AR15 Barrel Length vs Velocity - Part 1 

Very informative and interesting video. Do you think 5.56 spec ammo and powder would affect the results? From what I can gather online, it seems like the 5.56 spec ammo would allow progressively higher velocity as barrel length increases out to 24".

Someone get this guy some more barrels! This video provided more clarity and clear cut information on the subject then 20 others similar videos out their. I would LOVE to see 300 blk, 308, and other calibers with this same kind of testing method. Great video 👍

Came for info on 12.5, didn't find any, stayed for a wholesome guy who I've now subscribed to!

Awesome variety of arms you put through. Thanks for taking the time and effort!

More of this please. Some of the best data I've seen on RU-vid man greak work, thank you

Thanks for making this brother, I know it takes a lot of work , a lot of editing and a lot of time. Definitely sharing the video

Man, thanks for all the hard work on this video. Appreciate you doing this so I don't have to!

Outstanding video with a lot of quality information! Thank you for the work you put in !

This was a very interesting video in barrel length vs velocities. Great job! Thank you for the information. Super job!

Great video... pretty much confirms my bias against any 223/556 barrel that's less than 10.3/10.5. Well done!

Awesome video I’d love to see more of these from you.

Great information here! Lets see the ballistics gel tests comparing the 7.5, 10.3, 11.5, 14.5 and 16 inch barrels.

Another great video. I would love to see gel testing with a different barrel lengths just like you would mention. Thanks for all the great content you're putting out

Great video. Always sharing a ton of usefull information. Keep up the good work 👍

Great stuff and thank you for taking the time to do this type of testing

Cool video! I’m glad someone took the time and effort to do it. It’s pretty interesting the results. I hope you make more. Judging from the comments, you probably will.

Great data Bro. Thanks for compiling it and sharing.

Everybody loves their 10.5 inch, 14.5 inch pin and welds, 16 inch and 18 inch barrels, but I like me a 20 inch barrel. In fact, I like an M16 type build over anything else. If I carry a rifle, I'm gonna want to get all the velocity I possibly can out of it. I have seen averages of 3,200 or so out of 20 inch GI spec barrels with 55 grain and that's exactly what I want.

Beautiful Review! Thank you. I will definitely be sticking to a 16 inch barrel from now on. Bull Pup for me to save overall rifle length without sacrificing Velocity. Thank you 🙏

LWRC's 10.5 is a sweet shooter never thought velocity or a lack thereof! Now you got me wanting to do some testing!!

I think this is a good test and includes important data. One thing I noticed from other videos linked by users - XM192 and SS109 show a significant difference between 16" and 18" barrels. Consistently 100fps increase for the longer barrel. With the Fiochi ammo there was almost no increase in performance with barrel length. And in some cases a drop in fps. I think this goes to show that the load is as important as barrel length. As different powder/bullet combinations have an objective effect.

What this tells us (or tells me, anyway) is Fiocchi optimizes their loadings for 16 inch barrels. Good to know. The 55gr & 62gr loadings seemed a BIT slow (sub 2900fps even in a 20 inch barrel? Hmm...) Still, excellent data.

Very extensive and thorough. Thank you for sharing!

Personally with the data I got here, I would go for an 11.5" barrel for the length to velocity ratio and with the 16" for longer range cause you don't need an extra 50 ft/sec especially with the extra length. Remember, shorter is lighter and more weildy so that's what I would choose.

Very cool man, great vid/content mate

Just the fact that you’ve covered so much information in one video, answering so many different questions with what you had and how you could, subscribed. I am looking forward to the same test in 556 and other rounds. Just an idea maybe at the same time toss in some penetration at distances, it seems to be a common misconception the 7 1/2 inch will not penetrate because of the velocity, where my opinion is that it would penetrate more because at a lower velocity it’s less likely to fragment. Like I said just my opinion. Excellent video bro.

Super interesting. I’d love to see more deep dives like this. Always trying to find that “do everything rifle”.

Thank you ! It will help me a lot in my choice for my first AR15

Great video!!! I didn't not expect the results 16"-18"!!!

Good info!!! Thanks for being so thorough

Thanks for the data. Really appreciate it 👍🏾🇿🇦

Awesome job dude 👍🏻 Thank you

Outstanding useful video! Love the no hype scientific approach. Follow the science. I'm now subscribed.

