18.5" or 22" Barrel on Marlin .45-70?

[Kestrel]

Does anyone know (have experience with) if the shorter barrel of the Guide Gun hurts the performance much of the .45-70 over the 22" of the standard 1895 Marlin?

I have a Guide Gun (without ports) and am thinking of using it on wild pigs and black bear. I'm wondering If I should use the longer barrelled rifle.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[lilbiggun]

Steve
I dont see much of a difference. I have an 1895SS that was chopped to 18" and my wife has a 1895SS with the standard bbl. Sure I lost some velocity (not sure right off hand, havent run the same load through both guns yet with a chrony) but the amount isnt much. The ammo I shoot is a 400gr hard cast made by "the ammosmith" and he said it should be a hair over 1700 (take it for what its worth) with the 22" tube, I'm getting 1605fps through the 18" tube. I personnally like the shorter bbl better.

 

[JohnKSa]

Velocity differences will be minimal. Once that big bullet gets moving there's a lot of space behind it for the gases to fill so it doesn't accelerate as much down the barrel as smaller bore cartridge might.

If you're shooting iron sights the loss of sight radius might hurt you some.

 

[Art Eatman]

For your use, odds are that "handy" in the sense of getting off a quick shot is gonna be what's important. You'll mostly be working at fairly close range, so the dab of velocity loss won't matter. If the balance and feel is good, IMO that's what counts.

Art

 

[cratz2]

Yeah... of course you're gonna lose a bit of velocity. Maybe on an elk or moose hunt you might do ever so slightly better with the longer barrel but if you're wanting a quicker rifle to sling around, I would sweat 2.5" with a 45-70.

 

[Gordon]

I have a ported 18.5 guide gun a couple years old(stainless) and an OLD 1972 1895 with the 22" barrel and pistol grip . The old marlin kicks noticeably less and of course is MUCH quiter. The 300 federal loads went 1670 in guide gun and 1810 in 22"barrel. My load of varget behind 450 wfp (cast) does almost the same!

 

[JohnKSa]

Your old, Marlin kicks much less even though it's unported and developing around 500 MORE ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle than your ported Guide gun? That doesn't seem right...

Also, your numbers are quite surprising. Someone did an article awhile back in which they sawed off a long barrel 45-70 rifle an inch at a time chronographing every time the barrel was shortened. As I recall they found the difference worked out to as little as 10-15 fps per inch of barrel depending on the load and never more than about 20fps per inch of barrel. That also agrees with what I've heard others say about the 45-70...

You're seeing 40fps reduction per inch of barrel. That seems pretty high.

 

[Kahr carrier]

18.5 I like the shorter length myself.

 

[Gordon]

140fps difference= 500ft lbs? 22" barrel has microgroove rifling, and this gun is scoped with 2.5 weaver micro trac. I think the pistol grip helps manage recoil too. The same loads in a 16" contender are down almost another 100fps off 18"barrel so seems consistant.

 

[JohnKSa]

Oops--I used the 405 grain bullet weight.

300 grains @ 1810 -> 2182 ft/lbs
300 grains @ 1670 -> 1857 ft/lbs

Difference = 324 ft/lbs

 

[cratz2]

But a 405 Gr slug is absolutely going to completely penetrate a black bear every single time. Probably the same with hogs...

How completely do you need to penetrate a bear? The energy is only actual if transferred. If it goes through, it doesn't matter if it used 2500 ft/lbs or 3500 ft/lbs. It went completely through and didn't expand. Period.

Now on longer distances shots, I can see the added velocity helping a bit. But were talking pigs and bear and to me that doesn't usually mean 300 yard shots with a 45-70.