Why do rifles have long barrels

And if you want a reference try "The bullet's flight by F. Mann" long out of print though. Look at the charts and you will see that bullet quality probably has more of an effect on accuracy than barrel length. This is due to shorter length barrels has less "barrel whip" than longer ones. A longer rifle barrel is not more accurate. The sight radius is longer with iron sights and not a scope which is better for the shooter to get a more accurate aim.

Increased accuracy in a longer rifle barrel is a myth. There are many factors that affect accuracy in a rifle but barrel length is not one. Many get accuracy confused with windage, bullet drop, and velocity. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Do longer gun's barrel improve accuracy? Ask Question. Asked 5 years ago. Active 1 year, 5 months ago. Viewed 52k times. Here there is an article about the subject The question is: What advantages and disadvantages come with differences in length of the barrel?

I have made up some hypotheses. I list them here. Improve this question. Santropedro Santropedro 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 5 5 bronze badges. You can extend the site base while keeping the barrel length the same. For an example, look at Rk 62 which has got a longer sight base than the AK on which Rk 62 is based.

It seems to me that the ak 47 has got the most far away sight. But I think I got what you are saying, you can control where the "sights" are independently of the barrel lenght, and yes, that's a very good observation, I forgot to say that in the post. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. A few practical considerations: Sight radius: For a gun without an optical scope, a longer sight base increases accuracy. Improve this answer.

Community Bot 1. OnStrike OnStrike 6 6 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges. In the US rifles must have a barrel longer than 16in, or the become classified as an evil "short barrel rifle". These require a lot of paperwork to legally obtain. On a rifle, a barrel shorter than 12in may not have any advantage, since some space will required for a shooter to grip the rifle anyway.

A longer barrel can add weight, and act as a stabilizer. First, velocity. Longer barrels generate higher velocity because the propellant burns more completely. However, there are diminishing returns with extra-long barrels, depending on cartridge, caliber and propellant.

It is often said we can expect a velocity change of about 20 to 25 fps per inch of barrel loss. At this writing, the longest barrels I own for modern cartridges are 26 inches. I could take a inch barrel, chronograph a load, and then hacksaw the barrel one inch at a time, recording velocity as I go. Uh, no. All we would learn is how much velocity was lost per inch with that cartridge, that load, in that barrel. Case design matters. Short, fat cartridges are more efficient than long, slender cases, and they tend to produce more velocity in shorter barrels.

The short, fat 6. The short magnums are more efficient than the belted magnums they emulate. Caliber relative to case also matters.

Over-bore capacity means you are burning too much powder down a too-small hole. It is, and always was, over-bore capacity. So are the 7mm Shooting Times Westerner and 7mm Rem. Ultra Mag. This is not the kiss of death, but it means you need longer barrels to burn all the powder.

Similarly, the Weatherby AccuMark pictured in the lead photograph that I used on a caribou hunt was chambered in q6. This very fast 6. Propellants vary widely in burning rates.

In a perfect world, the propellant burns and the gases expand, accelerating the bullet until the end of the barrel is reached. At this point all propellant is burned, and the bullet exits at its maximum velocity. But how often does this really happen? Now comes the wild card. Because of interior roughness or smoothness and variances in internal dimensions, seemingly identical barrels of like caliber and chamber vary considerably in the velocity they produce.

Aside from efficiency of case design, it should be obvious that a short cartridge needs less barrel than a long cartridge. Barrels for shorter cartridges thus have a bit more rifling and less chamber, right? Most factory ballistics are based on inch barrels. Most non-magnum cartridges do fine with inch barrels. Most magnum cartridges do well with inch barrels.

They may do better with inch barrels, but is there any game animal or target that will recognize a difference of fps? However, velocity loss usually increases per inch with barrels much shorter than 22 inches. My wife has a gorgeous Dakota 7mm with a inch barrel. The 7mm is efficient, and an inch means little. Longer barrels are not more accurate. Shorter, stiffer barrels tend to vibrate more consistently and are probably more accurate on average.

However, quality of barrel and bedding are far more important, so we will leave accuracy out of this discussion. Handling and handiness matter. Only rarely have I felt hampered by an extra-long barrel on a given rifle. My wife and one of my daughters are short, and they find long barrels unwieldy. This becomes noticeable in brush, with a longer barrel sticking up above their heads, and on uneven ground with the stock swinging down to ankle level.

Many readers will recall I had an accurate 8mm Rem. I also had an old Westley Richards. I used that long-barreled 8mm all over the place. The concept behind it was to wring out as much velocity as possible—basically, to carry a ton of energy to yards.

For sure I never even shot at any game quite that far, but that was the idea. Competition and sniper rifles almost always have barrels on the longish side. You want to keep your bullets supersonic Out There, and bullets from small cartridges like the. The same applies to sniper rifles, although here a balancing act is necessary.

These days, no self-respecting people-shooting rifle comes without a suppressor, so a barrel longer than 24 inches is ruled out. I like short barrels. Looking back, the rifles that have served me best have almost all had a rifle barrel length of 22 inches or less. From early tackdriving muzzleloaders to today's long-range game getters, these rifles have earned their reputations for hitting where hunters aim. Before far-reaching magnums, deer hunters shot whitetails up close—and they used these cartridges to do so.