How many rounds to wear out a barrel?

[longhorn]

I'm thinking of selling several guns to finance a new custom rifle; I've read opinions on the blackpowder forums that you can't wear out a barrel with lead bullets and black powder, but I'm planning on lead bullets and newfangled smokeless. Since I'm planning on having this one a long time, and shooting it a lot, I'm wondering how many rounds until barrel/throat wear lead to noticeable loss of accuracy. Actually, I've never worn out a barrel with jacketed bullets--too fickle, I guess. Anybody here with answers or opinions?

[danski26]

Most opinions in print are that the heat from the burning of the powder "wears out" a barrel. I would believe that a black powder barrel might not ever where out.

It also has to do with how much accuracy you want out of a rifle. If you want or need the height of precision then you will be changing barrels before you would if you need minute of deer accuracy.

Normaly the smaller the bore size and the larger the powder size the quicker you start to lose accuracy. There is also a relationship between pressure curve "heat" vs bullet location in the barrel that has affects on throat erosion.

Unless you have a very small bore ".22 6mm 6.5mm ect" with large case capacity, relatively, "284, magnum, weatherby mag ext" and are looking for longe range or benchrest precision, in my opinion you need not worry too much about wearing out a barrel.

Besides, that is a great excuse to spend some money at a gun-smith and rebarrel the rifle for something new.

[joeb33050]

My Martini bench rifle was finished 2/10/93, so it is 14 years old. I've never shot a jacketed bullet through it. I haven't recorded how many shots through it, but would guess over 10,000. It seems of late to not be as accurate as it was-it has won several matches, shot at least 2 100 yard 250s, and several groups in the .2s at 100 yards.
I haven't given up, but it seems to have lost its best accuracy-it just doesn't reliably shoot as well as it did.
I don't know if this is typical, or if there is such a thing as typical, but it's looking like this Douglas barrel needs to be replaced or rebored/re-rifled.
This is the only Cast Bullet rifle I've ever had that has showed accuracy loss over time.
joe brennan

[arkypete]

I had a Mauser action made into the 375 Whelen, to be a cast bullet rifle. It's never had a jacketed bullet down the bore. I use the jacketed bullet loading data for 35 Whelen for bullets of similar weight. I doubt that this barrel will ever wear out .
Jim

[eka]

I think it was Felix that said something about counting yourself lucky if you can spend enough time at the range to wear a barrel out. That's a pretty good view in my opinion. :-D

[Lloyd Smale]

ive got handguns with the round counts in the 100000s that shoot as good as new. You will usually wear out your forcing cone before a barrel even starts to show wear even with jacketed bullets in a handgun.

[schutzen]

The only civilian barrel I've seen that was shot out had over 20,000 "recorded” shots fired through it. It was a .223 and most of the rounds were 55 jacketed over 26.6 grains of H335. This is a higher end load, but about 1/2 grain from maximum. If you get 20K + rounds through a barrel break down a buy a new one. Military barrels tend to wear much faster. However, I am not convinced this is from shooting. I believe much of the wear on military and civilian barrels is from improper or too frequent cleaning. Yes, I am guilty of not cleaning my barrel every time I shoot. I do run a wet patch through it, but I do not scrub with a brush and solvent every time. I also believe in soft metal (brass), coated, or non-metallic cleaning rods used with a bore guide. Lately I have been switching over to the fiber carbon rods. The short answer is stick to mid-range or upper mid-range loads and clean the barrel properly, it should last for a lot of shooting.

[felix]

It's a function of purpose/result on when to get rid of a barrel. BR gun? Got real money riding on the event(s)? If the answer is no, then, yes, consider yourself lucky to have had the time to kill a barrel, bullets or boolits. Keep pressures low, keep antimony low and covered by tin, do not index rounds, and the gun will remain "cool" for 10 lifetimes. If accuracy begins to wane, get a bigger boolit, stick it out further, reduce the load pressure. Reducing load pressure also means to use a slower powder so the spike will be minimal, and moved away some from the throat. ... felix

[Char-Gar]

I have worn out several 03A3 barrels in my younger days. It took over 10K rounds to reduce the accuracy to the point I noticed it for recreatonal shooting. Many of those 10K rounds were fired as fast as I could work the action. The cosomline would run out of the wood and it would begin to smoke in a few places.

Benchrest shooting is a very demanding and critical sport and the slightest wear will show up on the targets. But for the normal recreational shooter, using cast loads in the `1.5 to 2 k fps range, barrel wear is just not a consideration.

When I clean a cast bullet rifle, I use solvent, a nylon brush and patches.

[JCherry]

Felix,

You noted "keep antimony low and covered by tin". What is an optimum alloy to accomplish this?

