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The Basics, Starting Out
Barrel Life
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<blockquote data-quote="Steve Shelp" data-source="post: 178581" data-attributes="member: 22"><p>Garrett H.,</p><p> There are a lot more factors that determine barrel life than just the caliber. The easiest way I find to try and describe this is comparing barrel life to engine life in various forms of racing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Engine Life:</p><p>Fuel Dragster - 4.5 secs and rebuild</p><p>Winston Cup Motor - 510 miles (roughly 3-5hrs at 8000+ RPM)</p><p>Avg Street Car - anywhere from 100 to 200,000 miles and more.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Back to barrels:</p><p></p><p>- Speed demons usually get 1000rds or less. This are the overbore widlcats. You get awesome speed and results for a short amount of time. Just like the Fuel dragster. Lot of fast fun for a short amount of time.</p><p> They typically it will get real rough in the throat area and you start throwing out shots in your groups and possibly loosing bullets in flight. Throat starts creeping out to where you can no longer seat bullet into the lands. This is a slow gradual process. Not a definite line that is easily judged.</p><p></p><p>- If your talking knife edge accuracy the 1500rd rule of thumb is usally pretty accurate for competition rifles. Plus or minus a little for various calibers and type of competitive shooting you may be doing but 1500rds is a good rule of thumb. Again, your groups just gradually start to open up and it just doesn't have the "edge" anymore. I have take-off competiton barrels that are "shot-out" that will make the average shooter raise his eye brows with the potential still in it. But you can't win in real time competition anymore with it.</p><p></p><p>- A custom built rifle with a good quality barrel that is taken care of shooting informal targets, big game and/or varmints you will probably get several thousands rounds out of it. And you will still be able to kill varmints and game on a regular basis toward the end of it's "life". Usually throat simply gets to long to seat bullets properly for your accuracy load.</p><p></p><p>- An average deer hunting rifle that you practice with some of the time and take hunting all through the fall will last you the rest of your life with proper care. Most barrels that shooters "think" that are shot out in this catagory simply need a really good and proper cleaning and they would keep shooting for a lot longer. But you can't convince them of this. </p><p></p><p> So as you can see it's more in the application and what you want out of your rifle rather than a definitive answer of X amount of rounds and you need to replace.</p><p> Regardless of what catagory you are in, the quickest way to abuse a barrel is not clean it with sustained rate of fire to get it really hot. Or fire high pressure high velocity rounds a lot with a hot barrel. That is a guarantee of barrel abuse.</p><p></p><p>Steve</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Steve Shelp, post: 178581, member: 22"] Garrett H., There are a lot more factors that determine barrel life than just the caliber. The easiest way I find to try and describe this is comparing barrel life to engine life in various forms of racing. Engine Life: Fuel Dragster - 4.5 secs and rebuild Winston Cup Motor - 510 miles (roughly 3-5hrs at 8000+ RPM) Avg Street Car - anywhere from 100 to 200,000 miles and more. Back to barrels: - Speed demons usually get 1000rds or less. This are the overbore widlcats. You get awesome speed and results for a short amount of time. Just like the Fuel dragster. Lot of fast fun for a short amount of time. They typically it will get real rough in the throat area and you start throwing out shots in your groups and possibly loosing bullets in flight. Throat starts creeping out to where you can no longer seat bullet into the lands. This is a slow gradual process. Not a definite line that is easily judged. - If your talking knife edge accuracy the 1500rd rule of thumb is usally pretty accurate for competition rifles. Plus or minus a little for various calibers and type of competitive shooting you may be doing but 1500rds is a good rule of thumb. Again, your groups just gradually start to open up and it just doesn't have the "edge" anymore. I have take-off competiton barrels that are "shot-out" that will make the average shooter raise his eye brows with the potential still in it. But you can't win in real time competition anymore with it. - A custom built rifle with a good quality barrel that is taken care of shooting informal targets, big game and/or varmints you will probably get several thousands rounds out of it. And you will still be able to kill varmints and game on a regular basis toward the end of it's "life". Usually throat simply gets to long to seat bullets properly for your accuracy load. - An average deer hunting rifle that you practice with some of the time and take hunting all through the fall will last you the rest of your life with proper care. Most barrels that shooters "think" that are shot out in this catagory simply need a really good and proper cleaning and they would keep shooting for a lot longer. But you can't convince them of this. So as you can see it's more in the application and what you want out of your rifle rather than a definitive answer of X amount of rounds and you need to replace. Regardless of what catagory you are in, the quickest way to abuse a barrel is not clean it with sustained rate of fire to get it really hot. Or fire high pressure high velocity rounds a lot with a hot barrel. That is a guarantee of barrel abuse. Steve [/QUOTE]
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