28 Nosler Barrel After First 100 Rounds

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yidava25

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There's a lot of talk about barrel life with these fast cartridges and a lot of folks ragging on Nosler for introducing an unnecessary, redundant cartridge. I don't really care, but thought I would share my findings so far and maybe it would help someone who's tossing and turning at night trying to decide between cartridges.
Got a Teslong Borescope to keep an eye on this overbore 7mm.
This rifle was sitting in my local gun shop for a long time and they finally marked it down so far that I couldn't resist. Would have preferred it to be in a more common chambering but this was what was available at that price.
My load is 78 grs of RL26 and a 168 gr Long Range Accubond seated as far as out as this ridiculously short mag will allow (seriously Nosler... what were you thinking??). LabRadar showed it was doing 3230 fps with an extreme spread of 5 fps so I'm done tinkering.
The Nosler brass seems really soft which was disappointing. There were marks from the ejector on the case heads even after firing just the factory loads. Going to have to try a batch of ADG next.
Accuracy is acceptable, just over an inch at 100 yards. I realize that's not mind-blowing by today's standards but this isn't a bench rifle and I'm not a 1000 yard guy, just need it to kill a whitetail at 400 or less.
Hopefully it'll continue to hold up for a few seasons at least. I'm not afraid of rebarreling some day but would like this one to last at least 500 rounds. Anyone burn one out yet with this cartridge or something producing similar speeds?
 
Your barrel's condition has nothing to do with number of rounds or stoutness of loads. The lands look very nice indeed, but the grooves are so badly chattered it hurts my eyes to regard them. Having said this, I think your accuracy should be just fine. Thank the lands...
 
woodlotowner said:
Your barrel's condition has nothing to do with number of rounds or stoutness of loads. The lands look very nice indeed, but the grooves are so badly chattered it hurts my eyes to regard them. Having said this, I think your accuracy should be just fine. Thank the lands...
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "chattered"?
I have no knowledge of what to look for other than carbon build-up and fire cracking, if there's a book or article you could recommend I'd like to learn more about how to identify problems. What I should have done is take pictures like this when it was new to compare as the round count went up.
 
The series of lateral grooves left behind by the rifling process in the grooves at the factory is generally referred to as 'chatter'. Ideally, a rifle's bore should have sharp clean lands, as your bore does, and smooth clear grooves (as yours does). I must apologize as I now realize, having watched the video again a couple of times, that what I thought were significant chatter marks were in fact the configuration of the throat area as your bore camera approached the chamber. Actually, your bore looks very good indeed, with some fairly minor chatter along the grooves as indicated in the video. I'd be happy to have a bore as nice as that. Again, my sincere apologies for misinterpreting your video.
 
Hey no worries Woodlot I wouldn't have known either way. I'm just glad it seems to be holding up so far as I've heard about 28 Nosler bores that show significant problems starting at 80-120 rounds.

As for hammer forged, I don't know, can't seem to find anything on it beyond "stainless, match grade, hand lapped".

Hopefully I'll put another 100 rounds through it this summer and do another bore video
 
Looks like some micro-cracking in the highest pressure region of your chamber and throat. Not a big deal and it shouldn't get any worse.
 
Barrel life will be greatly increased with different powders. According to Quickload, your RL26 load burns 95% of the powder charge by the time the bullet is 7" down the bore, and 100% burn when the bullet is 12" down the bore. This will result in a lot of heat and wear to the barrel

To compare :


  • RL33, 95% @ 16"
  • Magpro, 95% @ 14"
  • H1000, 95% @ 12"
  • Retumbo, 95% @ 9"
  • IMR 7977, 95% @ 21"
  • Ramshot Magnum, 95% @ 10"
  • Vihtavuori N570, 95% @ 16"
 
todbartell said:
Barrel life will be greatly increased with different powders. According to Quickload, your RL26 load burns 95% of the powder charge by the time the bullet is 7" down the bore, and 100% burn when the bullet is 12" down the bore. This will result in a lot of heat and wear to the barrel

To compare :


  • RL33, 95% @ 16"
  • Magpro, 95% @ 14"
  • H1000, 95% @ 12"
  • Retumbo, 95% @ 9"
  • IMR 7977, 95% @ 21"
  • Ramshot Magnum, 95% @ 10"
  • Vihtavuori N570, 95% @ 16"
Click to expand...

That's very interesting information, thank you
 
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