're seeing evidence of fragmentation so it looks like our greater velocity is making a significant difference in how much damage it does to the target now like before we recovered one projectile let's take a look at it and here's the one projectile we recovered so we see a lot of fragmentation and it did significantly more damage to the target and this fragmentation can result in a lower potential for over penetration and there you have it we saw that as our barrel got shorter we lost velocity but going from the 20 to the 16 inch barrel we didn't lose very much going from the 20 to the 10 and a half inch barrel we lost a lot of velocity and that definitely showed in the effect it had on the meet target but as far as accuracy just shooting offhand at relatively short ranges there wasn't enough difference to talk about and when we were shooting 300 yards the conventional wisdom is that the longer barrel will allow the average shooter to shoot more accurately but in this case that didn't really hold true yes with lower velocity we had greater drop at that distance but as long as you can estimate distance correctly and adjust your sights accordingly it looks like you'll be able to hit the target just as well with the short barrel as with the long barrel so when we're comparing barrel lengths some that can make a difference but quite often it's the shooter that makes more difference so as always don't try this at home on what you call a professional and thanks for watching the short barrel AR platform video [Music] you

Channel: Paul Harrell

Views: 357,737

Rating: 4.9758925 out of 5

Keywords: paul harrell, paul harrell ar15, paul harrell ar, ar15 barrel length, barrel length comparison

Id: z06pAJciuNI

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/poindexterg]

This video is patently absurd. It’s completely inaccurate. Nowhere in it did I see an average shooter.