Barrel Life???

[tomme boy]

I have been shooting ALOT of cast boolits lately. Over 2K in the last month. How worried should I be about the life of my barrel? 308win.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/190064f56c2eb7909a.gif (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=4293)

[felix]

Barrel life would be the same when the max pressure is the same in the throat area. Actually, barrel life beyond the throat will remain the same for all practical purposes, no matter the pressure. Even further, it's not the pressure or friction per se, it's where the heat peaks ON THE LANDS. When the barrel is feeling hot towards the muzzle, that's not hot enough for anything except for possibly accuracy. Hot where the barrel contains the ignition area, now that's hot. BR guns, for example, are typically "sorta' cold" to the touch everywhere and are typically gone in the throat within a 1000 rounds. The powders used in that application are applied fully at 65K in the attempt to have the most consistent projectile acceleration from shot to shot. ... felix

[tomme boy]

I do not let the barrel get hot. I can hang onto it and it is just warm. It has over 3.5K total rounds threw it. I never run anything at the max. The hottest load it has ever seen was 45gr of Varget with a 168gr AMAX. It has never seen a factory round.

[Jim]

I've never competed, nor have I ever owned a really expensive rifle. However, an elderly gentleman that taught me a lot told me many decades ago "If you can't keep your hand on the barrel, it's too hot. Let it cool 'till you can hold it."

That's been my practice ever since. Rest easy, Mr. Taffin.

[Char-Gar]

Barrel life with cast bullets is the same as jacketed bullets if everything is equal, such as pressure, etc. etc..

Most of us get barrel life that is in the lifetime or everlasting category, because we shoot our loads at low pressure and velocity. I am talking about 1.5 - 1.8K fps here. There is so little pressure and errosive gas produced, that barrel just keep on trucking.

Those folks who are trying to reproduce factory full snort velocities with cast bullets will pay for it in reduced barrel life..much reduced.

The answer to the OP is "it depends".

[HARRYMPOPE]

A barrel will go about 10000-20000 at medium pressures and still shoot.The throat will advance and you will need to set the barrel back to regain accuracy again.

George

[Blammer]

after watching that shooting avitar, I forgot what the question was.

I've gone back to try to read it 3 times, I just can't find any words.

I really like that cats, rifle rest. :)

[kir_kenix]

.308 barrels last a long time even when fired entirely with jacketed ammo. Sure, the throat will sneak forward on you, but it will remain shootable for a looooong time. I suspect one of my .308's has 6,500 rounds thru it and it still shoots decent.

It all has to do with pressure and heat. Some powders are more abbrasive to throats for whatever reason. I suspect bearing surface length of the bullet also plays a small role in barrel life.

Most of my 600 yard and 1k Benchrest guns go between 1100-1900 rounds (6BR, 6XC, 260 Rem imp, and 6.5x284). Granted, these barrels will retain acceptable hunting accuracy long after this round count. As soon as I start drifting out of the 10 ring regularly, I slap on another barrel.

By comparison, one of my 300 yard benchrest rigs (.30BR) has 6,200 rounds thru it. Stopped shooting that barrel in serious competition at about 5,500 rounds, but I still compete at my local club very competitvely with it.

I'll bet you can get 10-15k rounds of service out of your .308 if boolits are the primary projectile, and you don't let it get too hot. You will erode that throat, so its a good idea to measure how far you need to seat your boolits out to "chase the lands" as you work up the round count. Well, maybe its not necessary but I enjoy seeing the results of all those rounds.

Have fun and don't worry too much about barrel life. In the end, barrels are disposable and just another "component" to be amortized into your shooting budget.

PS. I forgot to mention that you can always have that barrel set back and rechambered at least once, usually twice, before it will completely give up the ghost.

[Wolfer]

I've only shot out two barrels in my life. First was a 270 that was made in the 50s. I didn't know how to properly clean one in my early days and I blame a lot of the failure on that.
The second was a 223 that I prairie dog hunted with and while under attack by a bunch red eyed, tail up pasture poodles I would have the barrel so hot you could nearly light a cigerette with it. Still it took 5000 rds before accuracy started to fall off.

[WILCO]

I really like that cats, rifle rest. :)

[smilie=l:

[tomme boy]

I wish I would be able to set the chamber back on this one. But they way the barrel is, I will not be able to. It was a free barrel. A friend took it off of his 700 brand new. We then turned down the chamber end an then re-chambered it. With the way the contour runs an then having to turn off about 1/2" from the end so it will clean up the factory chamber not much is left. I have $40 total in the barrel. That was for the muzzle break.

I really want to get a new Rock Creek or Bartlien. I love cut rifled barrels. But that will be later on.

