Difference in shooter accuracy?
While I believe there is zero difference among Ruger Mark III 22LRs of different barrel lengths attributable to barrel length, will there be a significant difference in shooter accuracy between a standard Mark III with 4.5-inch barrel and Mark III Target with 5.5-inch bull barrel?
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There will be after shooting the second or third quick clip. The thin barrel will string and heavy barrel wont.
the longer barrel will give you somewhat more velocity, meaning it will shoot flatter and harder.0 -
Hello Lance I agree with part of your opinion However I have been machine testing different brands of 22 Caliber target pistols for almost 40 years. Ammo is a big variable as well as lot number of even the same brand of ammo, One of the smallest 10 shot groups I ever got was from a light weight 4 inch barrel that fit High Standard. These barrels will interchange between frames and you can use one frame to test many different barrels . You could take 5 Rugers with one style barrel and another 5 Rugers with the second type of barrel and never come up with a test that would prove one style is BETTER then the other. NOW when it comes to sight radius and you shooting out of your hand Then the story will change. 0 -
+1 Perry Shooter
(No surprise there![:D])
Gil Hebard used to publish a neat little book on target shooting and one article contained quite a bit of data based on machine rest accuracy tests of a number of different pistols, barrel lengths and profiles. An interesting read if you can still find it.0 -
A few relevant points:
There is probably minimal/negligible difference in INTRINSIC accuracy between a 4 and 5.5 inch barrel. In other words, if you put two otherwise identical guns with 4 and 5.5 inch barrels into a machine rest and shot them, you'd see similar group sizes.
However, guns aren't shot by machine rests or robots. . .they're shot by imperfect human beings who need to align the sights and squeeze the trigger.
In *general* most shooters do better with longer barrels, because the longer sight radius makes sight alignment more precise. So all else being equal, in *practice* most shooters will shoot a 5.5" bbl more accurately, using iron sights.
How much better depends on the skill of the shooter and the type of shooting, but I do believe this is a "real" phenomenon, and all else being equal, the longer barrel will make a difference.
On bull vs non-bull barrels, yes, in theory thinner barrels will heat up faster and might lose accuracy more readily from fast shot strings, but practically speaking, this is much more of an issue with centerfire rifles (rather than .22 rimfires) since significantly more powder is being burned per shot, and the barrel has more length to expand/contract. If you are spitting out lead so fast that your barrel is becoming really hot, you're probably not concerned with pinpoint accuracy anyway.
Likewise, in theory, bull barrels are stiffer and should therefore deliver better accuracy due to decreased vibrations, but again in practice that's more of an issue with long rifle barrels than short pistol barrels, which are all relatively stiff compared to their length, and are all effectively "free floated".
In my opinion, the biggest real world advantage of a bull barrel in a pistol is its increased WEIGHT, which provides two advantages. The lesser of the two is decreased muzzle flip for rapid fire, as the heavier barrel reduces flip (and recoil, I suppose).
The biggest advantage to a bull barrel in a pistol is that the increased weight adds inertia to the gun out along the front sight. In short, it reduces "wobble" or "wiggle" and helps plant the gun and sights in place for accurate shooting, *especially one handed*.
This is the same reason why competitive target shooters like heavier guns, and in some cases will actually add barrel weights to their gun, or things like tungsten guide rods. . .these just make the gun sit still for more accurate shooting. The more weight on the barrel, the more the barrel resists movement. Obviously, you then hit a compromise between gun weight and shooter fatigue.
The next question (which wasn't asked) is whether or not a 7 inch barrel is even more accurate than a 5.5 inch one. I think for some shooters it actually will be, for the same reasons: greater sight radius, and more weight. The flip side is that once you get out to a 7+ inch barrel (again, especially one handed) you start to see more sight "wiggle", and some shooters find this unnerving.
Also, longer barrels increase the issue of "followthrough". Basically, the longer the barrel, the more time the bullet remains in the gun after the trigger is pulled, and the more chance any movement by the shooter is likely to throw off the shot after firing.
This becomes more of an issue with long barrels and slow bullets (eg .38 or .45 target loads that may only be going 700 fps). So in that particular case, longer barrels may not necessarily be better.0
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