How to Choose the Best Hunting Barrel Length and Weight ~ Very Carefully!

welcome back well we're stuck inside today with a rainy day so we're not going to do any carpentry or shooting one of you recently asked me if i would talk about barrel lengths and weights for field use for hunting and things he wasn't very specific about what type of what type of hunting so i guess it's a good it's a good platform to jump off of and talk about all the different variables and different options out there um i guess i'll start with uh if i have environment environment rifles and the reason i'll do that is uh it brings to mind kind of a funny story uh back in the back in the 70s i was uh i was i was still very much in my 20s and um i went into my i went into my buddies you know my very dear late friend store and uh i asked him if he i asked him what he had on the end for an environment rifle so he said i don't have anything right now he it wasn't it was it was just uh kind of out of season so he says i don't have anything right now why don't you go up up the road and check with him and see if he has anything so i did and about two hours later i came back proudly showing him my new uh ruger model 77 bicentennial 1976 environment model chambered in caliber 22-250 well i i thought for sure he was going to be thrilled because he he had been you know promoting the 22-250 to me for for three or four years and uh kept telling me how great around it was and everything well he had a very he had a very unique way of disarming you at times and uh he just he looked at it and he said that's nice he said uh what are you going to do with that because i had no idea what he was talking about i suddenly felt a little bit self-conscious and i said i want to go i want to go woodchuck hunting he says you got to shoot groups into the mesa you're going to go shoot woodchucks so it left me it left me kind of befuddled i didn't really know what to say so anyway he liked it um we went out i think we went out a couple of afternoons later and uh you know he really he really enjoyed shooting it too with me it was very accurate it was extremely accurate it was a beautiful gun that had it had kind of like a zebra stripe down the down the side it was nice and it was engraved you know bicentennial uh model it was nice i let that i let that rifle go it had a i had put a leupold 16 power scope on it and um and it was a it was a it was a fixed power scope and it just it just shot fabulously it would it would shoot consistently into a half inch and very often it would shoot very very small groups you know just barely over a quarter inch so i'm talking three inch uh three shot groups but um i asked him what he meant by what what am i going to do with that because he asked me in a way that i knew he meant something well he says why do you why did you get a uh environment barrel why'd you get a big heavy barrel like that and and of course you know i figured well that was the thing to do he says you know you your seiko your seiko vixen 222 doesn't have a varmint barrel you shoot plenty of wood chucks with that don't you i said yeah so uh and and that seiko vixen i believe that had about a 22 and a half inch long you know they probably measured in metric so it came out to be about a 22 and a half inch long slender barrel and i had slayed so many wood trucks and crows with that through the years it really it all ranges up to 325 yards you know i could get pretty good with that it had a seven and a half power m8 leupold scope on and i got pretty good judging range and i could i could lob those extra long shots out there another you know another 50 or 60 yards beyond what the typical point blank range was but it never missed i mean that that rifle was a very very accurate rifle um in a number of in a number of uh tests you know at the bench i mean it would it was consistently a good half inch it was not a it was not as small a group as as the ruger 77 but it was consistently a half inch or less shooter well anyway his point being that uh you know when you go woodchuck shooting around new england it's usually it's usually kind of hot and it's hilly uh you're climbing around a lot and weight matters and um so i did find you know that that i'd i'd go out with my wife and should carry the you should carry the saco vixen and i would carry that that big uh ruger varmint uh rifle and i believe that had a 24 inch barrel but it was a it was a heavy barrel not not a super heavy barrel but it was it was a heavy barrel well there was a big difference in the way that rifle was uh where you could tote that around on a hot summer day and um i got to appreciate that 222 that was my favorite varmint rifle and the reason being because it just was so light and handy um i liked shooting that varmint barrel uh you know at the bench and things like that you know it had bragging size groups but it was not it was not the it was not my favorite gun to take out a field so that's what you want to keep in mind if you're buying a varmint rifle so very often the term environment rifle is associated with a so-called varmint barrel you know well that's not really that's not really necessary in the real world um the type of the type of extra accuracy that you'll get out of those heavy barrels is there uh you know you can you can shave off another 30 or 40 percent of your group size with the same ammo using a using a slightly stiffer barrel but anyway um always consider that when you're when your varmint when your varmint shooting if you're going to be carrying it throughout the day uh you're slogging it around in the heat or something like that even if you're even if even if it's in the middle of the winter when you're you know up in you know some plain states uh or up in canada going after uh coyotes or something like that it's you know then you're then you're carrying weight through snow you might be on snowshoes or something so it's always good to have a standard weight barrel when you're going