204 short barrel?

[JeffG]

Has anyone had experience with short barrels in 204, (16"-18" )?What were the adverse/positive effects vs, the more typical 22-24" barrels?
Thanks, and Merry Christmas,
Jeff

[tonyb]

Hi Jeff , first of all ..... merry xmas to you to ,
I have not had used a short barrel 204 but i guess the affects would be a bit of a loss in velocity ( they reckon 1 inch of barrel is worth 100 feet per second ) , maybe you would have to use a slightly faster burning rate powder cause i am led to beleive that the powder burnes as it goes up the tube so there may be a bit of unburnt powder residue in a short barrel.
As for accuarcy well i dunno I suppose if the projectile is stableized with the correct twist rate there shouldnt be a problem, some of the other members will know , actually when you think about it ...... a short barrel 204 with a low power scope , light weight and easy to chuck up to ya shoulder would be good ,
hope you find the answers your looking for .....
cheers , Tony.

[kenbrofox]

tonyb,
My very 1st of five 204s was a Ruger stainless synthetic with a skinny pencil like barrel 20" long as it came from the factory. It would shoot well under 1 moa with factory ammo,, but the barrel warmed very quickly when testing, which was not a problem when hunting as i'm not a volume shooter. The muzzle blast was exessive compared to a longer barrel and i sold it because there wasn't enough meat on the barrel to thread for a moderator. Could have altered the moddy but chose to change the rifle. I never shot this over my chrony so have no figures.
Regards Ken.

[Joe O]

Hii Jeff.Welcome.
Try out this info from Bullberry.

http://www.bullberry.com/204Rugerdata.html

[tonyb]

Well that blows the 100 fps per inch of barrel theory

[JeffG]

Well Thanks for that link JoeO, that's exactly what I wanted. TonyB, even at the loss of 50fps/inch over the total test, it is a significant velocity loss for this caliber known for it's speed. "Muzzle blast was pulling things off the shelf 30' away"(!!!). I hope I don't regret just buying a 16.5" barrel. I think I will stick with the faster powders for my trials.

Thanks for the replies and welcomes!
Jeff

[OldTurtle]

For reasonably short range shooting, I don't think you will find much in the way of negative effects relative to trajectory. If you stretch out your distance, that is where I think problems in accuracy will start to show up... I'm basing this on what my upper builder told me several years ago when I had my custom upper built....I had initially thought about a shorter barrel and he convinced me that 22" was the shortest I wanted the barrel for shooting Prairie Dogs at longer ranges...

I believe Remington started out offering 18" barrel .204s in their Predator series and from what I've read on another forum, think they have dropped that line and only offer the longer barrels in the .204, probably due to complaints on the accuracy, but I'm only surmising on this..I do know that the .204 round will heat up a lighter weight barrel pretty quickly, even in the longer variety...

In a postal match on this forum a few years ago, I was forced by the weather (due to the range shutting down because of lightning) to shoot a pretty fast group with a stock Savage with a sporter barrel, using factory ammo, and the group cost me a better place in the match...