Your openion - what to order

[Swamppanther]

My wife kinda gave me the go ahead so . . .I am gonna get me a .32 flint squirrel gun from Tennessee Valley Muzzleloading. The Tennessee (basic).
I am getting the swamped barrel with radius rifling. I am thinking 42 inch for barrel. They offer 38 or 42.  Any thoughts?

[rollingb]

If the choice was mine,.... I'd go with the 38" barrel, because of my torn rotator cuffs.

Other than that, I'd find it hard to decide which length to go with. 

[Roaddog]

I fined the 38 a little nicer hadling in the squirrel woods.There's not so much to swing around when pointing up at the squirrels in the trees.Evon with a swamped barrel.

[Ohio Joe]

My wife kinda gave me the go ahead so . . .I am gonna get me a .32 flint squirrel gun from Tennessee Valley Muzzleloading. The Tennessee (basic).
I am getting the swamped barrel with radius rifling. I am thinking 42 inch for barrel. They offer 38 or 42.  Any thoughts?

Some years back I built a 38" barreled muzzle loading rifle for a friend of mine - while at the same time building myself a 42" barreled ml rifle... Well, when all said and done, I liked that 38" barreled rifle a whole lot better for loading and handling. My personal choice would be 38 inches. 

[Uncle Russ]

My wife kinda gave me the go ahead so . . .I am gonna get me a .32 flint squirrel gun from Tennessee Valley Muzzleloading. The Tennessee (basic).
I am getting the swamped barrel with radius rifling. I am thinking 42 inch for barrel. They offer 38 or 42.  Any thoughts?

 


I love the way your wife thinks!
I love whatcha thinkin about doing too...a honest to goodness 'Skwerl' Rifle....now that truly shines!

My own Skwerl Rifle is bit heavy for the work at hand, being that it's in .45 cal, but I have gotten lucky and taken a few nut crackers with it...there was none of the destruction I expected and I've read about, and not all were head shots.

It also sports a 42" barrel and there's been times I wished that barrel was a tad shorter.
It's a very early model Pedersoli "Pennsylvania Long Rifle", from 2000 or 2001, if I remember correctly,  there are not that many around that I'm aware of. They were obviously poor sellers, probably due to the price back then, but mine is a good shooter and that's all I care about.

Mention of that Swamped Barrel sure put the old mind to thinking on some other builds.

Uncle Russ...

[Ironhand]

The shorter barrel is handier but for me the greatest advantage is in loading the gun. The longer barrels are often above the line of sight when standing upright, it is hard to see what you are doing and awkward to reach up to load. You end up leaning the gun to load, which is also awkward and sometimes unsafe.

IMHO you will be happier with the shorter barrel.

IronHand

[AxelP]

I'd go with 42" swamped. Longer sight radius, also better resale value. It will look sleeker when sporting a longer barrel, TVM tends to leave a lot of wood on the forearm (more than what many originals and other custom guns have, so the longer barrel will look better in that small caliber). Loading a 42 inch long barreled gun is not difficult. I am 5 ft 11" and have no problem loading my guns with 46 inch long barrels. And I use em for tree rats and also birds, and they swing just fine.

Happy future hunting!

K

[Eric Krewson]

If you use an A weight barrel you can go long and still have a nice handling rifle. I just built a .32 Kibler kit rifle with a 46" A weight barrel. If I put my thumb and forefinger around barrel at mid point, the circle I make with my fingers is not much larger in diameter than a quarter.