barrel life

[muzzleblastm38]

what can be the life of a 8mm barrel if use only white cast boolits

speed of boolits at muzzle is 2000fps

thanks

[junkbug]

I believe the German Army tested the GEW 98 during WWI with issue ammo, and found out that 20,000 rounds was a realistic expectation before combat accuracy was lost. Of course that accuracy standard might be somewhat lax. But that was also with hot issue ammo, 154 grain bullets approaching 2900 fps out of the long barrel.

After WWI the Swedish government tested their M96 in 6.5x55 to find out the same thing. They devised an apparatus to propel issue jacketed bullets down an unused issue barrel using compressed gas. They stopped at 300,000 bullets because they were detection so little wear, the testers wondered if they could ever wear it out.

The point is that your load intensity will have more bearing on barrel wear than bullet type. But cast bullets are almost always loaded lighter anyway, and do probably cause less wear all else being equal.

With an unused surplus barrel, and Ed Harris's "load" of 13 grains of red dot behind any cast bullet you want to try, I believe you will spend the rest of your life trying to find that end point. 50K, 75K, 100K or more? Tell us when you know.

[Artful]

More barrels have been "worn" out due to faulty cleaning methods than actual wear in most rifles.

[dh2]

I have had the same 25-06 and pushed a 120gr. HPBT at max load, for over 25 years and my 220 Swift only 10 years old and 3900fps neither have burnt out a barrel . it is not hard to keep them going.

[Char-Gar]

what can be the life of a 8mm barrel if use only white cast boolits

speed of boolits at muzzle is 2000fps

thanks

Perhaps the barrel life would not be "everlasting" but close enough for anybody 40 years of age or older.

[rosewood]

I bet lead has a lot less wear than jacketed also. Erosion from the load is more of an issue than from the bullet going down the barrel. A blow torch in the throat is probably the biggest erosion problem.

[Scharfschuetze]

It's all going to depend on your accuracy requirement. A match shooter in the high master class shooting a hot rod round is going to have replace his barrel much sooner than say a sharpshooter in the service rifle class using an AR15 in 5.56/.223 Remington or a weekend plinker or once a year hunter. A barrel that is hot from four strings of rapid fire (four 10 shot strings) in the National Match course of fire will wear faster than the same barrel used only for slow fire in the same calibre.

In this day of non-corrosive and non-erosive primers, it is the hot and high pressure gasses that wear a barrel's throat out. It is easily observed with a bore scope and is also quite detectable with throat wear gauges. I have kept track of barrel wear in several match rifles and generally came up with an average of 4,000 rounds if you want to stay competitive at the highest class with the service rifle (7.62 NATO or 5.56mm). The guys using the 6.5/284 wildcat are changing barrels out after only a thousand rounds or so in order to stay competitive at long range. Our Mk 13 SWS (300 Winchester Magnum) had a barrel change requirement of something like 1,600 rounds in Army use and less than a thousand rounds in Navy use due to that case full of powder. Compare that short life with a 30/30 Winchester's long barrel life! Generally the smaller the bore and the greater the powder charge (expansion ratio), the sooner you can expect throat erosion. Your 8mm Mauser is not very critical in this regard as compared to say a 243 Winchester or 264 Winchester magnum.

Cast boolits at their generally lower pressures and velocities produce significantly less wear than jacketed bullets that are shot at the highest allowable pressure for a given cartridge.

what can be the life of a 8mm barrel if use only white cast boolits

For my collectible military rifles I have gone to just cast boolits to preserve what in many cases are irreplaceable original barrels. I shoot them with cast boolits without any concern for barrel wear and they'll certainly last my life time doing so and probably my son's too.

As noted by Artful, improper cleaning (both from the breach and the muzzle) has worn out a lot of barrels too.

[bedbugbilly]

Interesting thread . . ..

junkbug . . . based on what you're saying about the GEW98 . . . and the condition of the bore in my 1905 Danzig GEW98 . . . and mind you, I'm just shooting cast out of it at slower speeds . . . I did some careful calculations. I'm 62 and after crunching all the figures . . . I think my barrel will last until I'm 137 and a 1/2 . . . the 1/2 is important to keep in mind so I don't kick off early! LOL Now . . if my wife and I had only had kids . . . I could have handed this rifle off so I could "check out" earlier!

Just kidding though . . . my 1905 has a great bore and it was issued to an outfit that saw extensive service from 1914 to 1918. Never stopped to think about it much . . . makes you wonder what the average number of rounds through a rifle at the front for the duration of the war actually had go through it? Mine was brought back by a vet that I knew as a kid - hadn't been fired since 1918 so got it to working again this past summer - but only cat sneeze lead loads. Way too much fun!

