.22-250 Barrel Length vs. Velocity

jhibbard24

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So thinking about rebarreling a .22-250 with a 20" or 22" barrel vs. a long and not quick enough 26" barrel. But my concern is with velocity and how much of a loss I am going to see. i plan on shooting a 52-53 gr bullet and out of a 26" barrel would guess velocities around 3850 fps. With 40 gr bullets i usually get velocities in the 4000-4100 fps range.
 
So thinking about rebarreling a .22-250 with a 20" or 22" barrel vs. a long and not quick enough 26" barrel. But my concern is with velocity and how much of a loss I am going to see. i plan on shooting a 52-53 gr bullet and out of a 26" barrel would guess velocities around 3850 fps. With 40 gr bullets i usually get velocities in the 4000-4100 fps range.
I have a striker with a 14" barrel in 22-250. I'd guess that at close to a worst case for that round. Win white box factories in 40 grain go 3500 fps out of it. A 55 win fmj with a start load of h4895(33gr.) goes 3000 fps. I really don't play with it to much lately; I may use it to roast some plarie dogs next summer if I'm not to busy elsewhere like I was this summer.
 
I remember an article from years ago where a writer took a rifle with a 30" barrel and cut the barrel off 1" at a time, recrowned it and chronographed the same load for each length. If memory serves me, he lost 40 fps for each inch he shortened it down to like 18". I've noticed the same thing when shooting the same load in rifles with different length barrels.
 
case volume in the 22-250 is about it at 24" of length. A 22" barrel will loose about 75fps to a 24" barrel max. But the 22" barrel should group better as it will be a little stiffer in identical contours. 3550fps is doable with a 55 grain bullet in a 24" barrel, and suspect the same bullet. Try H335 at about 34.5 grains with a 55 grain bullet.
gary
 
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