Barrel life expectancy?

[Shuz]

If a rifle is dedicated to cast boolits, and is loaded with boolits that are in the 1700 to 1900 fps range, what is the typical life of the bbl before throat erosion starts to set in? ("Life" is determined in the number of rounds fired.) Powder used is generally Alliant Reloder 7.

[jmort]

I'm thinking indefinite with lead alloy bullets at low pressure. Throat erosion will "set in" on the first shot. Better question, when does throat erosion become a problem? Let your grand kids or great grand kids worry about it.

[Calamity Jake]

YAP^^^^^^^What he said↑↑↑

[evoevil]

forever

[gnostic]

The NRA tested cast boolits in a 3006 and there wasn't any wear after 2k rounds...

[metricmonkeywrench]

Milliseconds... relatively speaking

[murf205]

The biggest enemy to a barrel is hot burning powder gases in the throat area. Since you are loading nowhere near the max, your volume of hot gas is probably less than half of full tilt loads. Considering that a cast boolit goes down the barrel with less effort than one with a jacket, just shoot and enjoy. Like jmort said, your great grand children can worry about the barrel. This is the beauty of cast boolits-they will shoot through a Buick without driving them to warp speed. Aint it grand!!

[KCSO]

I had a 308 in 1975 that was used by a cast bullet shooter for 20 years and I used it for another 10 with no sign of wear over 20,000 rounds now with the third owner and still going strong.

[EDG]

Harry Pope was said to have a rifle barrel that he shot over 30,000 times in competition.
1. He made better barrels than just about any one when workmanship is considered.
2. That was so long ago that his barrels would have been made out of softer steels considered inferior today.

Quote from an old article

The high-pressure, smokeless ammunition and jacketed bullets used today are especially hard on the inside of barrels. Three or four thousand rounds is all they can stand. Owners of Pope barrels usually save them for important contests and practice with other rifles. In contrast, Pope has a .33-caliber black-powder rifle that has been fired 125,000 tunes and is still in almost as good condition as it was in 1892, when it was first made.

[lightman]

With cast bullets at those speeds a barrel should last just about forever. Just be careful cleaning it. You can do more damage by using a cleaning rod improperly than a cast bullet will do.

[jmort]

^^^^ Good point

[Uncle R.]

Milliseconds... relatively speaking

This.
Throat erosion "starts to set in" with the first shot, and continues to get worse with each additional shot.
With small powder charges and cast boolits it would probably be very little throat erosion with each shot, but it would be there.

How many shots before you could see it, or measure it?
That's a different question.
I'd expect it would be thousands of rounds.

Uncle R.

[Hickory]

You can't live long enough to wear out a barrel with cast boolits!

[Preacher Jim]

Overbore rounds can eat a throat out in as little as 800 rounds to the point accuracy suffers.this is with jacketed bullets.
Cast Boolits do not erode throat near as fast. Cleaning rods do more damage to these barrels than boolits

[500Linebaughbuck]

my own 30-40 krag is roughly 7 - 8000 lead boolits threw it.
it is a 1898 springfield armory(made in 1903) and all i shoot threw it is cast boolits about 1800fps.

you will have to wait for great great great great grandkids to answer that one..

[reddog81]

At the point where you've spent $100's on primers and $1,000's on powders does it really matter if you have to eventually buy a new barrel or gun?

[Shuz]

As Paul Harvey would say,"Now for the rest of the story". I've been shooting cast in several .250 Savages for over 20 years now. The first two bbls that showed signs of throat erosion were Remington 700 Classics for which I was NOT the first owner;therefore I have no idea what, or how many jacketed bullets went thru them. All I knew was that a qualified gunsmith told me that his Hawkeye borescope said that the first one I had had the bbl shot out. I took it to him when I noticed my accuracy dropping off from what it once shot. I then "found" another Classic in .250 and snapped it up, again not knowing round count or type of rounds fired thru it. It only shot mediocre right from the get go, so I guessed it was worn out like the other and sold it. I looked for another .250 Savage and found a new Savage Model 16 "Weather Warrior" in .250 Savage. This rifle has shot very well in the 6 or 7 years that I have owned it. A couple of years ago, I thought I'd buy another as a "back-up", only to find out that Savage no longer chambers the .250 Savage in this model or any other bolt action.

Well, based on the answers rec'd so far, it looks like I'll be shooting this rifle 'till I can no longer see thru the 36x scope!
Thanks--Shuz

[unique]

You are much more likely to wear it out by improper cleaning.

