The AR-556 thread got me thinking.. How many people have actually shot enough rounds through a rifle barrel to wear it out? I can see if one is not careful and shoots long strings of rapid fire that it might happen or maybe someone who shoots many many rounds in competition, but the average shooting enthusiast? Thoughts?
Have you ever worn out a barrel?
- Thread starter 427mach1
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GunnyGene
Hawkeye
427mach1 said:
Once. An M-60.
chilidog
Single-Sixer
257 weatherby
Curious how many rounds it took...approximately of course.
The average guy is never going to wear a barrel out, with anything other than INTENDED abuse. Several calibers will erode the throats pretty quickly if you shoot "hot" loads in it all the time, but even at that, accuracy does not erode to the point of horrible in most cases. It's just not as good as it was.
Match rifles are another matter. My 6.5-284 needs a barrel about every 1000 rounds. That's because I shoot it REALLY hot. Why not back it off and save the barrel is usually the first question. The answer is........as the velocity drops, so does the accuracy on this particular rifle. Even with a "shot out" barrel, it is still pretty accurate, just not "match" accurate
Match rifles are another matter. My 6.5-284 needs a barrel about every 1000 rounds. That's because I shoot it REALLY hot. Why not back it off and save the barrel is usually the first question. The answer is........as the velocity drops, so does the accuracy on this particular rifle. Even with a "shot out" barrel, it is still pretty accurate, just not "match" accurate
GunnyGene
Hawkeye
427mach1 said:
It varied. Had a runaway once with about 100 rds left in the belt. That was interesting. :shock:
Biggfoot44
Blackhawk
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As noted accuracy with match rifles is a whole different thing than 2 min of whitetail.
But since this thread was directed to let us say service tyle rifles in 5.56 ;
Some semi serious 3 gun types measure their monthly practice rounds in thousands. Likewise LE agencies that have dedicated training guns will go through a zillion rounds.
And for these type guns, it is a lot less about the actual round count than the bbl temps . Full auto,bump firing obviously. But even somthing like a round every 1-2sec , with rapid mag changes , will destroy a bbl within ( I've read tests in defense industry publications, don't remember exact number, but well under 1,000). Conversely if you only fired slow fire 5shot groups, and let bbl cool inbetween strings, it would last nearly forever.
But since this thread was directed to let us say service tyle rifles in 5.56 ;
Some semi serious 3 gun types measure their monthly practice rounds in thousands. Likewise LE agencies that have dedicated training guns will go through a zillion rounds.
And for these type guns, it is a lot less about the actual round count than the bbl temps . Full auto,bump firing obviously. But even somthing like a round every 1-2sec , with rapid mag changes , will destroy a bbl within ( I've read tests in defense industry publications, don't remember exact number, but well under 1,000). Conversely if you only fired slow fire 5shot groups, and let bbl cool inbetween strings, it would last nearly forever.
gramps
Hawkeye
Nicely understated Gunny :shock: :mrgreen:GunnyGene said:
gramps, who would love to see a video of that!
GunnyGene
Hawkeye
gramps said:
At 600rds/min it only took about 10 sec. She was already pretty warm before that and was smokin' hot when the ammo ran out. Had to swap out the bbl and replace the sear. This was a fairly common problem with the early M60's.
Didn't have video back then, but there's probably one on Youtube. Practically everything is these days. :roll:
WIL TERRY
Buckeye
An Armalite M4c barrel went from twenty-round one inch groups at 100 yards to six-inch groups at 50 yards after thousands of rounds. MANY thirty round magazines one after another did it in fine style. NBFD !!! They make new BBL's by the boxcar full everyday, MUCH better ones that the past.
And so it goes...
And so it goes...
WIL TERRY
Buckeye
THAT would be the only criteria, Sir.planetcat said:
And so it goes...
Don Lovel
Hunter
I have seen a 264 Win Mag with the throat mostly eroded, but it still shot good groups at over 300yds. Go figure
I took a Pac-Nor barreled 204 to my gravel pit on a few hot summer days and shot the throat right out of it. The barrel was not worn out, I set back the shoulder, rechambered it and put it back in action. I did the same thing with a 243. Both rifles did it in less than 300 rounds. I have to say that neither would have done it in four times as many if they had been treated right!!!
I barrel a lot of actions and I know a lot of guys that do a pretty fair amount of shooting. I will say this; most "worn out" barrels are really barrels that were never cleaned right to begin with, i.e. the carbon was scrubbed out but the copper was left behind. That copper eventually caught up with it and the barrel was declared "worn out"...nothing a can of JB bore cleaner wouldn't fix.
As above, about the rest of them are a shot out or burned throat. I have yet to see a barrel with worn out rifling to the point that it became inaccurate. I have put 6 and 7 thousand rounds thru two different barrels and they still shoot fine...now, they had to be set back and the chamber recut several times, but rifling worn out??? Nope.
I barrel a lot of actions and I know a lot of guys that do a pretty fair amount of shooting. I will say this; most "worn out" barrels are really barrels that were never cleaned right to begin with, i.e. the carbon was scrubbed out but the copper was left behind. That copper eventually caught up with it and the barrel was declared "worn out"...nothing a can of JB bore cleaner wouldn't fix.
As above, about the rest of them are a shot out or burned throat. I have yet to see a barrel with worn out rifling to the point that it became inaccurate. I have put 6 and 7 thousand rounds thru two different barrels and they still shoot fine...now, they had to be set back and the chamber recut several times, but rifling worn out??? Nope.
Here's how you do it! Deliberately!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSizVpfqFtw
Melt it down! Watch and learn!
The AR will take a lot of punishment!
Melt it down! Watch and learn!
The AR will take a lot of punishment!
Vulcan Bob
Single-Sixer
Most "shot out" rifle barrels just need a good cleaning, paying attention to removing copper accumulation. A quick cleaning with Hoppes Number 9 is not going to do it. With that said I used my Colt H-Bar Match Target in IPSC rifle and then Three Gun match's with a SGW Ultra Match stainless barrel. The round count has to be way up there, and I've noticed it will only shoot into a inch "off a bench" at 100 these days. No, I'm not going to scrap the barrel quite yet.
OzzyDave
Bearcat
When we had a booming kangaroo culling industry here it was one barrel a year for the professional shooters. 223 bolt action would be the most common choice. Anywhere from 8000 to 15,000 in a year - depending how well they cleaned them. Alot of barrels looked like a smooth bore after a year. 
