grayfox Wrote:Do we know how "un-stiff" is still a very good barrel? ie, there are practical limits - unlimited stiffness is not necessary to be a good barrel... or?
Excellent question, I was wondering that as well. If I understood the article, the calculated muzzle deflection should tell how far the bullet will travel vertically, total of - to + in the vibration. You should be able to calculate how much that would translate to at 100 yards. That should give you the worst case accuracy due to the barrel stiffness/elasticity. I would think it would be something like: Long pencil thin barrel 2 inch spread, very stiff short barrel 3/4 inch spread.
In both cases tuning the load can get much better accuracy but the short stiff barrel starts out a lot better.
I'll look at the formulas and see If I can give some calculated examples.
EDIT: MATH Guru's Help! This is what I calculated but must be wrong. Deflection in inches x 12 (1 foot) x 300 feet (100 yards)
Max heavy varmint blank 18 inch .00509 x 12 x 300 = 18.3
Light varmint 23.88 inch .01879 x 12 x 300 = 67.64
If the decimal is moved one place left it would make more sense, 1.83 inches vs. 6.76 inches