Problem with rifle barrel lenght

[caporal]

I everyone

Here my problem

I want to cut a barrel on a bolt action rifle to lighten & make the rifle more handy.

I know that if

i want to cut a barrel on a bolt action rifle i cannot go shorter than 18.5" EXCLUDING any muzzle brake or flash hider. right?

At 18.5" the rifle will kick more. So i will nee to install a muzzle brake. But if i install a muzzle brake the rifle will be longer, so i gain mostly nothing!

My idea is to cut an integral muzzle brake (vent holes and/or ports) then use this reamer:

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=5174&title=MUZZLE+BRAKE+REAMER

to remove the rifled portion of the muzzle.

So the muzzle brake wont add lengh or weight & it will be a part of the barrel not a threaded extension.

but WILL THE BARREL LENGHT CHANGE OR REMAIN THE SAME ACCORDING TO THE LAW????

i mean how the barrel lenght will be measure??

Total lenght (bolt face to muzzle)

or

Rifled lenght only (bolt face to the end of rifled portion)

I found no one yet who can answer me with certitude on that problems

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Larry"Caporal"Marcotte

 

[rodagra]

Barrel length is the distance from the bolt face to the end of the barrel not counting screw on attachments. Adding a brake adds nothing, cutting a brake subtracts nothing.


I would think it would be cheaper, faster, and much better to take it to a licensed gunshop, have it cut to whatever length you want and have it Magnaported. Magnaporting is reported to work well IF you can find a good shop to do it.

 

[RifleDude]

Barrel length is the distance from the bolt face to the end of the barrel not counting screw on attachments. Adding a brake adds nothing, cutting a brake subtracts nothing.


I would think it would be cheaper, faster, and much better to take it to a licensed gunshop, have it cut to whatever length you want and have it Magnaported. Magnaporting is reported to work well IF you can find a good shop to do it.

AFAIK, the law measures the barrel length from the breech face of the bolt to the end of the rifling at the muzzle end. Therefore, you'll gain nothing by removing the rifling rather than screwing on a muzzle brake. You'll end up with a restricted rifle

 

[canucklehead]

AFAIK, the law measures the barrel length from the breech face of the bolt to the end of the rifling at the muzzle end. Therefore, you'll gain nothing by removing the rifling rather than screwing on a muzzle brake. You'll end up with a restricted rifle

Actually, you'd end up with a PROHIBITED rifle. You can't make something restricted from non-restricted. It goes straight to prohibited. You CAN make a restricted into a non-restricted (in some cases), but never the other way around.

Cutting a barrel to less than 18" turns it prohibited if it's originally non-restricted. If it's already restricted, you can cut it down to whatever you want!

Make sense? It shouldn't!

 

[maynard]

If your barrel is say 3/4 in dia. with a .30 caliber hole and you cut 6 inches off you are only reducing the rifle weight by about .6316 lbs.
If you have to cut it down go with the MagnaPort.

 

[rodagra]

RifleDude said: "AFAIK, the law measures the barrel length from the breech face of the bolt to the end of the rifling at the muzzle end. Therefore, you'll gain nothing by removing the rifling rather than screwing on a muzzle brake. You'll end up with a restricted rifle."

I believe that bbl. length is measured to the end of the barrel--not to the end of the rifling. Otherwise a completely shot-out barrel would have a length of zero in the eyes of CFC. I have a smoothbore 44-40 barrel that will handle either 44-40 ball or shot cartridges, and that's the way it's measured.
In the family there is one rifle with a screw-on brake, and the legal length is to the end of the bbl. with the brake removed. There is also a MagnaPorted rifle (378 Wby.) which thus has no rifling in the last 2"+-, but the length is the same as before the work was done because the brake cannot be removed.