I am using straight WW, 220 grain bullets (311284) at 2000 FPS MV in an original 1896 30-40 Krag rifle. I am oven heat treating my bullets. The powders I am using are WC-860 and WC-872. I figure with these slow burning powders my pressure peak is way down that 30 inch barrel. Bystanders have noted that my muzzle blast seems louder than many others. This load basically will hold the 10 ring of a SR-1 target off of the bench.

Should I make a point of adding tin to my WW to lessen wear on the throat of the rifle?

I am sizing my bullets to .311 even though the throat of my rifle will accept .313 bullets. Would it be better to use .313 sized bullets? The bore measures .309.

Currently I'm shooting, at most, 400 rds a year with this rifle so I doubt I'll cause any major wear to the throat but if adjusting my methods a little would reduce wear it would probably be worth while.

I shoot my Krag in side matches at our cowboy shoots. Our course of fire is 15 shots offhand, five shots each at 100 yard, 200 yard and 300 yard steel targets at a relatively fast rate of fire. The barrel does get hot enough that you don't want to hold it with the bare hand.

Thanks,

Have Fun,

JCherry

[StrawHat]

I have fired many hundreds of pounds of paper patched bullets down two of my rifles and they are not yet giving me any evidence of being less accurate. The same can not be said of the shooter.

I have also read where some of the old single shots used in the buffalo trade were fired thousands of times with paper patched bullets and show visible wear in the leading edge of the rifling but you would need a bore scope to see it.

So as has been pointed out, it all depends on the accuracy you expect to maintain.

Minute of angle or minute of buffalo?

[felix]

Jim, short answer is do not make any changes for reasons you state. You might try adding some more tin, but only if you have a good supply, and to see if your boolits cast better and therefore shoot better. If you cannot tell the difference, then leave the sleeping dogs alone. For the amount of tin to cover the antimony completely can only be determined by analysis, or the time the lead takes to reach steady state in maximum SOFTNESS after water dropping, or oven treatment at 450F for an hour, and then water dropping. That can take a year or more. Quicker the steady state, the more tin coverage you have. We are talking antimony boolits here. In other words, in your situation, forget it. ... felix

[JCherry]

Felix,

In the past I did try adding about 2 percent tin to my mix and I really did not see any difference in the sharpness of the casts so I'll do as you suggest and leave it alone.

Thanks,

Have Fun,

JCherry

[nelsonted1]

If I were building a lifetime rifle I'd build it in a 30 cal of some sort to keep any overbore down. I'd put on a barrel about 28 inches with the barrel threading running four to six inches beyond the breach. That way one can just turn off the worn section of throat, ream it to your caliber and thread it back. Could do it five or six times. Of course one would have to thread on five or six nuts against the action to protect the extra threading. If you did when you were 18 and had to set the barrel back once every ten years you'd have enough threads and barrel length to last for thirty years, until your wife divorces you and you have to sell it for 3% of what it is worth. Slathering wherewolf women anyway.

TED

[longhorn]

Many thanks for the replies. I like joeb's 10,000 number as a point to watch for; I enjoy accuracy, but minute-of-beer can will probably be enough for this one. And, yeah, I've worn out forcing cones in 2 revolvers for sure, but one was my first centerfire, a Ruger in .45LC that only lasted about 6000. I'll never tell specifics, but you won't find most of those loads in any manual! The good news is, the frame never "stretched," and the topstrap cutting went only about 1/32" and held steady. At any rate, 10,000 rounds should be 5 years or so-maybe I'll be able to afford a new barrel when it needs one.

[georgeld]

I've got a Sako bought new in '72 that was a .222Mag.

After some 6000, nearly all at prairie dogs it lost accuracy.
From dime sized holes. it wouldn't hit a fat p/dog at 80yds with three tries.
Something was wrong!

paperwork showed over 7". Brought it down to about 3" by floating the tight fit barrel for about another 500 rnds then back to over 6" again.

Replaced it with an A&B from Midway reamed to .223. After sorting bullets with a favorite load it was making ten shots in one hole of .260". about that time I quit and took it coyote calling, killed over 20 within the first two weeks.

That next spring it got warmed up a few time's on p/dogs again. Still has less than 1000rnds thru it. Gonna change that this summer.

That 222mag tube never once had more than 100 rnds per session thru it, but, it did get plenty hot a bunch of time's.

Those were: 55gr @ 3000fps, 25.0gr 4895 for the only load it ever fired.

[nicholst55]

The Marine Corps has an M40 sniper rifle with 10,000 documented rounds through one barrel. It will still shoot bughole groups, although I'll bet the throat is gone right where a 168 Sierra exits the case mouth. Shooting Times magazine also did an AR-15 torture test several years ago, and fired 10,000 rounds of ammo - all 55 grain, through a rifle. It was keyholing by the time they finished. However, when they switched bullet weights, it shot better than it did new!

I'd shoot my rifle until it visibly lost accuracy, and then switch to a longer bullet, seated out farther.