[M-Tecs]

I have a 45 ACP barrel that has about 30,000 rounds of cast through it and maybe 5,000 jacketed. It shows very little wear and zero loss in accuracy. This is just a guess but since a 308 with 175 jacketed bullets generally will get 4,000 plus rounds before you start having elevation issues at 600 - 1,000 yards and 6,000 to 8,000 rounds before 300 yard accuracy starts going south a cast bullet in the 1,700 to 1,900 velocity range should go at least 3 times that. My guess would be it will go a lot more than 3 times jacket barrel life.

[David2011]

USPSA shooters exceed 200,000 rounds in a barrel with cast. That’s shooting full weight boolits at about 90% of factory load velocities. Of course, rifles are another matter entirely but that shows that the boolit itself won’t wear a barrel out very fast.

[TXGunNut]

I'm pretty sure I won't live long enough to wear out a rifle barrel with lead boolits. I have several that got a fifty year (or more!) head start on me and with the exception of the ones used with corrosive primers they'll outlast me in fine condition.

[samari46]

A good friend who is no longer with us had a Kimber 45acp that he only shot hard cast 230 grain round nosed bullets. He used to shoot about 300 rds on saturday and sunday. 600 rounds in two sessions except when they held steel plate matches. We jokingly called his rounds grease balls as he didn't load to normal velocity levels except for the steel plate matches. They would chronograph your loads to make sure they made major power factor. I know for sure he had over 30k through that barrel. Bushing wore out so he got a Briley barrel bushing and continued on. About twice a month UPS would show up with boxes of 230 grain rn bullets. I would hazard a guess conservatily he had way over 50k long before he passed away. He had buckets of 45 brass he would process and save when he loaded his ammo on a Dillon 550B. I have shot over 15k through my tricked out Springfield Armory and no barrel wear except it being shiney.Outside of a couple hundred rounds of hardball that was it. Heck even my 1943 Ithaca has only seen 230 rn through it. I asked one time to see the barrel after his passing 30k rns through it. Except for some slight rounding of the lands in the throat all looked good. My 1935 Finnish M27 has only seen cast bullets. No idea of the round count before I got it though. My 1898 Krag has had about 200 rnds jacketed in it to get some brass. Cast bullets for that one next. So unless you are shooting some high pressure cast loads I wouldn't worry about barrel erosion or wearing out the barrel. Have fun as that is what it's all about. Frank

[TXGunNut]

My old PPC gun (S&W 586) had a few thousand rounds thru the original barrel and maybe 10K through the first Douglas barrel before I ringed it by chasing a squib out with a round that had powder in it. Best I can figure the third and current barrel fired somewhere in the neighborhood of 200K rounds of PPC target loads (mostly swaged wadcutters) during nearly 20 years of fairly serious competition and practice before I retired from competing awhile back. I suspect it will still hold the 10 ring on a B27 target easily at fifty yards.....just wish I could. ;-)

[Walter Laich]

This is the beauty of cast boolits-they will shoot through a Buick without driving them to warp speed. Ain't it grand!!

not for the Buick!

[MT Gianni]

Overbore rounds can eat a throat out in as little as 800 rounds to the point accuracy suffers.this is with jacketed bullets.
Cast Boolits do not erode throat near as fast. Cleaning rods do more damage to these barrels than boolits

PreacherJim, what is your definition of overbore? Bullets larger than lands or cartridges with a large capacity to bore ratio?

[dondiego]

A .220 Swift is overbore.

[M-Tecs]

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2014/12/life-and-death-of-a-barrel-can-barrel-useful-life-be-predicted/

[Hick]

When I bought my M1 the throat erosion gauge measured at "1". I've fired 5000 rounds so far-- a mix of lead and jacketed, but nothing really hot. The throat still measures at "1".

[country gent]

Theres a lot of factors affecting throat erosion and barrel wear. By far the worst on a barrel is a improperly used cleaning rod. short necked cases with shallower shoulder angles are said to promote faster throat erosion. Large charges of powder with small bore bullets. I had an accuracy gunsmith once tell me 220 swift and 22-250 with full bore jacketed loads barrel optimum life was 600-900 rds before it leveled off and started dropping.
With cast bullets and the lighter powder charges, I suspect round counts will be surprisingly high. The old sharps, rollers, ballards, and High walls that shot black powder and soft lead bullets or paper patched bullets all its life still have pretty decent barrels on them. Also look at the round count most get from the mildest lead bullet round we shoot the 22 lr. very small powder charge. light bullet. These are counted in the 10s of thousands of rounds with proper care and cleaning.

