2013 Tube

[Guest]

This years Roberts winner uses a short barreled 2013 so they can`t be all bad

Hmm yes, do you know why he shots with the shorter barrel. I asked him and he said because with the tube off it fits in a smaller box. Before that he had a standard barrel but with a short tube. About 5 cm's. I asked him why he chose such a short one as everyone else was using longer tubes. Guess what, it fit exactly in the box he had at the time.

 

One thing Phil did tell me is that his short barrell shoots wonderfully from a rest but occasionally he gets big flyers when shooting from the shoulder.

[Guest ilovemybed]

Does a short barrel significantly effect the centre of mass? Could that be why he finds it more sensitive to flyers? A similar muscle twitch might result in more barrel movement in the shorter rifle than the other, mightn't it?

[Guest]

Does a short barrel significantly effect the centre of mass?  Could that be why he finds it more sensitive to flyers?  A similar muscle twitch might result in more barrel movement in the shorter rifle than the other, mightn't it?

That is a possiblilty. I have my own theories that flyers with short barrels are caused by inconsistent recoil, resulting in the bullet leaving the barrel in a slightly different place. I explained it in this thread. I might be wrong I might be right, just my theory.

[Guest]

I agree that if the recoil pattern changes then the position of the tube with respect to the bullet path will change, and this will affect its point of impact.

 

However ... if you take two rifles, one with a 15" barrel and 15" tube, the other with a 30" conventional barrel .. the path of the bullet is determined by the path as it leaves the muzzle, and with the tube/barrel combination, the tube has an effect too, but it is more weakly coupled to the bullets path than the barrel was .. if you imagine a situation where they both pass the 15" mark with the barrel perfectly still, then some random wobble occurs after that, the standard rifle will shoot wider groups than the tubed rifle, simply because the bullets path is more tightly coupled to the rifle during this wobbly phase ... what I'm trying to say is I can see what you are saying that a change in recoil pattern will have an effect, but the same mechanism will apply to a normal rifle and have more effect.

 

Looked at another way, you are just switching from 'tightly coupled' to 'loosely coupled' at some point along the bullets path down the gun, I don't particulalry see that making thats switch earlier should cause the groups to be worse .. to me the signifiant fact is that the bullet shuld be released from the muzzle when the muzzle is most stable, and I suggest that a heavy barrel is more stable than a light one. If you extendd that tomr Scanlons occasional 8's .... the bullet got so far down the gun, left the muzzel and then ther was some more barrel movement due to some sort of shooter error .. yes I agree that this will probabl still affect the path of the bullet because the tube is moving now, but I thnk it would have been *worse* if the moevement had been the same and the last 8" had been barrel .. that would surely have moved the bullet even more, no?

[Guest]

I kind of see where your coming from and I don't know the exact answer. My theory does fall down because alot of people do shoot well with a long barrel and extension tube. One thing that is very obvious on the international stage is that very few people still shoot with the short barrel. While there is a fair mixture of long barrel and long barrel with extension tube. It seems a good survey to use as a guide. If I get the chance I tally things up at the next .22 international I attend. Neil might be at one first though.

[Guest]

I'm sure the arguments over the short barrel thing will go on for sometime. The idea of 'shorter lrelease times seems fair enough, but as you say, they do seem to have fallen out of favour in the upper echelons.

 

I think the one thing most people are agreed on is that extending the sightbase makes focussing a bit easier ... the downside is the extra weight and the windage ... I suspect the easier focussing is more useful as you get older ... ?? I guess its a question of weighing up the pros and cons .. sigh. as usual there is no "correct" answer, just personal decisions