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I've got a nice (to me) t3 x55. Id like to take it out more and I think the reason Ill usually grab something else is because its not suppressed, its fully std. I hand load and a max shot for me would be 300/350m on an animal. I hear this cal likes a long barrel for best performance but it would be too long to thread and put a suppressor on without trimming it back a bit. So whats a good length to trim one of these back to?
There's no rules*. Shorten it as much as you'd like.
You're just gonna lose an increasing amount of velocity for every inch you take off. Probably ~20-40fps for the first few. So keep enough length to keep the velocity up where it needs to be.
*other than keep the overall length over 30" else it becomes a pistol.
Performance is basically the same as a 260rem or 6.5CM so use info from them.
A long barrel will always give better performance.
My 19" 260 will do about 2700fps with 140s and 2800fps with 130s. My previous 260 was doing just over 2800fps with the standard Tikka 22.5" barrel.
I’m a fan of 6.5x55 and would never chop one. Thats me. Original m94 carbine was about 19”, the m38 was 24” and the m96 came in at 29” if my memory serves me correctly.
I have a Tikka at 20inches and dpt. Handles quite nicely.
6.5x55 responds really well to handloading, especially in modern rifles with shorter barrels.
18 inch Tikka 6.5x55 .
https://i.imgur.com/maYaKun.jpg
If your requirement is a maximum 350m shot, then you need at a minimum, about 2300fps at the muzzle with a 140ELD. This will give sufficient retained velocity for bullet function at 350m.
You should be able to achieve that with any barrel length over "too short to be legal"
You can approximately halve the muzzle blast heard/felt by the shooter (but not bystanders) with a linear compensator.
It directs the blast forwards and adds only a few inches.
You'll want that or a full suppressor if you chop.
My T3 x55 is at 20 inch and suppressed with a DPT. With the 143 gr ELD X I get 2600 fps, 129 SST do 2745, and the PPU 120 HP loads do just under 2700 fps. I could probably get more speed by using different powders but not to worried about that at the moment, all shoot accurate.
Ok seems around 20" is a good compromise Ill get the gunsmith to do a measure and see if there's enough to do my preferred thread