Heavy Barrel??

[Big Dog]

Guys I need some help.

 

As I don't envisage walking big distances to shoot vermin and I hope to shoot target too, I think a heavy barrel rifle will suit my shooting best.

 

So guys, what is out there in heavy barrel rifles?:o??

 

Some considerations:

1. I am right handed but shoot from left shoulder (right handed action a must)

 

2. Would prefer an ambidextrous stock (because I prefer a right handed action if they have cheek pieces they suit right handed shooters)

 

3. .222

 

4. Must be bolt action

 

5. Rifle price £500 - £800 range

 

What scope would you recommend for you choice of rifle and why??

I have done some research and seem to be getting a lot of right cheek piece butts. Although I could shoot these I think if you are spending big£££ it is silly to have something that just don't look right when in use

 

Thanks guys

[Browning]

Hi BD,

 

I don't much experience of heavy barrel rifles, my only one was a Remington VSSF in .22-250, and I couldn't fault it for vermin control.

 

Scopes however are different....I've been shooting, on and off, for over thirty years, and looked through more scopes than I care to remember. This year I upgraded to a Swarovski, 2.5-10 x 44, with a 30mm tube, atop my Tikka T3 .243, and this scope is absolutely the dogs b*ll*cks.

 

Not cheap, but you get what you pay for.

[dunganick]

heavy barrels do not mean greater accuracy

 

you can get just as good accuracy out of a standard barrel, so just to get that one cleared up, however it would be true to say that a heavy barrel is easier to find an accurate load for and will not move point of zero (generally) if you stick a silencer on it.

 

in your price range i would imidiatly without a shaddow of a doubt go for a sako 75, the action is in my opinion the best action ever made, it is fautlessly reliable and you will be hard pushed to find anything wrong with it. i would say from experiance, dont get a heavy barreled gun unless you get a tactical stock, it wont ballence nicely, although it will shoot nicely off a bench.

 

my father owns a couple of 75's with silencers, the barrels have not been shortened and with the silencers it is slightly foreend heavy. (one is in 222 and its a hunter) however i have also tried a 75 varmint, with heavy barrel, that was in 6mm BR, it was a lovely gun to shoot off a bench, but the barrel was so heavy it was completely unsuable standing (which is a shot you must be able to pull off to be succesful in the field)

 

i would agree with the previous post, swaro make the best optics, if you buy a 75 ,a swaro ontop will look the part, both of my fathers sako's (and most of the other guns) wear a 8x56, and its a very nice bunny and fox gun/scope combo, the 222 will be getting a 6-24x50 soon (swaro again. )

 

once you have bought a sako and a swaro you will never want to use anything else. and to give you an idea of the accuracy, as i said neither my fathers rifles have heavy barrels, and we use them in the club bench rest comps, often coming 1st and 2nd over things like remmy 700's with the accuracy international chasis system. they are a formidable setup and one commanly used by alot of varmint controllers at my club with its small turn out of about 15, there are at least 15 rifles of this combination of sako and swaro. gives you an idea of how good they are.

Edited July 18, 2005 by dunganick

[Big Dog]

Dunganick

 

I am told that a hunting rifle in .222 , will reduce accuracy after about 3-5 shots. This I find dissapointing and that is why I feel the Heavy Barrel is a better option. I will be able to put of about 10-15 shots b4 accuracy is badly put off.

 

Is this true?

 

Have I been misinformed??:lol:?

 

I can't affort to get the mix and choice wrong. What I buy I will be stuck with for a long time due to the money outlay, so I want to get it wright :o

[Browning]

BD,

 

One other thing I forgot to mention.....make sure you get a good set of mounts

for your selected scope. Cheap and nasty mounts can ruin the accuracy of even the best rifle/scope setup.

[dunganick]

you havent been misinformed as such, however it is not true to that extent with a 222, its a small round that dosent make the barrel that hot, again reffering to my fathers pair of 75's, the 222 will do about 15 shots before the barrel starts to give you stringing, unlike the 6.5 which will only do about 7 or 8 shots.