[15meter]

Theres a lot of factors affecting throat erosion and barrel wear. By far the worst on a barrel is a improperly used cleaning rod. short necked cases with shallower shoulder angles are said to promote faster throat erosion. Large charges of powder with small bore bullets. I had an accuracy gunsmith once tell me 220 swift and 22-250 with full bore jacketed loads barrel optimum life was 600-900 rds before it leveled off and started dropping.
With cast bullets and the lighter powder charges, I suspect round counts will be surprisingly high. The old sharps, rollers, ballards, and High walls that shot black powder and soft lead bullets or paper patched bullets all its life still have pretty decent barrels on them. Also look at the round count most get from the mildest lead bullet round we shoot the 22 lr. very small powder charge. light bullet. These are counted in the 10s of thousands of rounds with proper care and cleaning.

Guess I got lucky with my Swift, regularly shot well under an inch in matches at the local club. 50 grain Nosler loaded to 3800, certainly not a screamer load out of a swlft but it gets down range right quick. Accuracy started going down in the 3000-3500 round range. At 4500 it's been retired to the back of the safe until I get a new barrel put on it. Maybe a good job for today, deliver it to the gunsmith.

[Larry Gibson]

I have put 2837 rounds of HV/high intensity (48,000 to 51,000 psi [actually measured]) loads using medium and mostly slow burning powders through my 30x60. There is no measureable throat wear nor any that is visually discernible.

[15meter]

Guess I got lucky with my Swift, regularly shot well under an inch in matches at the local club. 50 grain Nosler loaded to 3800, certainly not a screamer load out of a swlft but it gets down range right quick. Accuracy started going down in the 3000-3500 round range. At 4500 it's been retired to the back of the safe until I get a new barrel put on it. Maybe a good job for today, deliver it to the gunsmith.

I did take the Swift to the gunsmith today. He took it and bore scoped it. Said the first inch to inch and a half was a smooth bore. Ordered a new barrel. Ouch.

[robg]

Bought my 357 win trapper in 98 shot about 40,000 mainly GC boolits through it can't see any wear still shoot better than me .lead is your barrels friend .

[am44mag]

As others have said, throat erosion is your enemy, but even that is going to take a very long time to become a real issue. If you can afford to shoot THAT much, even with cheap cast bullets, I wouldn't worry about having to buy a new barrel. It's going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what you spent on primers, powder, brass, and lead.

[PapaG]

Your lifetime and one or two more.

[woodbutcher]

[smilie=s: How about forever and six months?
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[ghh3rd]

I have a Ruger Single 6 .22 caliber that I bought in 1974. After I recorded over 5000 rounds going through it my friend told me that my barrel was probably shot out. That was a few thousand rounds ago and it’s still pretty darned accurate, and the rifling still looks like new.

[M-Tecs]

I have a Ruger Single 6 .22 caliber that I bought in 1974. After I recorded over 5000 rounds going through it my friend told me that my barrel was probably shot out. That was a few thousand rounds ago and it’s still pretty darned accurate, and the rifling still looks like new.

Your friend is giving you bad advice.

Rimfire's erode from the glass beads in the priming compound. With a borescope you can see it at about 20,000 rounds. On target rifles 50,000 rounds without loss is not unusual. I know of one range rental Ruger MKII pistol that has over a 500,000 rounds through it and it still is shooting well.

Unless it is a early one it will have a .224" bore for the 22 Mag cylinders. True 22 short, long and long rifle bores are .222". They tend shoot best with the 22 Mag cylinders.

[Three44s]

With the overbore cartridges, the grin factor outweighs the pain of wearing out the throats.

With cast the lack of or low degree of wear far and away overshadows the minuscule wear.

Three44s

[Blackwater]

Somewhere in the cobwebs of my memory, I remember reading an article on barrel life and cast. IIRC, the lowest round count estimate by some very savvy industry gurus, was 350,000 rds. for a pistol, and estimates went on up to over 500,000 rds. for most rifles. This is with "normal" cast loads in the 1700-2000 fps range. I wish my memory were better, but IIRC, it was in one of the glossy mags, and may have been G&A? Sorry about the memory thing, but .... ya' can't have everything I guess?

[ascast]

I had a Sharps New Model carbine, paper cartridge. It was a Civil War gun. The throat was so badly eroded all around that I was afraid to shoot it. Very deep circular pit, all around the barrel. Chamber and bore were quit good. Big mystery. Use modern primers.

[M-Tecs]

I had a Sharps New Model carbine, paper cartridge. It was a Civil War gun. The throat was so badly eroded all around that I was afraid to shoot it. Very deep circular pit, all around the barrel. Chamber and bore were quit good. Big mystery. Use modern primers.

That is a cleaning issue not a normal barrel wear issue.

[Don1357]

You could just have the barrel cut for a larger bullet, say 30-06 up cut to a 35 Whelen, and just start all over again ;)