A couple years ago I sporterized an M96 Swedish Mauser. I cut 3 inches off the barrel, installed new open sights and mounted a scope with see-through mounts. I also got rid of unnecessary wood and even went to the trouble of adding a pistol grip to the stock like that of an M98. When I was done, I could group 3 shots at 100 yds that could be covered with a quarter. Not bad for a $95 gun with $60 scope. I don't know how many groundhogs I got with that gun over three summer seasons. The 6.5x55 seems almost perfect: mild to shoot, powerful and accurate.
One year I took it deer hunting and that's when I realized that I had a lot of extra barrel sticking out.
My question is, if I were to shorten my barrel some more, is there an optimum length barrel for this caliber that anybody's aware of? What's a typical barrel length when sporterizing the M96?

Twenty two inch barrels are standard lenglth for that class of cartridge in hunting rifles.

"Optimum" equates to the lenth that gets the most our of any caliber and that is 26", now handy may be 22"...the excepted lenths are 22, 24 and 26 on todays sporters with 18 or 20 being carbines....

I personally like a 26" barrel, as I shoot off hand a lot and it just hangs better and certainly works better with iron sights..I doubt that cutting off 4" of steel makes a lot of difference to anyone other than in their head. Our forefathers lived by the gun and they liked long barrels, as did the early African Ivory hunters...Carbines came with the cowboy and mounted armys...

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Ray,
I've always liked the barrels on my guns to be longer, too. In all my experience deer hunting, I've never been able to make use of any kind of rest. Nearly all my shots at groundhogs are taken standing up, both me and the groundhog. The longer barrel definitely has a steadying effect, though one time a farmer asked me if I had a set of wheels to put under the front end of my M96 to help me carry it.

Technically the optimum is whatever gets the most velocity, which is probably whatever length allows all the powder to burn--generally gonna be closer to Ray's 26".

Optimum to actually hunt with is whatever balances and shoots best for you. I've got two centerfires in 24" and one 22" and the 22" feels stubby and light.

But, I'm 6'2", 185 lbs., wear a 36" sleeve and am reasonably fit. I also have a 22" on an inline muzzleloader, which is shorter than optimum on a black powder rifle, but with the heavier barrel of a .50 cal. it balances great for me.

This will probably be the most primitive answer on this thread. Oh well, here goes. I prefer that the barrel doesn't touch the ground when holding on to the pistol grip and letting the rifle point at the ground. It has been a good rule of thumb for me in my hunting situations. That generally figures to 24 inches max for me. After that I don't really care. I just find a good load and go with it. I know that if you are not comfortable with the feel of the rifle it won't matter how fine or fast it is, you won't shoot well.