Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats New PAC-Nor barrel on my 243 win for light bullets

Hoping someone out there has experience with re-barreling a 243 Win with either a 1:12" or 1:14" twist for varmint shooting. Any experience to share? 1:10" seems to be the norm that will handle heavier bullets. Favorite loads?
Thanks,
Elk

Laughing Elk,

About five or six years ago, my hunting partner wanted his M-700 in 6mm rebarreled to .243. I sent it to Pac-Nor and had them do a SS fluted 1~12" twist. He wanted to shoot the Hornady 55 gr. ammo exclusivly. It likely would have been OK with the 1~14" but I was afraid he'd want to use it on deer. (And I was right...) He is not a handloader, but it shoots the 55 gr. well under the proverbial inch. And he is VERY pleased with the results...

GH

PS: IIRC, we went with a 21" bbl #4 (Because that was the smallest contour that they'd flute...)

Why pacnor? And why a slow twist?

Yeah really, Remington already got bit in the ass over the 1 in 12 in 6mm.

I have rebarreled several using old benchrest 14T take off barrels. They would shoot 67gr BR bullets into little bitty knots. If I knew what I know now, I would have just ran a 6BR reamer in there and killed tons of prairie dogs with them. I am going to do one here in a few weeks for a forum buddy. I am going to run my reamer in the existing chamber, use the existing threads after cutting the shoulder for a recoil lug. I will do the work for free and am giving him the barrel. With the money saved he is going to send the barrel to have it re-contoured and fluted. He should have a very accurate cheap live varmint rifle that will give him years of fun plinking......unless he goes prairie dog hunting with us, in which case it will probably only last a year

"Why pacnor?" No particular reason, other than I've had good luck with them, and they could do the whole thing in house. Which made it easy and fairly expedient...

"And why a slow twist?" I thought I explained that. He wanted to shoot 55 gr. bullets, exclusively.

If it were me, I'd do a 1~8" twist, but I favor fast twist and heavy for caliber bullets. He; on the other hand, prefers light for caliber bullets... He got what he wanted, and is very pleased with the result.

GH

It is a internet myth that a fast twist won't shoot light bullets accurately.

This I have a TAC 20 1 in 9 it will shoot 32 Gr bullets in the 1's. At 4184 fps I might add.

I used 1-12's for years, reason was that I wanted to shoot the 60-85g sierra's. The barrels shot very tiny groups.

1-14 BR take offs shot up to the 75g Sierra HP very well into bug holes, pick a caliber.

I'm doing something close, but am using a different approach. I'm having a T 14 Take off bbl. re-chambered to a new wildcat. I want to try and shoot 100 gr. flat based spitzers out of it. I've heard some barrels will, and some won't. But is there one really short 100gr. spitzer, to try this out with? Has anyone used the plated Speer deep curls along these lines in T 14 barrels.

My new kitty will have somewhere around 70 grs. H2O capacity to its case mouth. So it will be close to a 6mm Gibbs. Maybe a 6 x 6.5RM with a longer neck. I'm trying to elongate the 300 RCM out to 55mm, by ironing in more taper and using 26 deg. shoulders. I would have to run a 6.5 RM case through a bushing bump die to chamber it. It would bulge out ahead of the belt, which isn't good. But it might serve to get the try cases for the die grinder.

Long story short, do you think I can put enough powder behind some 100 grain bullet, or other, to get it to fly true?

My rifle is off being re-chambered, right now. Neil Jones Products has my die order in queue, for later this Spring.

I invite anyone who can help with this from personal experience, to P.M. me, Thanx in advance.

I don't know whom you are trying to convince... Because I quite agree with you. However, it wasn't my rifle... Actually, he wanted a 1~14", but I talked him into a 1~12" and tried to talk him into a 1~9", but he wouldn't go for it.

My reply to the O.P. wasn't intended to stir up controversy, merely as an answer to the O.P. WHY, he might build a slow twist is of no concern to me. But as I stated earlier, I personally; prefer the faster twist...

GH

Some people don't seem to get it that not everyone wants to shoot heavy bullets. Theres's nothing wrong with 12 or 14 twist 6mm's. The benchrest guys have been using 14's for a long time with the small PPC case. My 14 twist 6BR shoots tiny little groups. A couple 6-250's are 12 and 14 twist, they shoot tiny little groups with 65's and 70's. One 243AI -13 twist PacNor - shoots just about any 70/75 into tiny little groups. Another 243AI - 9 twist PacNor - is also very accurate but real finicky, it was much more difficult making it shoot. Slower twist is just fine if you don't want to shoot heavy bullets.

Curiously enough,I've yet to see a fast twist spout not dazzle with short boolits. Though in fairness,I've yet to see a slow twist spout shoot long boolits.

Fast will do it ALL and then some...but stupid [bleep] will always do stupid schit.

Bless your heart.

I always use the "quick reply" and you just happened to post right before I did.

That being said...slow twists are retarded. And to the poster that wants to use a 14 twist and 100's...you are dreaming.

Interesting! Lots of opinion and a bit of vitriol. Very true that the 244 Remington with the 1:12" twist was a marketing failure due to it not handling heavier bullets well; hence, the 6mm Rem with a faster twist barrel, so I have no illusions. Not going to bother stating the reasons why I want the slow twist - if you think I am retarded, so be it and God bless you for all your positive wishes.

I will be going with the plain vanilla 243 because I have no idea if my kids are going to take the time with or get the pleasure that I do reloading. They'll have my notes on Reloads to go by if they wish. They'll be able to find light bullet factory loads if they wish. I am building this rifle for me. I could easily go wildcat, but want to keep it simple.

I like the Pac-Nor because they build barrels extremely well (I have a 270WSM hunting rifle with a Pac-Nor that regularly shoots in the 0.4's), they chamber and fit at their shop at a reasonable price, and their turn around is 16 to 18 weeks - not 52+ weeks. I have no intention of hunting deer with it, so heavy bullets aren't an issue.

The project gun is a Remington Model 788 with a noisy single stack box magazine. I purchased the rifle several years ago for just over a hundred bucks and it never shot well. So I ask 'why not?' Sounds like there's lots of positive experience here with the slow twist barrels and small bullets shooting tiny groups. To me, that's not disappointing.

I appreciate everyone's input. If you have specific loads to share using a 243 with a 1:14 or 1:12 twist, please share them too.

Thank you!
Elk

The 6mmRem/6AI is a Goat [bleep] from square one and in all directions. Hint.

A SAAMI 243Win is a Giant KIller,though boolits matter more than headstamps. Re-hint. Easily the dumbest [bleep] schit someone could do to any cartridge,is to purposely curtail the best boolits in it's bore sizing,by dumbfhukking twist rate. Schit...I even suffer a [bleep] POS 788(slow twist 22CHeetah) and their COAL latitude grants veddy nice opportunity,to do it all with the chambering you cite. Re-hint.

Say a leetle sumptin' about your 1-16" twist 270WSM. Re-re-hint.

Wow.