[Frank46]

I have seen a few high power match barrels that had the breech section of the barrel extended
by about an inch or so. When I asked about it I was told that when the throat goes due to the extra length it could be set back and rechambered. Frank

[waksupi]

Remember that cast boolit rifles shoot well with a worn throat that would put a jacketed bullet gun out of business.

[Jack Stanley]

Tomme , that picture is just a hoot !! I showed to my wife and she just shrieked with laughter [smilie=l:

Jack

[Bigslug]

I hang with a lot of police snipers and competitive shooter types who keep detailed logs of what's gone down the barrel of their rifles. With fairly religious cleaning practices and the reasonable amount of heat that these bolt guns get, Federal Gold Medal / 168 grain Matchkings seem to burn out throats in somewhere between 10,000-15,000 rounds. "Burnt out" in these cases means that the gun will no longer hold the sub-MOA groups the job requires - it doesn't necessarily mean the gun is toast for all other purposes.

Softer, non-jacketed slugs with the velocities dialed back to about 2200 FPS? I suspect it's gonna take you a LONG time.

[Larry Gibson]

Tomme boy

The hottest load it has ever seen was 45gr of Varget with a 168gr AMAX

I've shot out numerous barrels over the years, many of them were .308Ws.

If you shot high power matches (60 - 100 shots per match + sighters) with that load the accuracy, given a new barrel to start with, would start going around, 5000 - 6000 rounds depending on the amount of RF shot (barrel heat). The barrel would probably hold, if a sub moa barrel to start with, at last 1 1/2 moa, maybe 2 moa through about 8,000 - 10,000 rounds.

High psi intensity cartridges pushing more powder/hot gas down the barrel will "burn" barrel throats out a lot quicker.

Conversly I have shot thousands upon thousands of cast bullet loads through many rifles over the years with low psi loads commonly used with cast bullets and have yet to find any throat errsian in any of them with the exception of an M2 Carbine with full intensity loads after 20+ thousand rounds. Others report some barrel erosian with some cast bullet loads but I have not seen any yet. Not questioning that it won't happen, just saying it takes a lot of fast shooting with such loads to make it happen.

Larry Gibson

[btroj]

It also depends on your accuracy needs. A BR shooter, or a good long range target shooter, will notice the effects of throat erosion long before a casual plinker ever would.

I have a feeling that something like a 30-30 with 1700 fps rounds will have a barrel life well in excess of 10,000 rounds. Even then it will need to be seen if the target can tell the difference.

[tomme boy]

Well it looks like I won't have a problem for awhile. I noticed that as long as I stayed away from the rifle powders, the barrel barley even warms.

[JIMinPHX]

A friend of mine has a fascination with the 220-swift. In the old days, he would burn throats out of them in just a few years. With today's cooler burning powders, he shoots the same speeds & his barrels last more like 10 years on average. The 220-swift is a fast mover & he shoots a-LOT of P-dogs at long ranges. The way that I shoot, I would not expect to shoot out a barrel in my lifetime. The .308 runs a higher pressure than something like a 30-30 or even a 30-06, but with modern powders, the .308 should give you good service for a long time.

Cast boolits certainly will not make a barrel wear out any faster than jacketed. If anyone told you that old fairly tail, they just don't know what they are talking about.

By the time you shoot out a barrel, the cost of a new barrel will be chicken feed compared to the cost of all the ammo that you have sent through the old one.

[runfiverun]

re-read felix's answer.
it truly covers it.
you could shoot 100k boolits down a bbl it's the area that takes the heat/unburnt powder scraping the bbl/pressure that get's worn out first.
i have been trying to push the throat of my ruger 308 bbl forward for years now, as i'd like to shoot another boolit in it.

btw the average time of a bbl's life is something like 6 seconds with jaxketed.

[tomme boy]

Well I was figuring it would last for quite some time. One thing that I still question would be how erosive some of the powders are. IMR 4350 is supposed to be really bad for this. Are any of the pistol powders like this? I am using a lot of 2400, 5477, IMR 4227 new version. I think this was more the question I should have asked about the throat life.

[Larry Gibson]

Large amounts of slow burning pder at high psi do shorten throat life. However, at nominal cast bullet psi's even the slower burning powders don' generate enough heat/erosion to significantly erode the throat unless you get carried away and rapid fire and really heat up the barrel. Also note that some DB'd powders like 5744 produce more heat per shot with less gr of powder than a slower burning powder. There are lot's of "depends" here.

Larry Gibson

[1Shirt]

Have to agree with Jim on bbl heat. To me, just common sense!
1Shirt!