.22lr barrel length.

[RicW 67]

We have been getting a lot of enquiries about the "best" barrel length for .22lr lately. I have done my research so here goes.

 

The powder charge in a .22 subsonic is consumed in 10" of barrel. I once had a .22 Walther target pistol with an 8" barrel and it had a little bit of kick and flash, but a 10" barrel shoots dead flat. Leave a bit of margin for error and a 12" barrel is all you need. Rimfire Magic sell a 12.5" carbon fibre barrel which seems ideal. Legal minimum is 12" so you can get it recrowned if need be and still be legal.

 

But! Supersonics need more barrel to burn the charge. More to the point is that .22 barrels are "choked". The bore is narrowed towards the muzzle, which increases accuracy with lead bullets. If you use jacketed supersonics you will get excessive wear in the rifling and loss of accuracy.

 

Where did the idea arise that you need 20" or longer for best accuracy? I put this down to two main factors. The use of glass sights is quite recent. If you are shooting over iron sights, the longer barrel gives a longer sight radius, between rear and foresights. That means that a smaller shift in the line of the sights is needed to change the POA. Imagine the difference between a pistol with a 4" sight radius and a rifle with a 24" radius!

 

The other point is that with iron sights a long barrel enables the shooter to focus his eye on the foresight and the target at the same time. Serious target shooters use 28" barrels with 15" sleeves to extend the focus range. But how many field shooters really need 0.5MOA at 100 meters with a .22lr?

 

Ric

[SportingShooter 0]

Good clear post Ric

[Fidgety 8]

I get muzzle flash with my 16 inch (?) CZ 452 with a sak mod on, it also appears to be noisier than the my chum's .22 with a longer barrel and the same mod.

If I get the chance, I'll try both at range.

Interesting post RicW