Barrel wear

glogin

Well-Known Member
I was wondering which calibers are known to use barrels more quickly than other calibres?
I heard that .270 and .243 use barrles quite quickly and you start seeing worse groping after several hundreds shots. My father in law which shoots quite a lot used to have 0.5" grouping from his old Mannlicher and it started to getting a bit worse afetr approximately 2-3k bullets from his 7x64 rifle. It is still not bad though, and I think his .30-06 Mannlicher after several hundreds of bullets through still shoots perfect.

Thanks,
Greg
 
High velocity = shorter barrel life.

Big case for calibre also = short barrel life.

.303, 7x57 etc will shoot accurately for a very long time.

Once you start getting above 3000 fps barrel life starts dropping quite rapidly, but a decent barrel should have a life of a few thousand rounds, but how its looked after becomes more important.
 
I have a .243 that has had nearly 2000 rounds through it and still groups under 3" at 500 meters, when I am doing my bit anyway.

Barrel life also has a lot to do with the steel quality which can vary greatly.

There is a theory that the greater the angle of the shoulders of a case and the longer the neck the greater the barrel life.
 
this is great news i have a big old .308 which must have done thousands of rounds i now have somthing else to blame my p??s poor shooting on thanks lads ;)
 
.308s will go a long way. I have a rather simple excel spreadsheet calc for barrel life, but it doesn't take into account the various metallurgical differences between barrels.

Polygonal rifling barrels will last longer, but give high pressure readings for all-copper bullets. They do well for more rapid firing practices. Normal barrels will last a long time if looked after and cleaned properly.

I think the biggest threat to barrel life is moderators not being taken off when the rifle is stored. We had another 2 dud rifles come through the office last week, one was only 7/8 months old, due to damage done to the crown and last few inches of rifling by the corrosive hot gases and dampness contained within the moderators after firing. Both would have to have had 3 or 4 inches taken off the barrels so not workable, but we'll keep one of the actions for rebarreling in the future.

The other older rifle was beautifully maintained on the outside, but you could hardly operate the bolt for crud in the lug recesses and the barrel (aside from the crumbling rifling at the muzzle) was just gopping...and underneath the gunge and embedded copper?...yes, pitting.
 
When I went to buy a new rifle I saw a 300wsm and I spoke to the gunsmith about its supposed high barrel wear. He asked me what it would be used for and I said I was starting to go deer stalking in Scotland and would be going out only a max of 10 times a year. He told me the barrel would last many years longer than my knees :D

It has.

Mauser66 - thanks for the use of the word "gopping". A much underused word these days, and one that always brings a smile to my face. Must be an age thang :p
 
barrel life

Also worth consideration is copper fouling, I have personal experience of this as I bought my Missus a .303 Enfield in fair to middling condition, I gave it a series of Wipeout sessions & she ended up with a very accurate rifle, (shame she could'nt shoot it!), I was poring over the shelves of a local gunshop a few years back & spotted a very badly knocked about Sako Finnbear .270, after having had the ejector blade repaired, (It had been smashed, & the barrel had some nasty scars on it), I shot it with several differing loads to not much of an effect, Then discovered the aforemention product, used it a couple of times, this barrel is now shooting clay pigeon off nails set at 600yds. So before you junk that poor shooting rifle, have a real good look at it! :eek:
 
I use .17Rem for vermin I always remove the mod after every session and give the crown and threads a good clean i can use up to 200rds in a night and it can take the best part of a day to clean it,i found tetra gun to be the best yet as the .17 just seems to colect copper, i religeously clean my guns after every outing,even after one shot,along with the bolt and the chamber,i got a Dewey chamber cleaning kit that makes life easyer. I use PESs/s mods and the instructions for them is to give the inside a squirt with WD40 or the likes.I have always home loaded and put a good few thousand rounds down the barrel with no loss of accuracey.
 
My Steyr SSG69 in 308win has had over 3700 rounds through it without and real noticable increase in grouping. It's still sub MOA.

In contrast, i burnt out a 22-250 barrell in less than 1500 rounds!
 
Hmmm is the Forrest Foaming Bore cleaner the same as Wipeout?

I use the Forrest cleaner but have never come across wipe out yet.
 
JTO said:
I read somewhere that stainless barrels last longer.

Hmmm that will depend on several things but it starts with the actual type of stainless used. It's not all equal you know as Berretta found out with the Tikkas that were splitting barrels along the flutes :rolleyes: . Stainless can be quite brittle if the mix is wrong or grade is wrong ;) .

Also the method of manufacture of the barrel can also have some effect on it's ability to resist wear. One reason hammer forging of barrels was developed ;) .

