In the rimfire spectrum of accurate rifles, folks on the US Olympic Team used to rebarrel at around 50,000 rounds. But that was before the mid 1980's when the priming compounds changed and more frit was used in the mixture. Thereafter and today, their barrels last about 30,000 rounds of best accuracy. This applied to the 1/6 MOA at 50 meters and 1/3 MOA at 100 yards the best ammo/barrel combination would get back then. Nowadays, they pray they can get 1/4 MOA at 50 meters and 3/4 MOA at 100 yards.
4,000+ fps How Long to Burn the Barrel
- Thread starter huntingdave
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If your bullet traveling at 4,000 fps but has a low BC all that velocity is quickly lost. Its the long missiles you want. But with that being said no bullet is a match for sudden wind gust. If you hit you hit it if you don't you don't.
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
REM 788 22-250: One summer of good jackrabbit shooting. 1500 rounds.
270 Win Douglas barrel. 130 gr Sierra Boat Tails @ 3200 and 90gr Sierras @ 3400: Shooting chucks, yotes deer and paper. 1967 - 2007. Greater than 3000 rounds.
270 Allen Magnum - 150 NAB @ 3600, 170gr@ 3400, 195gr @ 3100 I'm estimating from bore appearance @ about 900 rounds that she may make, on the outside, 1500 rounds.
Never owned my bench guns long enough to come close to barrel wear affecting accuracy. Some one always talked me out of them.
my 6/250AI at 850 rounds is starting to show a little errosion, and I shoot right around 3000fps with a 105 grain bullet. I think the barrel will be gone by the day it sees 1500 rounds thru it. But I also think that the exact same round reamed with a 6mmAI reamer and using 6mm cases to form the 6/250AI with the extended neck would be good for about another thousand rounds.
glt
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
just thinking about what you posted. An MOA at 50 yards is about .524", and 1/4 of that's pretty small! But they do it. (least wise the unlimited bench guns do it every Saturday night down at Calfee's place). Last time we did the shoot Tony shot all his groups between .185" and .220" with Federal Olympic Gold, yet came in 5th on the list of twenty shooters. I think the current 100BR record is somewhere around .3 MOA, and the 50 yard record is just under .10". Which simply smokes my mind!
gary
Tricky, in the shooting sports, a minute of angle's exactly 1/3600th of the range. 'Tain't the trig value which is 1/3437.7469....th of the range.
While those records you mention are the rarest group size fired, I'm not surprised that Federal Olympic Gold did as good as you say. They shouldn't smoke anybody's mind. Like all benchrest records, they represent less than 2% of all the groups those record shooting barrels and ammo make. All the rest are larger; much larger than folks care to talk about. That aside, the 50 meter test target that came with my Anschutz 1911 has 10 shots in .192 inch using RWS R50 ammo. Even smallbore prone shooters sometimes go bananas; my smallest ever was 5 shots into .070 inch using aperture sights at 50 yards using Russian ammo.
Too bad Federal chose not to spend three times as much for another lot of powder to continue making that ammo when their last barrel full of it went empty.
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Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
I just figured that with a minute of angle being 1.048" at 100 yards a 50 yards one should be .524" in my head. Tony was using a Cooper 22 rimfire bench gun that the two of us completely rebuilt. The factory barrel was rechambered with a 52D chamber cut to Bill's spec. The tuner was my design. The scope was a Weaver T36 or T24 (been awhile). .170" was his best, and he shot many sub .200" groups with it. Great shooting, but also an also ran. I was building my own 22 bench gun, but gave up when the ammo supply dried up around here. And even then I doubt I could run with the big boys in the stuff.
gary
