I’m interested in buying a 28” Sharps reproduction and putting a period accurate reproduction scope on it. Most Sharps are 30” or 32”.How much difference would one see in MOA at 200 yards at each of those barrel lengths (28, 30, 32) with identical ammunition and identical weather conditions? Just wanting to know what to expect.
>>62138868If you're using an optic, the difference should be zero. The reason longer guns are considered more accurate is because they're easier to shoot accurately because they have a longer sight radius, which is taken out of the equation when you put a scope on it.
>>62138893longer barrel=higher muzzle velocity=flatter shooting=easier to aim
>>62138907Which is also related to being easy to shoot accurately, not the size of the group at a given distance, unless you cut the barrel so short that the bullets drop below the sound barrier on the way to the target.
>>62138907how much does velocity differ between the barrel lengths?
>>62138907>longer barrel=higher muzzle velocityYou'd have a point if you were comparing, say, .300 Win Mag with .45 Colt. But the difference in point blank zero between a 28" and 32" barrel is not significant.
>>62138907>higher velocity Negligible. You're probably near a complete burn with 28" of barrel, let alone 30".>flatter shooting Not from the negligible velocity gain. Any sensation of the longer gun being "flatter" or "softer" is due to additional mass.
>>62138951depends on cartridge and other characteristics. it probably mattered a lot more with black powder than it will with smokeless powder; 28" might even be "too long" in that regard
>>62139056>it probably mattered a lot more with black powder than it will with smokeless powder;it does not. black powder builds pressure relatively fast compared to smokeless, especially compared to rifle propellants used in long barrels.
>>62139062how can that be true, when smokeless powder burns faster and more explosively? are you going by experience with heavy muzzleloading bullets?
>>62138951With .45-70 across 5 different loadings the difference of 10" was about 100 fps, and a 20" difference (revolver) was about 240 fps. Or something like that I ran my test five years ago and don't have my ballistic notes handy. So you could probably expect, in a .45-70, 10-12 fps variance/inch of barrel.
>>62139099>smokeless powder burns faster and more explosivelyIt doesn't. Black powder is a low explosive, even. Requiring a federal explosives license to buy more than 50 pounds.
>>62138907it’s also going to whip more and be more affected by any furniture or pressure points that bind the barrel. it’s also going to weigh a million pounds if you’re shooting offhand and have worse balance
>>62139099>are you going by experience with heavy muzzleloading bullets?umm. Yes (if nearly 600gr is heavy enough to be considered heavy).>when smokeless powder burns faster and more explosively?it does not. Nitrocellulose(and nitroglycerin/nitroguanadine) mixtures do not explode, they do not react fast enough to make a shockwave in their own bulk. Black powder can. it is the quintessential low explosive. >>62139192about what I'd expect, in the end, very little practical difference in point blank range and only an academic difference at long range.
>>62139413not saying I disagree with you but how come you can basically put as much black powder as you want into a rifle and not suffer any consequences
>>62139361You sound weak
>>62139361>it’s also going to whip more and be more affected by any furniture or pressure points that bind the barrel.the opposite would be true because there’s more steel to absorb the shock of the shot. You’d be getting *less* recoil.
>>62139710recoil and whip are two different things. you can look at size effect theory or antenna lengths to see what I mean. >>62139660anyone can hold a heavy gun but you will be more accurate with a lighter and better balanced rifle. this will also necessitate you holding the rifle farther out on the fore end which has been shown to cause accuracy problems even when bench shooting on many models
>>62139576because BP and smokeless burn and communicate the flame front fundamentally differently. Black powder sends the flame from grain to grain by little bits of the burning grains being ejected by the surface and impacting the next grain, igniting it. Smokeless ignites the next grain by a rush of very hot gassed moving through the propellant stack. The only way to effectively use a long barrel without BP choking its own burn is to have absolutely gigantic powder grains, like what was done with naval cannons with prismatic powder. if you load a muzzleloader to the muzzle with 4f powder, what happens is the flame front gets choked, it can't jump the flame up the powder stack fast enough to catch up with the powder being accelerated out the muzzle. if you load the same thing with 1f the grains burn so slowly you never get all that high of pressure (~10ksi). this has been demonstrated in videos numerous times.smokeless powders that are used in BP cartridges never have as much volume as the original BP load because NC is more energy dense and produces more gasses per unit weight/mass and is more strongly effected by confinement than the burn rate of BP.
>>62138868The same. You don't even need one full rotation to properly stabilize a bullet - look at snub nose revolvers that still manage to be accurate.
>>62138907To a point. Not in the cartridges OP is considering. Excessive bbl will actual give velocity loss due to friction, for all chamberings. Just a question of when it becomes excessive.
>>62138951BallisticsByTheInchSomething like 7.62x39 only loses ~200fps going from 18/16" to sub 9", IIRC5.56 can lose that from 20 to 16.
>>62139824NTA but I genuinely appreciate this post.
>>62139824cool, thanks. maybe I can watch that YouTube video on duplex loads after learning this
>>62138868For a Sharps rifle absolutely zero repeatable difference. Barrel length matters for velocity and harmonics. Harmonics are a joke on a rifle bedded like a Sharps and made before precise mass manufacturing was a thing. Velocity doesn't matter on a subsonic rifle that will never shoot flat enough to make ranging unimportant or be transonic.
>>62139710Whip doesn't mean what you think it does.
>>62138868with bp you will see quite a difference, if you want range go with 32 and that's quite short. I have a 37 inch barrel on my long range BP rifle.
>>62139824I saved this because it's so interesting. Thanks, anon.
>>62141039Why do bullshit artists like you post on the board, what is the fucking point in you spewing shit about things you know absolutely nothing about. What the fuck do you know about BP rifles or for that matter barrel harmonics. I doubt you have ever fired a BP rifle in your life.
>>62139347that's because the feds are retarded, not physics
>>62141368retard
