Would someone explain a little on barrel choices?
A,B, C weight
Barrel type swamp, straight etc
Grove count, depth and style
Length and velocity, how much loss from a .36 inch, .38 inch from a 42 inch?
Barrel thickness verses pressure, 3/4, 13/16, 7/8, 15-16
Thanks
"A,B, C weight" Those are names the different modern barrel makers put on their products to identify the widths from breech (A is smallest) to muzzle and show the double taper sizes (swamped).
Swamped barrel is bigger in the breech tapering slightly toward the muzzle . Somewhere along that taper they go straight a short distance then flare back out to the muzzle, thus, double taper or swamped.
A straight barrel is just that, same width from breech to muzzle. Some are a straight taper, going from big to small breech to muzzle with no "swamp".
"Grove count, depth and style". I am assuming you are referring to the rifling here. They say the round bottom is better than the square bottom rifling and the depth matters. I'm not so sure it really does matter. I think this might just be a sales gimmick. I've always had good luck with both types and couldn't see any difference in them. They all can be made accurate and they all need to be cleaned.
Velocity/length is something I have never been concerned with. Same with pressure. Again, you can usually get any well made barrel to perform if you spend time shooting it. I'm sure there are some people that need to know all that stuff but I'm just not one of them.
Think about this. There are some people that can shoot a smoothbored gun as good or better than other people using a rifle. That tells me not to be concerned with a bunch of trivial matters and I need to spend a lot of time behind one gun throwing lead and burning powder. Know what load that gun likes and you will know where it will hit before you pull the trigger.