338 Lapua Barrel Life

[maple_leaf_eh]

Agreed. Most gross wear on barrels is caused by cleaning techniques and tools. The gradual change is from bullets and gas erosion.

Dirt and grit on the rods, scratchy bore brushes, insufficient solvents to remove the crud, inappropriate solvents for the type of fouling, and most of all surface friction from the rod rubbing the lands, leade and crown.

One guy I know is so impatient he gets a swing going on the cleaning rod, flexing and yawing, whipping it in and out of the bore (almost ####ographic if your mind goes that way). His barrels apparently have visible lap marks from the rod rubbing the bore.

 

[Kevan]

Unless you are being pretty abusive, there shouldn't be any meaningful wear from cleaning. Even in a much milder and longer-lasting .308 Win, the wear from erosion is much more pronounced than any wear from cleaning, or from bullet friction.

This is a very true statement, however I've seen shooters cleaning rifles in a harmful fashion without even realizing what they are doing to the barrel..

 

[CatfishSteve]

All depends on what your going to feed it
if your feeding hot handloads wich most people like to do I'd agree with the above
Lapua says with there 250gr ammo 4000-5000 test rifle was trg-42
and if you get someting in stainless even longer.

 

[redman]

Barrels are not a fixed and permanent part of a rifle, rather, they are like brake pads - an inexpensive consumable part that you replace when they are worn.

Now that's relative, as there are barrels that cost 500$, which is not so bad, and there are those that are 1200$, which is quite a dent in the old bank account...

 

[rnbra-shooter]

Now that's relative, as there are barrels that cost 500$, which is not so bad, and there are those that are 1200$, which is quite a dent in the old bank account...

$1200, ugh, that's a lot (scandalous!). Blaser? Any chance of getting an ordinary riflesmith to fit an ordinary match barrel instead, or do they do silly things to foil that like internal locking lugs as part of the barrel (Sportco, Sauer 200), or press the barrel into the receiver (Steyr)?

You might not like to hear this, but, even at $1200/barrel, your barrel is not the most expensive part of the equation. If you get 3600 rounds of life from it (the sort of first-tier accuracy life you might expect from a .308 Win), that's $0.33 per shot fired. Your ammo, even .308 Win which is relatively cheap compared to e.g. .338 Lapua, costs a fair bit more than this.

So I'll still maintain my point that barrels are like brake pads, i.e. quite a cheap part of the operations cost compared to other operating costs (gasoline for a car, ammo for a rifle). And as such, one should be (fairly) cavalier about barrels, and be willing to replace them at the drop of the hat when they get worn out.

If you really want to depress yourself, figure out what the costs of a weekend day's shooting is on a per-shot overhead basis. Then again, maybe you don't want to know that...!

Still though, since the cost of a barrel hits you all in one lump, it *is* hard to not cringe...!

 

[redman]

You might not like to hear this, but, even at $1200/barrel, your barrel is not the most expensive part of the equation. If you get 3600 rounds of life from it (the sort of first-tier accuracy life you might expect from a .308 Win), that's $0.33 per shot fired. Your ammo, even .308 Win which is relatively cheap compared to e.g. .338 Lapua, costs a fair bit more than this.

That's a very interesting point... and hopefully a conservative estimate in terms of # of shots before accuracy falls (> 0.75 MOA for me, for now ).

$1200, ugh, that's a lot (scandalous!). Blaser? Any chance of getting an ordinary riflesmith to fit an ordinary match barrel instead, or do they do silly things to foil that like internal locking lugs as part of the barrel (Sportco, Sauer 200), or press the barrel into the receiver (Steyr)?

Don't wanna go too OT here, but the barrel is held into place by two captive bolts and the recoil lug is actually part of the frame as opposed to the barrel. The barrel itself has a groove to accept the lug and two screws sticking out of the bottom that go into the captive bolts. Not sure a gunsmith could duplicate this...