Still debating on going from 16” down to 14.5”. Definitely one of the best videos on pewtube

Thank you for doing this test, while certainly not a definitive study it was well done and you provided a very interesting data set. Everyone should appreciate your diligence in getting all of the components together for this test. Logistics are frequently the hardest part of testing. My one observation/criticism of this test was the ammunition. This is not a criticism of Fiocchi ammunition but an observation that it appears Fiocchi has optimized their ammunition for 16 inch barrel. That is my theory on the slow maximum velocity recorded and the lack of significant improvement with a longer barrel length over 16 inches. Again, well done and thank you for your effort

Excellent Video lots of info , Good job keep it up!

Very nice review Great analysis

Thank's bro--I have always wrestled with the 16" Mod H vs 18" Mod 0 / Mod 1 S.P.R concepts because I love my RECCE and MOD H style 16" guns.....I do love how soft shooting an 18" rifle w/rifle length gas can be--but I always had heard the ballistics differences were not enough to worry about between the two. At least now I know that with Fiocchi loads my 16" mid-lengths are the ticket....thank's for your time.

I appreciate such an informative review of the different velocities and grain weights. Best I have seen put together. I would like to see similar data for 12.5 vs 14.5 as I saw the two producing almost identical velocities for the 55 grain.

Great info and video! Very good breakdown. Thanks

interesting facts, 16" barrel is good enough. I like the way you explain explicitly on this session.

Great video dude

Interesting tests. Thanks for the video.

Awesome review great info much appreciated for putting all the time and effort this process took, this is exactly what I have been looking for!!

this was very informative. thanks a lot for shearing and thaking time to do this. this help a LOT to guys like me that are new in this. thanks!!!

Thnx for the hard work!

Good work, thanks for the video 👍😀

Great video. I would very much like to see the terminal ballistics gel test with 7.5 versus either 10.3 or 16 inch. Maybe you can get crazy and use a pork shoulder or something in addition to gelatin. Maybe you can do the gel up close (so you don't miss lol) and then you can stretch out to 100 yards with the pork shoulder....that would be very telling. Of course you'd have to cover the pork shoulder with blue jeans lol

Awesome test, more scientific than most youtubers. Thank you for the info

Just found u. And am loving it

Very good info, well done and great info. I'm a big fan of 14.5 but have a few 16 inch rifles and an 18 inch. I've always thought it a good idea to stay at or above the standard set by the ,military which is 10.3 and now many are going to 11.5 for their SBR set ups. Great stuff, thanks!

love the maintainer-speak, "gonna have to can these optics across..."

Awesome video. Would love to see this exact video only pertaining to accuracy now that we know all the velocity info from those uppers.

Solid video. Thanks for the info.

Great info. I have a 16" now and am looking to get a 11.5"....very cool info for me to process.

Very interesting, thanks for posting your work.

I love your ars 👍. " Do you have something robust , precise?" 😉

Great video. Thank you for the data.

Men: "14.5" is good enough." Women: "Yeah but I like the longer one."

Damn good video! Thank you.

Finally a great video on .556 velocity vs barrel length. Plz do this on AR 762x39

Thanks, Great real world info

Thank you for this,!!! 👍🏼

Really good video thank you really good information

I wonder if powder burn rate plays a role. It would be interesting to see the same projectile weights but different brands of ammo. I know how much time videos like this take to make. Thank you.

Good work. Thanks

Much appreciated.

I would be interested in seeing the gel test between the 7 inch and 10.3 and a 16. And to add to to the self defense issue you did say your chronograph was at 10 feet? That's easily within a house deal and I'd have to agree with you.

NICE JOB BRO

Good work.

1st of all good job. You did a lot of work for no reward other than information gained....you then provided that information to complete strangers for free. Your test seemed reasonably scientific and your data presentation was easy to follow. My only criticism (purely constructive) use hotter loads. This stuff is clearly optimized for the 16" barrel (obviously the most common length). Therefore not useless information by any stretch. However, I think most people ( myself included) would like to see the exact same test but with 5.56 spec ammo.

That's an impressive collection in uppers,mine is primarily 16" and 24" but seriously making me question my choice in going 24"🤦 great video and turned me into subscriber

Would have been cool to see the comparison in the velocities with and without a suppressor too. From what I've seen in other videos it's usually and increase of 50-100FPS with a suppressor. Great video

Excellent, useful information. Thank you for all of your time, investment, and dedication to conduct a meaningful comparison.....