vomiting having a standard weight barrel is all you need um it'll always get the job done at any range at any range they're virtually as accurate as a heavy barrel rifle and i demonstrated that when i recently you know a couple of years ago shot my uh 257 roberts uh with a very very slender uh barreled winchester model 70 featherweight uh i mean a shot just magnificent groups very small very small groups uh so uh a lightweight barrel is certainly capable of uh being a high-grade environment rifle so and and you'll you'll have you'll have a lot more fun when you don't feel as if you're towing around an anchor with you all day there's some extraordinarily heavy uh environment right so-called environment rifles out there that i i you know the heavier than they're heavier than a than a crowbar that you take rocks on the ground with my buddy had a model 12 savage well the 26 inch barrel his 204 ruger i mean my word uh you know it was it was hard enough to carry it from the from the truck to the to the bench where you go shoot uh you know at the range it was a very very heavy gun so uh think think carefully about uh the fact that you can you can do well with a environment and now i'm not speaking i'm not speaking in vain terms this happens to be an example of that uh now i've got a i've got a 222 in a tikka a t3 and it's got a long action and it's got i think it's i think it's a 24 inch barrel i can't think off the end of it uh but it's perhaps a 24 inch barrel but this happens to be my lightest configuration this right here is a winchester model 70 and it's in 22-250 and it's a 22-inch winchester barrel barrel it's a featherweight barrel uh you wouldn't think you know that that's a that that's a combination that would be very attractive to people but you know we're getting i think people are becoming a little bit more uh practical in some ways when it comes to rifles they've been around for a long time now and some people have some people have learned that buying these extra heavy environment barrels is something that you have to live with when you're carrying it around under different circumstances and these do shoot you know it might seem like a it might seem like an odd contradiction that uh that winchester chambers their model 70 featherweight in a environment caliber such an astounding environment caliber is the 22-250 but it works it really does um we'll take this out someday and do some shooting i had it out with you one day uh i know as a matter of fact it wasn't this one it was a that was in fact a varmint barreled uh remington model 700 that i have since gotten rid of and the reason being was this it was not a practical gun to carry around it had it was a beautiful it was a beautiful um anniversary model 50th anniversary model with uh stainless barrel and everything um but it just was not it was just not a comfortable uh handy gun so i let it go but this this here i love this uh i always love winchester model 70 featherweights they're just handy uh this one here dresses out at uh just under nine pounds it's uh eight pounds uh eight pounds eight ounces uh unloaded and uh it's it's a delight to shoot uh it it it hangs nicely uh and that's with this scope on it this happens to be a nikon pro staff but um anyway that's that's what i have to say about environment barrels um be careful about be careful about being sold on the idea of a varmint barrel when all you're really out to do is shoot varmints you're not shooting you're not shooting groups you you it's a practical game let's move on to a long-range uh game shooting you know planes game shooting i would recommend under those circumstances that you uh first of all keep mindful of what calibers that you're talking about certain calibers require certain barrel lengths in order to maintain the velocity that you're seeking a standard a standard barrel weight of a standard barrel length of 22 inches is absolutely sufficient for all your standard calibers most of your standard calibers will have you know an increase or reduction in velocity at the tune of 25 or 30 feet per second per inch of barrel length so if you go from a 24 inch barrel down to a 22 inch barrel you're only losing 50 to 60 feet per second and you'll find that you'll find that variation and then some in any box of commercial ammo so the 22 inch barrel is fine for any standard caliber when i say standard caliber i'm talking about non-magnum i'm talking about calibers where the the case the case capacity is uh is properly tuned to the board diameter so that would that would be any of your like the 3006 as a standard caliber the 308 is a standard caliber the 223 is a standard caliber the 223 is a little bit stretched out version of a standard caliber which was a 222 and it's not quite as efficient but that's basically still a standard caliber and it's very easy on barrels you're talking proud thousands of rounds that a standard caliber can shoot before it shows any appreciable wear or i should say burning of the throat when you step up into overbought calibers and that includes even the even the 270 in order to wreak out the uh the highest velocities those can start those can start losing uh velocity a little bit a little bit stronger per barrel inch so you know you can you can be losing barrel velocity as much as 40 or 50 feet per second per inch so that's a consideration if it's important when you're out in the planes uh the other thing is too when you're out in the planes uh you're gonna be you're gonna be at altitude most of the time so you've got you're on the horns of a dilemma you've got to have you got to have a rifle that you can sling over your shoulder and carry all day without uh you know really without tuckering you out too much without dragging on you so you want to have you want to have a rifle that's not too heavy as light as you possibly can but you also want to have that that whatever velocity you can ring out of your gun barrel for those extra long shots that might come up so there is