30 year note correlation to 2x 10 year notes?

[gonetowindsurf]

Is my thinking incorrect? If I buy 30 year treasuries - does that mean that I am committed to PP for 30 years?  I have a hard time committing to a 30 year strategy. Plus, I  have my own personal opinion about the risk of the 30 year - including a selected default mechanism, ie the Treasury defaulting on the FED debt. Call me crazy but that is how I feel and I can't shake it. (Who would have thought the FED would become the largest purchaser of US obligations?) 
That said, it appears that I can I buy twice as many 10 years and get close to the volatility of the 30year? Looking at a long term chart comparing TLT to IEF, it appears that I can match the volatility with  2x IEF - (at least using those two proxies as comparison). To me that would be a safer alternative, because of the shorter time frame but maybe I am missing something?

[AdamA]

You can sell the bonds at any time and are certainly not locked in to the PP for 30 years.

[dualstow]

You're actually supposed to sell those bonds after ten years, b/c 20 years is the minimum duration to get that desired volatility.
Sell your bonds when they have 20 years until maturity and buy new 30-year bonds.

As for trying to increase volatility with more treasuries that are merely 10-year notes, I don't think it works that way.
What if you bought tons of t-bills? You'd have a lot of something, but not much volatility.

[Bean]

Actually, Melveyr has shown that you can swap out the 25% cash and 25% LTT for 50% 10 year treasuries. So yes, if you dump the cash allocation as well, you can essentially have a portfolio that is very close to 4x25 that is 25/25/50  stock/gold/10 yr treasuries.

Returns over the long run were similar.  However, a barbell reacts different than a bullet strategy in changing rates in the sort term.  I like the 25 and 25 because barbell makes a rate transition a little less physiologically painful.