 

it is not really an issue, as you will never fire this many shots that close together ( if you leave it 30secs, after each shot its fine for about 20 shots!), and if you do fire this many rounds it will be in a competition, and i dont know about you, but all my competitions the bull is about 10cm's, and even with the stringing it is very close to sub 1/4MOA so not going to affect your result. And in the field the closest you get to sustained fire is a follow up shot, but you then give the rifle a long rest before its next shot, as you are unlikely to see something that soon.

 

basically, it is true that you get stringing, but unless your shooting bench rest with a timer under 5 mins it is no issue at all. i have encountered stringing with the 6.5 to be an issue in 10 shot bench rest comps, but i just take my time now, ironically this has the heaviest barrel out of all the centerfires we have (being the smallest round avalible in the largest action sako make, means little hole compared to the barrel size)

 

with the 222 it will be fine, if you still havent decided in 4 weeks( i'm on holiday from next saterday) i will shoot some cards and demonstrate how slight the accuracy change is.

 

concerning mounts, if you buy a sako you have to use their amazingly good mounts so you dont need to worry about that.

[Big Dog]

Thanks guys for the tips

 

Browning on the scope stuff I would never have thought of the mounts

 

Dunganick I would love to see the group of the .222 from the range if you are willing to do that? The number of shots, time spent and range - great.

 

Have a good holiday

 

Does this mean that the post in the forum will stop for a month now that you are gone

 

Take care

[dunganick]

yeh im going to have to let you guys fight it out between yourselves, what will you do??? probably all get along much better

 

i will try and get those groups for you, they will have to be 200 yard ones, as i have a range day booked down at bisley after my holiday to practice for a competition.

[JRDS]

Just to throw one in consider a Cooper Varmint. Medium Heavy Stainless Match barrel, glass bedded with a match trigger they shoot like a dream. I had a Tikka 223 but sold it to buy a nine year old single shot Cooper Varmint in 223 and haven't regretted it for a minute as it shoots fantastically and will have three shots virtually touching at 100 yards of a bipod and rear bag. The confidence this gives is great. The basic Varmint is around £900 but worth every penny. Don't be put off by the fact it's a single shot as it's all you need if you do your bit and lets face it your quarry tends not to hang around once you have taken your shot. They are pretty quick to reload anyway if you have a spare round to hand. They may not be mainstream or well known over here but they are fabulous rifles.

[hawkeye]

heavy barrels do not mean greater accuracy

 

you can get just as good accuracy out of a standard barrel, so just to get that one cleared up, however it would be true to say that a heavy barrel is easier to find an accurate load for and will not move point of zero (generally) if you stick a silencer on it.

 

in your price range i would imidiatly without a shaddow of a doubt go for a sako 75, the action is in my opinion the best action ever made, it is fautlessly reliable and you will be hard pushed to find anything wrong with it. i would say from experiance, dont get a heavy barreled gun unless you get a tactical stock, it wont ballence nicely, although it will shoot nicely off a bench.

 

my father owns a couple of 75's with silencers, the barrels have not been shortened and with the silencers it is slightly foreend heavy. (one is in 222 and its a hunter) however i have also tried a 75 varmint, with  heavy barrel, that was in 6mm BR, it was a lovely gun to shoot off a bench, but the barrel was so heavy it was completely unsuable standing (which is a shot you must be able to pull off to be succesful in the field)

 

i would agree with the previous post, swaro make the best optics, if you buy a 75 ,a swaro ontop will look the part, both of my fathers sako's (and most of the other guns) wear a 8x56, and its a very nice bunny and fox gun/scope combo, the 222 will be getting a 6-24x50 soon (swaro again. )

 

once you have bought a sako and a swaro you will never want to use anything else. and to give you an idea of the accuracy, as i said neither my fathers rifles have heavy barrels, and we use them in the club bench rest comps, often coming 1st and 2nd over things like remmy 700's with the accuracy international chasis system. they are a formidable setup and one commanly used by alot of varmint controllers at my club with its small turn out of about 15, there are at least 15 rifles of this combination of sako and swaro. gives you an idea of how good they are.