[pworley1]

Based on the bore of my 1867 rolling block, it looks like a barrel with only cast shot through it will out last several owners.

[303Guy]

I read somewhere of tests done on throat wear comparing different powders. Stick powders and particularly the ones that required more powder had the most throat wear. So it's mechanical abrasion as well as heat and high velocity gas erosion at work. Bullet wear? Copper clad bullets leave material behind, not remove it.

[muzzleblastm38]

My mauser as a new barrel when purchase,now it as 5000 of cas whit blue dot
And it shoot like the first time.

[Motor]

The number 1 reason for barrel ware is heat. Most ware is in the throat of typical rifles.

Concidering the typical loads used with cast boolits I'd say the last sentence in "junkbug's" post is very accurate.

Now if you start casting some kind of abbrasive into your alloy that can change.

Motor

[waksupi]

Keep in mind a rifle barrel that is considered worn out for jacketed bullets, is just broke in right for cast bullets. The throat has some erosion, making an easier entrance into the bore. Several of my rifles have never had anything but cast through them, and I kind of suspect they would show little if any wear, with many rounds down range.

[JeffinNZ]

I saw a post on a bench rest site where someone calculated a life of a target barrel was 6 seconds.

[muzzleblastm38]

yes speed of a boolet x by number of boolet

[muzzleblastm38]

but now t the rate i shootits going to be good for 2000 years,theirs a powder shortage in canada.

[NavyVet1959]

I saw a post on a bench rest site where someone calculated a life of a target barrel was 6 seconds.

Sure doesn't sound like much when you put it that way, but if you calculate it out, it sounds about right...

Let's say you're shooting a round with a muzzle velocity of 2000 fps.

Since you start at 0 fps, that gives you 1000 fps as the average velocity of the round over the distance of the barrel, or 12,000 in/sec. Figuring a 24" barrel, that means that the bullet is in the barrel for 1/500 sec. For 6 seconds, that would be 500 * 6 = 3000 rounds. Yeah, for a target barrel, it's probably reasonable. I'm sure many of us have Ruger Mk-IIs or 10/22s that have a LOT more rounds than that on a barrel though. Back when 500-round bricks of .22LR was $7 or so, it was not surprising in the least to end up shooting 500 rounds during a day at the range.

[madsenshooter]

My mauser as a new barrel when purchase,now it as 5000 of cas whit blue dot
And it shoot like the first time.

On the other hand, I found Blue Dot with jacketed to be pretty erosive in a Krag barrel. Krag barrels are not chrome moly steel. I had a cast 168gr that would just seat into the rifling. After perhaps 300 rounds of jacketed bullet BD loads, that cast bullet would no longer touch the rifling. It didn't wear the barrel out, just torched a bit of the throat. Not likely to do that to modern steels.

[GabbyM]

I once burned out a near new 243 Win barrel in about twenty minutes. Most of it was within a minute on an already hot barrel.
My average barrel life on 243 Win is under 1,000 rounds. My new 243 AI load is 11 grins of Unique under an 84 grain cast bullet.
Running that down an ER Shaw barrel on my Ruger VT with Leopould 6.5x20 scope I don't think even the gaggle of grand kids can wear that barrel out. Or the 222 Rem with cast bullets. So what I'm saying is. I can kill a barrel in one minute or make it last a lifetime.


Mad minute on a 243 Win will end a barrel. 800 rounds at the prarrie dog fields. Slow fire 87gr at 3,400 fps on 243 A.I. is about 1,600 rounds. Cast bullets in 243 must be about like figuring 22 rim fire life. I just don't know. My two main stay boolit shooters. FN M-70 in 30-06 and CZ-527 in 222 Rem. Couple years of shooting and I can not see any wear. The 222 Has over 1,000 rounds and the rifling edges are still sharp. My Weatherby Vanguard in 270 Win is visibly wearing away. However it may be stabilizing as the cutter chatter marks are just now disappeared. I'm a big fan of Weatherby aka Howa actions and am not dissing them. My bore is still .270" after forty years.

8 mm Mauser with a cast boolit charge of 16 grains of 2400 should run 25,000 rounds on barrel life.
M48 barrels can still be had for fifty bucks. Buy a couple.

[fa38]

I don't know how many rifles you own but I have but since I own 8 milsurps I don't think I will ever wear out any particular rifle. Therefore, I think you owe it yourself to buy at least one if not more milsurps to prevent ruining that rifle.