Barrel burners

[stubblejumper]

First barrel was somewhere between 1200-1500, the second barrel has made 3500+. But I was pushing 139 and 140 HARD! Most people won't believe what a 30" barrel and the STW pushed to its limits will do over an Oehler lol

I have learned to back off on my loads, and now use heavier bullets.

My first 7mmstw barrel was replaced after about 1500 rounds. My normal load is a 140gr bullet driven at around 3500fps out of a 26" barrel.

 

[Eagleye]

Where I have personally spent almost all ot he last 20 years of my shooting, is the precision shooting sports, where a barrel is considered done when it can no longer produce precision for the sport in which you're shooting. For a BR shooter, that is anything over .2. For a TR shooter, that is anything over .5 and for an F-class shooter it is over .3 or .4
So when shooters claim to have gotten 3000 rounds out of 6.5-284's and 220 Swifts, they have done so, but their tolerances for what is considered "shot out" differ greatly from what someone who has personally chambered or borescoped hundreds of barrels and shoots primarily for the purpose of prodcing the most possible precision.

Eagleye is also bang on when he points out that many things contribute to wearing out a barrel faster and heating them up is #1.

My first 7mm STW was my "experimental" one, and got shot with a wide variety of loads.
At the onset, it was wonderfully accurate. [Lilja SS match, 27"] It would cluster 3 - 140 Ballistic tips
into under ½ moa right out to 500+ yards as long as I did my part.

I first noticed a small deterioration in accuracy around the 1200 round mark.
I seated my bullets out a bit further, and accuracy returned, but only for 3-400 rounds.

I replaced it at 1800, since it would no longer maintain MOA with any load.

A guy hunting with that rifle, and shooting 10-20 rounds a year could have shot it half of forever
after I decided to rebarrel, and been pleased with the results.

In my non-competition varmint rifles [220 Swift, etc] once they will no longer shoot under moa, they will be treated to a new barrel.

My 1000 yard BR rifle is a different story, as paperslayer notes.

Regards, Eagleye.

 

[leveractionjunkie]

Depends how accurate they are to begin with. I have owned several and this is my favorite varmint round by far. I have owned 3 and rebarreled 3. I have literally worn out a throat in a week of gopher shooting. They are not anywhere near as forgiving as a 223

Dang I'd love to have enough gopher shooting to burn barrels like that! Must be travelling somewhere, I wanna go! Unless I'm ever lucky enough to be volume shooting on the barrel a week plan, barrel burning will be the least of my concern.

 

[Fire306]

I'm happy to hear of the higher round counts with the STW's. I am building one for a long range target rig, I didn't think I would get those kind of numbers.
It really isn't a big deal to me, I probably won't put more than 300 round a year through it, so it will last a long time regardless.
The STW is a great cartridge, and a lot of fun.