18in BCM SS410 barrel experiment.

[jwfuhrman]

Picked up a BCM 18in SS410 barrel that had been re-profiled to a lighter weight off of the Brian Enos forums. My plans for this barrel were to cut it down to 17in and rethread it to have a slightly shorter gun for 3gun. But now I'm wondering, would 16in work? cut the barrel down to 16.5"

I paid next to nothing for the barrel relatively speaking, I know there are 16in barrels with rifle gas out there I'm just wondering how soft of a shooting gun can I get that will still be 110% BCM reliable.

The gun shop that I own is inside the same building as a my family owned tool and die shop, we already offer barrel re-profiling, re-threading and other services similar to that thru my gun shop so its a mute point as since its family owned any work I want done for myself, I do myself for free.

[tom12.7]

When you shorten a rifle gas system down to the barrel lengths mentioned, the range of ammunition selection for function gets smaller. If you run a narrower ammo selection, you can approach about 17" for most as long as conditions allow that, it is still narrow though. I've seen many 16" barrel combo's set on the edge of function run this only in ideal circumstances, and fail in less than. A 16" with a "can only" works better with a dedicated port for the can selected, some of those combo's work well. Soft and smooth shooting is only a part of the factor that I would consider, but an 18" rifle gas can be pretty smooth. There is other selections though, like +2" rifle gas on 20"-24" that seem to be made into the smoothest and softest of them, with added components.

[BufordTJustice]

Picked up a BCM 18in SS410 barrel that had been re-profiled to a lighter weight off of the Brian Enos forums. My plans for this barrel were to cut it down to 17in and rethread it to have a slightly shorter gun for 3gun. But now I'm wondering, would 16in work? cut the barrel down to 16.5"

I paid next to nothing for the barrel relatively speaking, I know there are 16in barrels with rifle gas out there I'm just wondering how soft of a shooting gun can I get that will still be 110% BCM reliable.

The gun shop that I own is inside the same building as a my family owned tool and die shop, we already offer barrel re-profiling, re-threading and other services similar to that thru my gun shop so its a mute point as since its family owned any work I want done for myself, I do myself for free.

You could go 16.5", but you'd need at least a .10" gp. Maybe larger. An adjustable gas block would basically be a must. My Rainier arms 18" gov profile with rifle gas (~.098" gp) runs about about the halfway restricted point using my SLR Rifleworks sentry 7 gas block. Right now at setting 9 of 15 from full closed, have been running at 8, but I am experimenting with a heavier buffer and spring.

I think you could do a 17" without messing with the gp.