SmallCaliberCentral

I was looking at several posts here and one of them was about .204 varmint barrels. I bought a Tikka T3 Lite and I'm sure it doesn't have a varmint barrel but it looked a bit "thick" at the muzzle. So I got out several firearms and measured the barrel diameters at the muzzle and discovered the following:

Ruger M77 Ultralight .243 = .507" dia - .243" = .264" / 2 = .132" wall thickness at muzzle

Weatherby Vanguard .30-06 = .620" dia - .308" = .312" / 2 = .156" wall thickness at muzzle

Tikka T3 Lite .204 = .634" dia - .204" = .430" / 2 = .215" wall thickness at muzzle

Is this typical for .204 barrels or did Sako make it a bit thicker because it has a free floating barrel? Thanks.

Most barrels manufactures produce barrels with a specific outer contour (dia). The wall thickness is just a byproduct of the bullet diameter. Generally.

Because of the small diameter of the .204 generally the wall thicknesses will be greater.

Trent wrote:Because of the small diameter of the .204 generally the wall thicknesses will be greater.

That was my initial thought as well and would make sense if all muzzles were the same size. But of these three rifles, the smallest caliber has largest muzzle diameter and makes me think there's some other reason.