Ruger Model 77 Mark II Frontier

I have a fondness for firearms that are lightweight and handy. My preferred bolt-action hunting rifles have always been guns like the Winchester Model 70 Featherweight, the 20-inch Ruger Ultra Light, and the original 18.5-inch Remington Model Seven. Now Ruger has gone a step further and given me a gun I like even better: the new 16.5-inch-barreled Ruger Model 77 Mark II Frontier and Compact family.

It used to be that carrying a smaller, lighter weight rifle meant you had to make a tradeoff of something in comparison to full-sized guns--either accuracy or power or range (or all three). Today, thanks to improvements in firearms manufacture quality control and advances in ammunition technology, lightweight short-barrel rifles can fire cartridges with every bit as much performance as the biggest and heaviest rifles. The simple fact is that short rifles are easier to carry and handle, faster, more maneuverable, and more accurate across the board than their longer brothers. Yes, I said "more accurate." And I mean it.

Here's the deal. All other things being equal--and by that I mean equally well-specced chamber and bore, equally well-bedded action and barrel, equally clean and crisp trigger, and equal barrel weight/diameter profile--a shorter barrel shoots tighter groups than a longer barrel. The reason is simple.

A shorter barrel is stiffer than a longer barrel. It doesn't flex, writhe, or vibrate as much as a longer barrel when the bullet is passing down the bore. It is less affected by disharmonic resonance. It is, simply, inherently more accurate. The only way to make a long-barreled gun as accurate as a short-barreled gun is to make it equally stable--either by making it fatter (and heavier) or by installing some type of harmonic tuning device, like the superbly engineered Browning A-Bolt BOSS system.

The Compact and Frontier models of Ruger's bolt gun are chambered for short-action cartridges. (From Left to right) .223 Rem., .243 Win., .260 Rem., 7mm-08, .308 Win.

Many shooters don't understand the main reason long-barreled varmint rifles are fat is not to absorb heat--it's to make them stiff. Hence the increasing popularity these days of shorter, lighter "walking varmint rifles." Shooters are finally waking up to the fact that a good short, slim barrel is just as accurate as a long, fat barrel and a whole lot easier to pack around. I first realized all this in a moment of amazed delight about 25 years ago, the first time I ever fired a 15-inch box-stock Remington XP-100 pistol chambered for 7mmBR at a 200-meter target.

Three shots went 5/8 inch. My best varmint rifle was not that good with my best handloads. After a patient design engineer explained to me what was going on, I became an instant believer in short-barrel ballistics. That's probably why I went on to spend two decades as Shooting Times's Handgun Editor hunting with XP-100s, T/C Contenders and Encores, and Savage Strikers. (Long-barrel revolvers, too; same principle works there.)

There are some caveats, of course. One is projectile velocity. Individual bullets have an optimal velocity range and rate of spin, a "sweet spot" where their particular weight, configuration, and ballistic characteristics provide the most stable and consistent flight characteristics. Cartridges also require sufficient bore length for consistent round-to-round ignition, depending on their propellant burn rate. These things vary load to load, and if a barrel is too short bullet velocity will vary widely shot to shot, the bullet may not properly stabilize, and it may not provide the desired impact effect on the target. In general, long-action cartridges require somewhat longer barrels to optimize than do short-action cartridges.