Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats How short of bbl can I go....

...on a 35whelen. Next week I should be getting my 7600 in 35whelen and the areas I hunt and hike are great for short bbls. I would like to go 18"'s but would I be cutting my throat on performance doing it? Or should I leave it at 22"? I have my other rifles with longer tubes for distance shooting. I want a good compact bear gun and was wondering if the whelen was suitable for smaller tubes.



Thanks

The .35 Whelen should lose less velocity per inch than the .30-06 does. In a test from the November 1981 issue of G&A the author found this as he cut back the barrel of his .30-06 rifle firing 165-grain bullet:

26" 2896 fps
24" 2850 fps
22" 2820 fps
20" 2772 fps

The average is a loss of 20 fps/inch. Cutting back your 22" barrel to 18" would lose about 80-100 fps tops. This is insignificant for any practical use...if the shorter barrel enhances your hunting, it more than offsets the tiny velocity loss from the shorter tube.

AK nimrod,
Thanks for the info.