17 HMR Barrel Life ?

D

David Henry

CGN Regular
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Location
West of the big road
Now that this chambering has been with us for a few years has anyone of you experienced a shot out barrel, ??. I have a CZ that is being mailed in after 6000 rounds and the customer complains of very poor accuracy over the last few boxes when the gun usually shoots sub MOA. Generally accuracy issues with these 17's are a result of bore fouling but this is not the case as a good cleaning routine has been followed. Any input? David.
 
I would guess there is more damage from cleaning than from shooting... Hopefully a recrowning will restore some accuracy and the damage isn't at the throat area...
 
17 Hmr

I have a couple of new CZ's on the rack so I thought I might build a plug gauge and see if there has been any advance in the leade compared to an unfired barrel, cant comment on abuse from cleaning rods as I do not have the gun in my hands. David.
 
Keep us up to date on this David Henry. I have a savage hmr which sees between 100-500 rounds every weekend so I'm getting up there with no cleaning! Accuracy is not a problem!
 
It's only burning 5-ish grains of powder per shot, and not really moving all that fast (compared to even the mildest rifle centrefire). It takes a LOT to get the barrel even warm, let alone HOT, so I'd expect extreme barrel life out of this guy, certainly a LOT more than 6000 (a 308, burning 10 times as much powder and moving a much heavier bullet a lot faster has better life than this).
 
Would that be a good cleaning routine with a "powder solvent" such as Hoppe's No.9, or a good bore cleaner & "copper solvent" like Sweet's 7.62
or Barnes CR-10 ??? If not fouled, I would certainly be suspicious re: things mechanical ( scope, mounts, screws, bedding & or crown damage ) as opposed to being "shot out" ... 6ooo rounds is not seemingly a lot of powder being burned-up for a 17MMR ( what, maybe 4 or 5 lbs at most ) , and it's not at significantly high velocity.
 
17 Hmr

OK I have the gun in the shop and checked the bore and compared it to the CZ factory new, checked crown, throat etc all seems fine? the customer says it key holes bullets at all ranges groups of 10" at 100 yds. Scope and mounts are sound not that that would make bullets keyhole. Just for interests sake I will run the electronic foul out bore cleaner system overnight and see if there is any copper deposit to be found. I wonder if he might have got into a bad batch of ammo ( Federal ) is what was giving trouble, any word of a recall ? I will head to the range on the weekend and see what results I get. David.
 
Test fire it for yourself? Run a tight patch trhough it and measure the twist - I've heard that rifling buttons can slip sometimes, leaving slightly slower than desired twists
 
Hey - you're not the same D. Henry from Bently who's replacing the faulty Remington bolt in my .204 ruger, are you?

Small world, heh

:)
 
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