The biggest factor in barrel wear is the heat of the gases and not allowing time to cool bewteen shots. Certain types of powders burn cooler than others. In one of the free Norma ammunition booklets there is an article on barrel wear and cleaning. They took a barrel and fired 10,000 bullets through and compared the new measurments to the one after the 10,000 bullets. However they used compressed air to fire the bullets not nitro cellulose powder. They found almost no wear at all, it's the powder gases and heat which cause the wear. They also recommend allowing the brush to exit the muzzle before drawing it back and again found it caused no appreciable wear :eek:

It's an interesting subject to study and a lot of miss-information is banndied about. I don't rate the idea of pullthroughs, call them what you like but the risk of wear to the muzzle by a pull through used incorrectly is well documented and proven in the military so I'll stick with a bronze brush on a solid rod with swivel handle and unless I go mad with either shooting or cleaning the barrels incorrectly I doubt I'll wear the Moly carbon ones out in my lifetime ;) even those that are 60+ years old already.
 
Actually, the US Army ordnance division at Aberdeen Proving Grounds did an extensive study on barrel wear that has been well documented. ("Principals and Practice of Handloading Ammnuition", E. Naramore) in which it was found that with projeciles matched to the barrel dimensions, pressure was the bugger-boo of barrel life. High pressure loadings erroded barrels faster than low pressure loads and has little to do with the copper projectiles themselves. Undersized projecties caused faster errosion.

Accuracy deterioration due ot copper or crud, as Finn was describing, is a different issue. I have many very old, relatively low pressure rifles that shoot better then I can hold. I once shot the throat out of a 220 Ackley Swift (in my intemperate youth) with about 400 rounds by being stupid and running the edge of maximum from the git-go.

This is a good lesson to folks who think that running hot loads is OK. It eats barrels and stresses actions and eventually it will catch up to you and your rifle. Take it from someone who's been there! :cry: ~Muir
 
Bought a Sako in .243 in 1984 fire approx 1000 rounds a year through it, still shoots to point of aim I am a reloader and it has never had max. load fired through it, thats untrue it had a few when I was working up a load but backed it of a bit [ more accurate with lighter load] 100gr. Hornady boat tail 37 gr. Hodgdons H380 Remington Magnum primers, though this load is well below the max I was getting pressure marks with normal primers switch to magnum no more problems[faster burn I think]

So I am not sure why this barrel should still be Ok when I have seen a lot shot out with far fewer rounds fired through them?
 
I own one of the calibre’s that has been accused of being a real barrel burner, a 243 WSSM. I brought it second hand the guy who I brought it off told me he ran it on 75gns doing 3500 fps:eek: and he had shot 400 round thought it.

I brought it with the thought that I would re-barrel it if it was fcuked, I even brought a new bolt head so I could go to 6mm BR. I had the barrel checked with a bore scope by a top chap and he said it was showing minimal erosion so no new barrel yet was need.

I think the major difference between our selves and our US cousins is the way we use our rifles, perhaps Muir could comment. But we shoot one or two shots at a deer/fox and then that is it for the morning, were in the USA varminters will shoot there rifles until they are very hot, I think this causes very much more damage that the way we use our rifles.

In short don’t worry about it, it takes a lot of years to shoot out a stalking rifle.

ATB

Tahr
 
Thar: US varmint shooters (those who live in varmint shooting areas) are a pretty mild bunch. The real barrel burners are the folks who come from the right and left coasts to my area to shoot prairiedogs. One fellow who stays at my brother's lodge boasts of shooting 1000 rounds a day. Every year he shows up with a lot of loaded ammo and his reloading gear and stays for two weeks. Whether or not he shows up with a new rifle every year is the question! We who live in varmint country mind our barrels but still, we may shoot 1000+ rounds a year from one rifle alone. Most reloaders I know mind the pressures and don't worry about burning barrels. I shoot a 22 Hornet for prairiedogs and shoot about 1000 rounds a year. I have been shooting the same Hornet for 4 years now with no deterioration of accuracy. Low pressure wins every time. I chose my powder based on the quality of giving the velocity I want at the lowest pressure. Saves brass and barrel both.

I agree with you: It would be hard for a person to wear out a stalking rifle when used as you describe. It is an od thing that on UK web sites I see far too many people losing sleep over this. One fellow was certain his .243 was shot out after 400 rounds. Strange how the mind works.~Muir
 
It's an interesting subject to study and a lot of miss-information is banndied about. I don't rate the idea of pullthroughs, call them what you like but the risk of wear to the muzzle by a pull through used incorrectly is well documented and proven in the military so I'll stick with a bronze brush on a solid rod with swivel handle and unless I go mad with either shooting or cleaning the barrels incorrectly I doubt I'll wear the Moly carbon ones out in my lifetime even those that are 60+ years old already.
I would agree. It is called "cord wear" and happens at the muzzle when the pull through is not drawn out straight but angled so that the cord bears against and rubs on the inside of the crown.
 
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