a there is that trade-off personally uh i think at my age i would prefer to take a 22 inch barrel out with me whenever i go out at altitude uh it's just it's really a lot lighter a featherweight barrel such as this one for instance uh and this has got too big a scope certainly on it for that type of shooting and that type of carrying but this barrel here is is is very handy to be carrying a field it doesn't it doesn't hold it doesn't hold for off hand shots as nicely as a standard barrel such as my 270 with a standard 24 inch uh standard weight barrel but uh most of your shooting is going to be done uh you know from more practical positions uh if you if you're off hand you're probably going to be getting those a jump shot which is someplace inside 100 yards or something which with good practice you can do without much difficulty with a barrel like that but when you're when you're talking about most most practical shooting positions when you're out in the planes you're going to be doing a lot of it from the prone position slung and that's a i i really detest the idea of a you know a bipod carrying a bipod a field uh you know on a hunting trip that to me is a that's i just detest that i learned to shoot with a sling uh or learn to shoot just off hand whatever and if you'd learned to do if you learned to shoot as the military teaches uh to shoot you don't need to have a bipod so anyway that's another uh that's another uh story but um that's a consideration that you wanna uh keep in mind uh some of your heavy magnum calibers like for instance the 264 winchester magnum although it has been sold in 24 inch barrels you're really losing a lot of its whatever its advertised velocity is with 24 inch it really needs to have a 26 inch barrel that's a very very heavy barrel to be carrying a field and that's one of the reasons why it fell out of favor so many years ago that besides the fact that it was not kind to barrels so that's a planes that's a planes game rifle uh think about having a lightweight barrel that's long enough for the cartridge that you're using um but uh moving on to uh you know a woodland a woodland cartridge woodland cartridges you really don't need to even worry about barrel length of barrel weight i would suggest carrying the lightest the lightest of both combinations that you possibly can something you can get around the woods very easily something that swings without without getting involved with brush i'm talking about 18 inches to 20 inch barrel length and that's really all you need for the woods there's nothing wrong there's nothing wrong as a matter of fact with a 16 inch uh barrel for the woods virtually all your standard deer cartridges uh though they have lost significant velocity with a with a 16 or an 18 inch barrel from the standard uh from the standard velocities you really don't need to have full velocity remember you're in close you're in you're in at ranges that are you know 30 or 40 or 50 odds tops even if you're out to 100 yards so you're right where that cartridge still lives and breathes when it's out at 250 or 300 yards so if you can take if you can take down a you know a mule deer at 325 yards with that cartridge certainly by chopping four or five inches off of it and going into the woods for shooting a whitetail is no problem whatsoever because the terminal velocity is still the same don't be too concerned about you know don't don't be setting up your chronograph and saying gee my my seven millimeter row weight is only giving me 2600 feet per second well that's all you need you don't need to have anything more than that um that's that's absolutely perfect velocity for uh woodland hunting your determinant and your terminal velocities the ability to expand that bullet is still top notch at those at those uh distances so so that's all you need to have for that um it's not so much that you need to have light weight because you you because of why you're carrying it you know you're not at high altitude where breathing is difficult and everything but it's just very handy to have a rifle that you can you know some rifles like my old like my remington model seven i could carry that with the with at my height i could carry that with the the barrel facing down carrying it like a pistol uh at my side so it was very very handy to uh carry around all day like that so that's what you need to have when you're when you're shooting uh in the woodlands if you're having a just an all-purpose rifle that you want to be able to you know shoot in the woods or take occasionally out to uh you know a plane state or something for shooting handle a pronghorn antelope or a mule deer i would suggest really a standard 22 inch uh barrel uh you know a featherweight that's why the that's where the uh you know winchester model 70 featherweight was so popular for so many years because it's a great all-around uh companion so that's always that's all i have to say right now i'm so glad to be able to uh talk to you today about something like that and hopefully the sun will start shining so i can get back out so benny's doing quite well he's he's snuggled up on the floor here and he's just relaxing and he's taking a break for the day so and to all my patreon donors i really appreciate your uh your your help and uh we're going to really truly uh try to get out and do some shooting there's a couple there's a couple of things i really have had a hard time getting a hold of uh to assemble for instance i'm trying to assemble some different uh 2250s this it's just a caliber that's not available right now and uh speaking of armor calibers so anyway that's something we'll talk about again sometime soon is uh environment calibers i think i think there's um i think there's a lot to be said about that so thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe god bless

Channel: GunBlue490

Views: 31,054

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Id: 0862k_T-bVs

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022