When and Why to Shorten a Rifle Barrel

I’ve always liked carbines better than full-sized rifles. They’re just easier to move around with. But some shooters are hesitant to shorten a rifle barrel because they’re afraid it will affect performance.

The benefits of shortening a rifle’s barrel can really outweigh the cons, depending on how you use your rifle. First, we’ll go into a few reasons why you might want to shorten your rifle barrel or buy a rifle with a shorter barrel, then we can get into how you might go about doing it.

Why Shorten a Rifle Barrel

The biggest reason to shorten a rifle barrel is to make the gun easier to maneuver in tight quarters. Truck guns are better when they’re shorter, as they’re much less likely to get in the way when drawing the rifle from a vehicle. Anyone on horseback or an ATV will appreciate a carbine because a shorter rifle can be taken from a scabbard more quickly than a rifle with a long barrel. Short rifles are also right at home in a box blind or portable hunting blind, as they’re much easier to move around without bumping into everything.

Generally, rifles with shorter barrels will have around 16- to 20-inch barrels. Short barrels also lend themselves well to running a suppressor or any other kind of muzzle device. Because of the way leverage works, suppressors on long barrels will make your rifle feel heavier and more unwieldy. It might be fine for a steady, prone shot, but shooting offhand can be more challenging once you screw on a suppressor.

Why Wouldn’t You Want to Shorten a Rifle Barrel

There are a few reasons to avoid shortening a barrel. Right off the bat, you don’t want to shorten the barrel on any rifle that’s historically significant or a collector's item. This is the quickest way to destroy the value of a gun, as collectors prize guns in original condition. You also want to be careful when shortening the barrel on a semi-automatic rifle, depending on how it operates.

Gas-operated semi-autos need to build up pressure to cycle the action. If you shorten a barrel too much, you won’t get enough pressure and may need to adjust things like the tension of your return spring. When working with a semi-auto, it’s best to call the manufacturer to get an idea of the minimum barrel length the gun needs to operate.

Many think that shortening a rifle barrel will negatively affect the performance of your cartridge. You’ll generally find a 20 to 50 FPS loss in velocity for every inch of barrel that you take off. This varies from barrel to barrel, and depending on the cartridge, your mileage may also vary. (For example, with the 22 LR, velocity can actually increase when you shorten the barrel.)

Because of so many different cartridges and types of rifle barrels, the only hard and fast rule is that you will almost always experience a decrease in velocity with a short barrel. But if we’re talking about 100 to 200 FPS or so in velocity loss, this decrease isn’t a big deal—especially if you’re honest with yourself on how far you actually shoot game.

What’s more of a big deal is how shortening a barrel will affect balance. Cutting a rifle barrel down will change the way your rifle feels in your hands, especially when shooting off-hand or from unsupported positions. By taking weight away from the front of your rifle, it may feel less steady when holding on target from an unsupported position.

Running a suppressor will change all of that, putting weight back on the front of the rifle. And because that weight is closer to you as a shooter, it won’t be so much that you get tired while holding your rifle up. Short barrels also make rifles feel more butt-heavy. This will make a rifle feel easier to get up to the shoulder should you want to make a quick snap shot.

How to Get Your Rifle Barrel Shortened

If you hunt from a lot of box blinds, plan on running a suppressor, or just want a handy truck gun, you might be tempted to break out the hacksaw right now and start cutting. Hold on a minute. While it’s possible to shorten a rifle barrel at home with the right tools, you probably don’t have them. It’s best to shorten a barrel on a lathe, then finish off the job with a crowning tool that chamfers the inside edge of the muzzle. Any inconsistency in the rifle’s crown can drastically affect accuracy.

When shortening a rifle barrel at home, you also want to be careful you don’t make it too short, or else you’ll be on the wrong side of the law. Rifles with buttstocks that have barrels shorter than 16 inches need to be registered as a “short-barreled rifle” with the ATF under an NFA tax stamp.

The best way to have a rifle barrel shortened is to hire a qualified gunsmith. They’ll have the tools and the knowledge to do the job right, and they can also add things like threads for attaching muzzle devices. What’s even easier is to work through a company like Silencer Central—and if you plan on buying a suppressor, it isn’t a bad idea to use their barrel shortening service, too. All you need to do is mail them your rifle, specify the length you want, and wait for it to come back. Working with a pro will also give you a cleaner job in the end. Bigger operations and gunsmiths can re-blue or paint where the barrel was cut off, making it look more like a factory job.

What’s even easier is to just buy a rifle with a short barrel to begin with. With the suppressor craze taking off, many companies are offering rifles with short barrels. Recently, I took a prototype Mossberg Patriot with a short 16-inch barrel hunting in Africa. It was outfitted with a titanium suppressor, and it felt as though I was just carrying an unsupressed I’m rifle. It’s a setup I’d hunt with again just about anywhere in the world, and one of the most affordable ways to get into a short, handy carbine.

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