Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .257 Roy and barrel length

Should 24" barrels be even worth considering with the .257 Roy? I mean, why bother with all that powder capacity if you do not want to take advantage of every FPS the cartridge can deliver.

Any first hand experience with a 24" vs. 26" barrel over a chronograph?

FWIW,
The Weatherby Accumark has a 26" barrel.
My go to load in the 257 Roy is 100 gr partitions over a 73 gr. of IMR 7828. Using a Shooting Crony at 10' from the muzzle I get +/- 3650 fps.
Shoots flat, hits hard, kills stuff DRT.
I've thought a couple times about buying a sub-moa, but, did not want a 24" barrel. Prolly only give up 100 fps, but IMHO the main reason to own the 257 Roy, is velocity. Otherwise, a 25-06 or a 257 Bob AI will do.
GWB

MY friends and I built Five 257 Roys with barrels from 24" to 28". All were 3 groove SS liljas with 1 in 10 twist.

Shooting moly coated 115 berger VLDs with 74-75.5 grs of RL-25:

3575 for the 24" barrel
3625 for the 26"
3685 for the 28" barrel.

I know this sounds too fantastic but for what ever reason the 3 groove combined with the minimal bearing surface Berger and moly did it. All five rifles shoot bugholes.

My friend with the 24" barrel had the entire rifle built to minimize weight. It weighs 6 3/4 lbs with a 3.5-10 x 40 leupold! He had the model 700 receiver and bolt machined and put the package into an edge stock with talley lw alum rings. He says he has other rifles but only uses this one when big game hunting. To date he has taken 4 mule deer, 6 elk and 1 javelina. He says there is no need to have a 257 Roy with a longer barrel.

I'd say if you already have a 24" barrel chambered in this Roy go for it.

I have a rem SPS in a McM Game Scout and a 26" barrel that I love. I want to get my son a 257 Roy and would consider a Vanguard MOA but can't get past the 24" barrel. This is for a designated beanfield rifle.

I'm doing 24". Someday.

Never missed a shot and said 'Gee, I would have made that shot with an extra 2" of barrel'


I don't have a flipping clue what purpose a rifle has other than hitting what I want to hit with it.

I've had both and the difference in velocity was negligible, around 40-60 fps.

Damn I hate your succinct logical responses.

Seen lots of guys crow about their chrono readings that couldn't hit a beer bottle at 400 yards.

Guessing if chrono readings were the most important thing to look for I'd be slumming a 30"+ tube, but that I ain't never hit a target with chrono readings.

Just a thunk.

I know building for balance/portability/handiness is out of vogue but it's really a good place to be.

I'm getting 3,640ft/s with 73gr of RL22 and 100gr TTSX out of my 24" Vanguard

Several years ago I handled a Winchester pre64 M70 in 257R that
had been rechambered to 257WBY, and the barrel had been cut to
20".

My 24" Vanguard was around the 3580 fps with 100gr ballistic tips.

I had a Vanguard for a while. Super-accurate with 100 TSX's and 75 grains of Ramshot Magnum at about 3550. When sighted-in 2" high at 100 the bullets were still about an inch high at 300 and about 5" low at 400, and would group into 1/2 MOA for three shots.

I didn't see what another 2" of barrel would get me, aside from bragging about chrono readings, so when I ordered a NULA in .257 Wby. I also had it fitted with a 24" barrel. It does just about the same things with TTSX's.

Sounded interesting, 'til you got to the 20" part!

..........................Don`t have a 257 Bee...Ok! So ya lose about 20-30 fps of velocity for every inch of shorter barrel length or 40 to 60 fps going with the 24"er instead of the 26" barrel.

Realistically, ya think that is going to make any bit of difference in the field?

This business that certain if not all magnum rounds should be considered only if their barrel lengths are 24" or longer is ludicrous. There is the rifle to consider too if not more so which is overlooked.

Along with a 48"+ long 28" tubed 338/378 Accumark and a 40.5" 20" tubed 375 Ruger Alaskan, I also have a quicker and handier compact 16.5" barreled 300 WSM Ruger Frontier that loses on average 4.5% in velocity to the 24" barrels I`ve chrony`d side by side with using the same identical reloads. Losing 4.5% of overall speed from a tube 7.5" shorter. For certain terrains, that shorter 35.5" rifle serves its purposes extremely well. And from that shorty rifle, I still have the power of a 24" barreled 30-06 and then some.

Wouldn`t be concerned in the least with shooting or hunting with a 257 Bee that "only" had a 24" barrel especially if one happens to like a particular rifle chambered in that round with a 24" barrel.

No game animal will ever know the difference anyway. And if certain folk wish to stereotype or associate magnum rounds with longer barrels only, feeling that somehow they are getting velocity cheated by not having a longer barrel, then that is their problem as well as their own choice.

For certain needs and purposes imo, go after the rifle first followed by the ballistic performance one desires and then everything else should fall right in line.

I had a stainless Vanguard with a 24 inch BBL and it was super accurate and shot 100 TSX's into 1/2 MOA if I did my part at about 3600 fps. I now have a Rem 700 action with a 26 inch Pac Nor 5 groove BBL that shoots into 1/2 MOA at about 3700 fps. They both killed animals DRT very well.

Ahhh!!! It's a zombie!

I split the difference and went 25"

For what it's worth, that almost identicle to what my 25-06AI does with 60 grains of RL22 from a 26" barrel.

Muzzle blast has more/less effect on different people and it leads to trigger jerk for the sensitive types. Shorter barrels bring blast closer to your face, however I don't know if 2" will make a difference.

For a bean field rifle, I would have a longer barrel and a walking gun, 24" would fit the bill for most.

My two Roy custom rifles had Sendero weight barrels, fluted 26" Pac NOr 3 groove with short freebore. I had a Vias muzzle break installed on the rifle and saw the bullet hit on every animal. Since my rifles were set up as powder/gas line rifles, I had 6x24 scopes on them. At the bullet's impact, I could see the water vapor fly off the animal, bullet exit the animal and impact what ever was behind the animal, and the animal's body contort with instant collapse. I shot 100g Hornady Flat base bullets with a warm load of R#22 and fed 215 primers with a velocity of 3850 fps. My accuracy at 200 yards was in the 1/2" area, and 3/4"-1 1/4" at 300 depending on the wind. I sighted my rifle in at 1/2" high at 200 and was 3" low at 300 and 10" low at 400. I would usually hit the little mini clay pigeons at 400 yards that measure 2 3/4" without missing. I had the target knobs marked to 600 used in conjunction with a range finder made hitting your target easy.

Shortened freebore adds many rounds of accurate usable life to a barrel, make no mistake about this fact.

A friend saw my results and was amazed, he ordered a Hart barrel that would finish at 30" and shot the 100's at 4000 fps into groups in the .250 area and smaller for 3 shot groups.


ltppowell's post is impressive, I had a friend that duplicated that speed with extreme accuracy using R#22, very efficient load.

Pac Nor will install their Super match barrel on your action for approx. $550, accuracy of this caliber with it's flat shooting trajectory will impress you, but as Steel head has mentioned, you still have to know how to shoot(practice). Shot placement is everything...stuff is not hard to kill.