Originally posted by leesrt
View Post
After looking at velocity data for barrels from 10" to 24" and doing other reading, I committed to 16". It seemed to be the best balance between ease of handling and velocity. Shorter is lighter and easier to handle in confined areas, but suffers from lower velocity, louder report, usually a shorter iron sight radius and the NFA hassle (in short, tradeoffs that seem to make sense for people who need a dedicated entry type weapon). Longer has better velocity, quieter report and a usually a longer iron sight radius at the expense of weight, balance and handiness (tradeoffs that make sense for the wide open spaces). I don't know how much of the huge percentage of the market that the 16" barrel occupies is based on people blindly trying to copy the military without the NFA hassle and how much is because it makes sense, but it seems does seem to be a versatile choice.
Thanks for the info, Surf, jwise and beavo. I'll do the reading and think about what you've said, before wasting more of your time and bandwidth. Hopefully there are some other people who'll benefit from your above attempts to help me.
Thanks too to beavo for your recent Daniel Defense railed handguard product line breakdown. It may just be my pea brain, but I never could figure out the differences from the manufacturer's site.
Comment