Elde your post was awesome and informitive as always, but let me give a laymens/readers digest version:

The reason bullet length, not weight, is the reason you need a faster twist is because the diameter (caliber) of a bullet can only get so large. You cannot fit a .244 bullet down a .223 bore. So when the weight goes up, since you can't add diameter, you have to add length. This goes double for bullets such as the barnes TSX that are solid copper. Lead (and in the case of the Coyote bullets tungsten) is heavier than copper. So it takesa greater volume of copper to make 70 grains than it does lead. Asolid copper .223 70gr bullet may be as much as 20-30% longer than itscopper/lead core counterpart of the same weight.

Think about a football and a baseball. No matter how you throw a baseball, its going to be stable, because its round. As long as it has a constant spin and is truely round.The stitches can make it curve or tail, but if it were smooth, it would fly true. A football, however, will travel end over end (like a punt) unless it has spin. So in order to throw a perfect spiral, you have to snap your wrist. If you don't give the ball enough snap.. it willtumble.... exact same thing with bullets. The longer the bullet, the more twist you need to stabilze it.


Salukipv1... I've read you post several times that you cannot for the life of you understand why anyone would want to shoot a .243 when the 6mm is clearly superior ballistically. Twist rate is actually the answer. In the60s when the two were developed, (and they were developed at almost the same time), Remington figured this to be thenext .22-250... flat shooting, long rangevarmint caliber. Winchester envisioned the rifle pulling doubleduty for varmints andmedium game. Remington realeased their offering (initially called the .244 Remington) with a 1:12 twist, geared towards shooting 50-75grain bullets for varmints. Winchester released its .243 with a faster 1:10 twist, that not only shot the lighter 55gr bullets well, but also the 95 and 100gr bullets. As it turned out, the6mm family never really took off as a varmint cartridge likeRemington anticipated... but it sure did take off as a medium game cartridge. The .244 wouldn't stabilize the heavier bullets used by deer hunters and the chambering gained a terrible reputation forkeyholing bullets and just generallydreadful accuracy.Remington saw the error of its ways pretty fast anda few years later re-realsed the cartridge under a new name (the 6mm Remington)with a 1:10 twist barrel. But the die was cast and the damage was done. Subsequently, in answer to your question about which barrel twist would be best for you... 1:10, or quicker if you are going to have a custom barrel made.