04-26-2011, 09:24 PM
You get a good feel for the velocity payoff by perusing the tables offered by Alexander Arms. You can also calculate the relationship between barrel length and muzzle velocity for your load by using http://shootersnotes.com/calculator/velocity-estimator/.
The next step would be to look at the trajectory difference for these velocities. (JBM ballistics has a very good trajectory calculator- http://www.jbmballistics.com). The difference may not be much and unlikely to be important if you are serious about 150 yards being the max for deer hunting. The same is true for terminal effects. The 400-500 yard shots at coyote may be more interesting. The bullet is starting to nose over pretty good at those distances, and might make a difference, especially if you're using a conventional hunting scope where you are most likely to be applying Kentucky Windage and Tennessee Elevation to get hits at the longer ranges.
If you are planning to use a more or less conventional duplex or mil-dot scope, you can get an idea of the sight picture difference by running the sight-picture calculator at http://shootersnotes.com/calculator/quickpix/. You'll need to enter your own range, drop, and drift information and repeat for the second trajectory, but you'll get a feeling for how much your sight picture would change in going from the shorter to the longer barrel.
The next step would be to look at the trajectory difference for these velocities. (JBM ballistics has a very good trajectory calculator- http://www.jbmballistics.com). The difference may not be much and unlikely to be important if you are serious about 150 yards being the max for deer hunting. The same is true for terminal effects. The 400-500 yard shots at coyote may be more interesting. The bullet is starting to nose over pretty good at those distances, and might make a difference, especially if you're using a conventional hunting scope where you are most likely to be applying Kentucky Windage and Tennessee Elevation to get hits at the longer ranges.
If you are planning to use a more or less conventional duplex or mil-dot scope, you can get an idea of the sight picture difference by running the sight-picture calculator at http://shootersnotes.com/calculator/quickpix/. You'll need to enter your own range, drop, and drift information and repeat for the second trajectory, but you'll get a feeling for how much your sight picture would change in going from the shorter to the longer barrel.