13 twist ppc barrels

S

skeetlee

Active member
Why don't you see or hear about guys shooting 13 twist barrels more. I think a 13 twist makes the most since if you follow the numbers. I think I'm going to give this some effort this year. I have a couple 13tw barrels on order for this year, and I hope they show me what I think they will.
This post isn't nessisarly a question, just more of an opinion. I am curious as to what other shooters think. Heck maybe there are more guys shooting 13 twist barrels than we know of? I just don't hear much about this topic. What are your thoughts?
 
Lee, when I started shooting short range BR, the 14 twist was most popular, but many good shooters shot 15 twist. Conventional wisdom back then was to shoot as slow a twist that would stabilize the bullet. I believe it was about 10 years ago Lester Bruno started shooting 13.5 twist barrels with his OO boat tail bullet. There are more and more BT's shot today and the use of barrels with faster than 14 twist are common. You may be a trail blazer in the use of the 13 twist. Keep us informed about the results you get. James
 
We have shot 13 and 13.5 twist barrels for some time with the 6ppc. They work fine.

I should add that with cut rifling you can order exactly what twist you want.
 
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Well...

If you try a 13 and it doesn't shoot as well as a 14 you had....doesn't mean much except the 13 may not be a shooter. There are enough good bullets out there that a guy could pick whatever twist he wanted to pick within reason. I added the "within reason" because I don't really know what twist you could get away with if the barrel was a good one.

I reckon what I said there was getting a good barrel is waaaaay more important than the twist.
 
Theory has it the best precision is achieved when the bullet is just (or barely) stabilized. Meaning you lean towards the slower end of the twist spectrum. Of course, that's all theory.....the only thing that matters is the tale of the paper.

On my 6 BR I've shot 13's, 13.5's, and 14's (all Shilen). I honestly couldn't tell much of a difference shooting 68 flat bases throughout.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
The 13 probably will do better with 810 or 825 jackets. Going down to a 750 jacket probably will not work as well, IMO.
It depends too on how fast you run the bullet.

Like Mock says in earlier times many shooters ran 15 twist but most then were shooting short bullets with fat noses.
 
Not knowing much at all about this , I googled multiple
Twist rate stability calculators a while back. Input from
.790 to .825 / 68 grbt . They varied from 12.75 / to 14 twist rate
Some even showed a variable number of about 52 to stabilize
bullet , some .825 s were not getting to this number !
 
Back in the day, I had a new old stock Hart 13, and was having trouble getting it to shoot with some .825 jacket, 68 grain FBs. I mentioned this to Walt, at a match at Visalia, and he told me that back when those barrels were seeing more use, that he and Dennis had done some testing' and that contrary to what one might expect short 60-62 grain bullets, driven hard, seemed to do the best in those particular barrels. A friend had a good quantity of .750 jacket 62 grain Watsons and gave me enough to try. That solved my problem, and I bought a couple thousand of them. Some time later, when I had that barrel on the rifle, and both the Watsons and some double radius ogive, .825 jacket Tucker #3s with me, out of curiosity, I tried the Tuckers and was a little surprised that they shot as well as the Watsons. At one point I used a tight patch and measured the barrel's twist as carefully as I could 2-3 times, and it looked to me like it was really a 12 3/4. Heck maybe I need to try some longer bullets ;-)
 
Take it for what it's worth you may get the opposite results but I see the faster twist barrels (that I have taken notes on) exhibit less wind drift than the slower twist. Have an idea as to why this is but nothing to back it up.
Brandon
 
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