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I think that anything over 16" doesn't really gain you anything other than a little safety in legal barrel length. Anything under means you have to register it as a short barreled rifle. So my opinion is 16" maybe + a quarter inch to be on the good side. As far as twist rate I've been looking at 1:7 or 1:8. The larger diameter of the .338 over the .30 cal will give it more gyroscopic stablity at the same rpm relative to the .30 cal but on the other hand those 300gr SMK's are mighty long. I think I'd have to say listen to Spook on this one as he's actually been doing some shooting and I'm still working on collecting parts to put one of these together. Its not always possible to simply compare other cals to come up with twist rates. Over spinning is less likely to give you problems as compared to underspinning too. I'd hate to knock the baffles out of a can if I wasn't a class 2 manufacturer. I hate to knock them out even being a class 2....
One piece of advice is to buy a good quality blank to have your barrel made. Its worth the cost to have a component you know is correct so you aren't chasing a number of unknown variables with a new rifle and cal.
Hope that helps
Spook,
I'd have to say that the heaviest .338's I've seen are the 300's too. The SMK's and some other round nose designs. . . I've been looking at having a mold made up for both the .338 and the .510 but not sure what design I want or weight. We've been shooting the 510 more but all the .338's have been in the Lapua.
Frank
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