Got to disagree with you there nick you seem very knowledgeble for some one your age but when i was going for my .17hmr i was going to get the standard barrel, until one of the people that work in my local gun shop advised me to go for the heavy barrel as it was more accurate.

 

HE explained that the barrels vibrate when fired and the heavy barrel vibrates less than the standard so they are more accurate.

this from someone who has been an established international shooter for England for quite a number of years.

I did not know this at the time told later by someone else i dont think he shoots internationally know ??

So sorry mate got to go with the older version.

Edited July 19, 2005 by hawkeye

[dunganick]

fair play, your welcome to disagree, and infact your not really lol let me explain

 

he is right, but only for the reasons i highlighted above, yes barrels resonate, however every barrel does this, this does not not make it inaccurate, it simply decides the point of impact. this resonance is the key to an accurate load, if you can get the correct resonance through a combination of bullet weight speed and twist rate then the barrel will resonate in a manner that means each bullet is spat out ontop of each other.

 

by having a barrel you reduce this resonance, which means, should the barrel come into contact with something that changes the resonance, say for example you used a tree as a rest and accidently rested the barrel on a branch (note do not do this as a rule of thumb) then the point of impact would be effected only slightly, however if you repeated the shot using a standard weight barrel you would find the POI would move more substantually, so in that sense yes its more accurate, but its not really in the real sense of the term. this also applies with silencers, but even then the point of impact will still move slightly.

 

the only way that you could acctually say heavies are more accurate is the ease at which a heavy barrel will get a resonance that works well with a load, but as with any rifle/bullet/twist rate combo, it can be wrong, but in my experiance with heavy barrels, it either shoots very tight groups or throws them everywhere, where as you can get a halfway house using a standard barrel.

 

but my point is after all this long winded explanation, a heavy barrel will not shoot any better than a standard, its just how easily you get it to shoot that well.

 

standard barrels take a bit of load development to get a very good load, where as you can normally get a heavy to shoot very nicely after only a few load changes.

 

quite simply, any mashed one hole group is just as small as the next, ive won bench rest comps with a 30 year old brno in 22 hornet with a 7x50 meopta standard weight barrel, its a cheap bit of kit, its not even free floated, and it beat a 243, chambered in remmy 700 with accuracy internation chasis kit heavy barrel into 2nd, amoungst other guns.

 

at my club there is 1 sako varmint (heavy barrel model) to about 15 sako hunters (standard barrel), it says something for the accuracy of the setup, there are several ex gunsmiths at my club who fell fowl to the pistol ban, and they are serious shooters, i have seen one of their homes, he has a gun room, with several walls devoted to the storage of alot of rifles, he would not buy several of these rifles if they didnt deliver the goods

[fullbore]

Its not just heat dissipation that the heavy barrels work best at its also barrel harmonics, i.e less barrel vibration when a shot is fired My T3 223 is heavy barrelled and the difference it makes in carrying it around is negligible but a full mag in the same hole speaks for itself oh the scope is a Leupold variX III 4.5 -14 x50

[Big Dog]

Fullbore sorry tosound dumb but I not sure I fully understand what you are saying above. It seems to be good but could you spell it out a wee bit better for me. Are you saying HB better?? What is barrel harmonics???

 

Thanks

[the last engineer]

this may help Big Dog .

 

 

http://rifle-accuracy.com/harmonics.htm

 

about as easy as it gets with out getting out of this world

 

 

Martin

[jonno 357]

Want a heavy Barrel Big Dog ?

 

What about one of these ?

 

Don't think they do them in triple 2

 

Who big is your budget ?

 

http://www.nesika.com/rifles.htm

 

Jonno

Edited July 20, 2005 by jonno 357

[dunganick]

take a look also at a company i believe are called kowa ? i recal that they do a sako/tikka action rip off for a little over 500 and it is heavy barreled, but not sure if it is in 222, i think its just 223 and 22-250

[Hunter Gatherer]

i belive the company is called howa

 

something like this? HOWA