Opinions on Remington Mdl 700 VS SF II in .204 and Savage 12 line

T

TG78

New member
The model 700 Remington and most of the Remingtons in the .204 lineup have 26 inch heavy contour barrels, and I am wondering if that is a bit much. I have read multiple articles stating that the optimum barrel length for a .204 is 23 inches yet Savage and Remington commonly run long 26 inch barrels with the Remy's running lighter on the total weight. I have also read multiple articles stating that typically a little shorter barrell (not under 18) is better for accuracy as the bullet spends less time in it; I won't go into the details but that makes me wonder why Savage and Remington market their long range varmint rifles with such long barrels. I am familiar with a few bench shooters that fire out of a 20 inch barrel. What is your opinion.

This will be a long range P-dog gun. For those of you familiar with my other postings, I have decided to go with the .204 for P-dogs and load my 25-06 down for the yotes instead of trying to make a bench gun fill the role of a bush coyote gun as well.
 
Lots of opinions on this. I think the point blank shooters use the shorter barrels mostly to make weight restrictions. Shorter barrels are stiffer than the longer ones of the same diameter, however the longer barrels "generally" give you more speed.
 
Here is some of the test data that I found


So on to the performance velocities:

24 inch barrel
Shot 1 4042 fps
Shot 2 4078 fps
Shot 3 4058 fps
Shot 4 4037 fps
Shot 5 4032 fps
Average 4049 fps
Spread 46 fps

23 inch barrel
Shot 1 4034 fps
Shot 2 4049 fps
Shot 3 4063 fps
Shot 4 4056 fps
Shot 5 4071 fps
Average 4055 fps
Spread 37 fps


22 inch barrel
Shot 1 4029 fps
Shot 2 4016 fps
Shot 3 4043 fps
Shot 4 4029 fps
Shot 5 4051 fps
Average 4034 fps
Spread 35 fps

21 inch barrel
Shot 1 3995 fps
Shot 2 3977 fps
Shot 3 3999 fps
Shot 4 3985 fps
Shot 5 4001 fps
Average 3991 fps
Spread 24 fps


20 inch barrel
Shot 1 3966 fps
Shot 2 3994 fps
Shot 3 3976 fps
Shot 4 3971 fps
Shot 5 3962 fps
Average 3974 fps
Spread 32 fps

19 inch barrel
Shot 1 3837 fps
Shot 2 3863 fps
Shot 3 3849 fps
Shot 4 3877 fps
Shot 5 3871 fps
Average 3859 fps
Spread 40 fps


18 inch barrel
Shot 1 3782 fps
Shot 2 3821 fps
Shot 3 3849 fps
Shot 4 3779 fps
Shot 5 3811 fps
Average 3808 fps
Spread 70 fps

17 inch barrel
Shot 1 3799 fps
Shot 2 3776 fps
Shot 3 3760 fps
Shot 4 3801 fps
Shot 5 3784 fps
Average 3784 fps
Spread 41 fps


16 inch barrel
Shot 1 3728 fps
Shot 2 3668 fps
Shot 3 3654 fps
Shot 4 3694 fps
Shot 5 3705 fps
Average 3690 fps
Spread 74 fps

15 inch barrel
Shot 1 3615 fps
Shot 2 3551 fps
Shot 3 3516 fps
Shot 4 3540 fps
Shot 5 3519 fps
Average 3548 fps
Spread 100 fps


14 inch barrel
No dependable data
 
I'm just guessing since I've seen both up close and I own a vs sf II the weight difference isn't much and the remington maybe lighter due to the fluting being deeper than that of the savage just my .02 if I had to choose between the two to buy and money was no object I'd go with the remington hands down!!!
 
Quote:
I'm just guessing since I've seen both up close and I own a vs sf II the weight difference isn't much and the remington maybe lighter due to the fluting being deeper than that of the savage just my .02 if I had to choose between the two to buy and money was no object I'd go with the remington hands down!!!



The fluting will remove ~2 ounces at best.

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You can, to certain degree, compensate for barrel length with burn rate.

As far as mfg specs. Better just take your own scale and figure it out. In case you haven't noticed how advertising hype plays into everything, just take a look at ballistic coefficients given by two different manufacturers of a very similar bullet.......
 
Cornstalker--they vary from spec weights that much huh.

I am not concerned about the weight as much as initially being a little confused why both lines would have such long barrels, but if that is what both companies are touting as their long range accurate rifles and they both have a history of putting out factory tack drivers then that is fine for me.
 
The longer barrel does several things that are good: it makes the gun a little muzzle heavy which reduces muzzle climb; it does add more velocity(barrels differ along with caliber); for a dog gun, the extra barrel length gets the muzzle blast away from our head; if for what ever reason, you want to re-chamber, you have enough barrel to do so.

For a dog gun, getting the muzzle blast away from your head is a major consideration. Those short barrels on a dog towns get old after a while.

I used my old Bench rest barrels for a while on dog towns...glory be, the muzzle blast was awful. For shooting p. dogs, I like long barrels, the longer the better for the above reasons.

When you read about the shorter barrels being more accurate, you have to remember that it takes a very experienced Benchrest shooter to tell the diffence; he would have to know how to read wind flags and have very disciplined bench techniques. I have had Custom 22 PPC's and minimum spec chambered 223's with 28" unturned blanks with completely free floated barrels in Rem 700's groups in the 1's...yes, 223's. It ain't supposed to be so. Rem 700's are not supposed to be stiff enough to support a barrel that large either. When these guys are talking about the shorter tubes being more accurate, they are talking about guns that are shooting more groups less than 0.100 vs shooting groups in the 0.135 range.

These kinds of considerations are not even applicable to the average shooter. Perhaps 1 in 10,000 shooters could tell the difference in how a rifle shoots with a 28" barrel and then have it cut back to 22", good or bad. Then the 1 in 10,000 shooters would have to be shooting in a Warehouse.

The only thing that applies is if you like short, then get short.

I suppose that Rem had to do like Ruger and Savage. The longer heavier barrels reduce recoil somewhat, which is a major selling point. The Reduction in recoil allows you to see your bullet impacts, which sells guns big time.
 
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