Sick showcase of AR 15! Whats your top 3 barrel lengths and rifle set-ups out of those uppers.

The 20-inch 1/7 twist barrel supports the velocity and spin needed to get VLD bullets to longer distances nose-on. This means a match conditioned AR can be used for excellent results in NRA Long Range Competition. The longer sight radius also yields half minute elevation/windage graduation at the rear sight, as well as potential sight alignment/sight picture consistency which promotes accuracy. At any rate, considering primary usage of an AR to develop Marksmanship, the 20-inch match grade barrel along with magazine tolerant match grade ammunition is supreme. The bottom-line for all is barrel your AR for your application. If the application is hunting and target shooting, get the 20-inch barrel.

great informative video, thanks.

Very cool. Thank You.

Good work!

Great video. Thanks

Old video, but new to me. Just tore my 7.5" upper apart. Tried running 5.56 and a 22LR conversion in it... zero accuracy with either at any range. We're talking spraying bullets in a 10ft circle... Missing the broad side of a barn seems like a real possibility with it! haha It was great at throwing fireballs, but I'm gonna throw a 11.5" in it, and actually hit my target.

Excellent video as usual! Thinking 11.5" barrel for my next pistol build. Anything less seems like it would be pointless. Keep up the great work!

This was one of the most informative videos that I have watched. I was thinking of going with an 18" barrel but now I'm questing that thought. Do you have any thoughts on a Stretch 16" with their intermediated gas system, just a question? Thank you once for a very good video.

Great video, thanks for the hard work. I think that Fiocchi ammo is underpowered. I shoot a lot of wolf gold and I'm getting 3100 FPS average out of a 16" and 3250 FPS out of a 20". The spread and SD is much much better with the 20" than the 16". The impact on steel also sounds different between the two. If you're up to it, some NATO spec or wolf gold can get those numbers up 👍 Thanks again for the hard work.

Very nice. Just wanted to point out that In-Range came to similar conclusions regarding barrel length during their WWSD project. It might be worth doing a comparison of 16", 18", and 20" barrels with hotter loads.

This is very interesting. In the future u should do 6.5 creedmore or 308

Looking forward to the gel test between the shorter barrels.

Great Viedo thanks a bunch...

i was going to get a 7.5 for hiking, think i'll start investigating 7.5 in 300 blk now. thanks for the video bud, you might of saved my ass. if i cant figure it out i'll just go back to looking for a nice 10mm.

Great!!! Thanks

Interesting, thank you.

Each barrel is different they like different ammo. Perhaps twist rate makes a difference as well. All in all 16 to 20” barrel is my preference in ar platform. Great video 👌🏽💪🏽👏🏽🙏🏽

Law of diminishing returns. There comes a point where the expanding gas has reached its optimal expansion given the length of barrel that it has to fill. It works that way across all cartridges. With barrels that are too long for the given cartridge youd actually start slowing the bullet down due to the lack of gas to overcome the friction.

cool vid i'd like to see the gel test man would be interesting

I appreciate what this video is doing, and I've got an AR, so please don't take this as criticism of black rifle ownership... but the way we talk about builds and brand-specific componentry in this market is like the way people play with dolls. These are dolls for people that can't be caught playing with dolls.

Great video. I enjoyed the good info shared. Im curious to see what the gas length does with the same length barrel. For example you have a 11.5" barrel with a carbine gas system. I know faxon has a 11.5" barrel in a mid length gas system. I would like to see velocity and accuracy of both barrels. This would show what the impact is of the different gas systems.

Great test. I have to say that with shorter barrel length you are making a compromise, but its just that, a compromise. I still think a 7.5'' barrel has its place.

Great timing on this video. I just put together a pistol with a 7.5 barrel. Not what I would have chose but acquired the barre in a trade. I was planning on bringing it the range sometime soon to see how far I can hit. Any idea how far I can reach before it tumbles? I'm hoping to shoot it a local 3 gun in a few weeks with a max range of a hundred yards

16-inch barrels, and 55 grain 5.56 NATO are a "best compromise" combination match-up. M193 ball...and that barrel (especially heavy, CHF)...are all you need in this round.

I would like to see a ballistics gel test also if possible if you could use a spikes tactical barking spider 2 on the 7.5 inch barrel to see if it really does increase velocity on the shorter barrels.