Soundwaves,
Barrel life is a loaded question for any cartridge, since it means drastically different things to different communities. for LR target shooters, somewhere in the 1,000 vicinity is pretty good barrel life from this cartridge, and I'd say most would have retired the barrel at least a couple hundred rounds ago. For hunters, you've likely got another 1,000 rounds or more to go before you'd need to begin worrying about it. If you're focused on strictly LR hunting, as opposed to the more run of the mill "normal" hunting ranges, then you're (again) probably at the limit right now. It all depends. Not trying to dodge the question here, but there's variables involved here depending on what the rifle's being used for.
The very first thing to understand is how a barrel goes bad. I've never seen one that hit a certian round count and then just quit shooting; doesn't work that way. Barrels that are completely shot out can still shoot very good groups, they just become less consistent in doing so. And that's what makes it difficult. If you have a barrel that will consistently shoot 1/2 MOA (random figure here) with 10-round groups, that barrel should do that each and every time that load is used. As a barrel begins to wear, you'll start getting flyers that fall from the group. In some cases it may not amount to much, but a round, or maybe two, will impact outside that group. It may not be too far outside the group, but it is a flyer. Many shooters see this and simply disregard them, assuming maybe they fired a bad shot, the wind caught them, whatever. As you continue to use that barrel, those flyers will continue to increase both in frequency and distance from the centroid of the group, until the shooter finally comes to the realization that he didn't fire a bad shot, and the barrel may be going south. The problem is, many of the shots will continue to go into the center of the group. If you're using smaller group numbers, say five, or even three round groups, this problem becomes even harder to spot. I'd hazard a guess that many of the barrels that shooters identify as being shot out, were actually "shot out" long before they made that realization. I've shot out hundreds of barrels ove the years, and don't believe I've ever seen a single one that just quit shooting at a certain round count. It's a gradual process, and it takes time to identify it, isolate it and confirm that that is indeed the problem.