Originally Posted by
No.3
My vote is 22" minimum for an -06 based cartridge. If you notice the difference between a 20 and a 22" barrel in the carry, you're either a bit like the princess in the "princess and the pea" nursery rhyme or you have ducks disease and your arse is a bit close to terra-firma.
Remember with a xx" barrel you are measuring the chamber which only houses the case, your effective barrel length on a 20" barrel is 17.5" thereabout for the powder to do it's work. You need around 20" in an -06 length case to consume all of the powder in the barrel otherwise you tend to get horrendous muzzle flash and the powder granules getting ejected are pretty nasty on suppressors both in general wear and tear and in the amount of crap that gets caught up in them which can cause corrosion if left on the gun. Similarly I wouldn't drop back any less than 20" on an -08 length case, yes they are 'handier' but you aren't getting any advantage over a 7.62x39 real world and the x39 is nicer to shoot with a shorter barrel and cheaper.