Barrel life of Mag rifles VS Non Mags

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Frontier Firearms

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Can someone tell me what the average barrel life (number of shots) is for a magnum rifle. I have been told it is half the lifetime of a regular cartrige. The reason I am asking is because I am seriously looking at a new 7mm mag target rifle and have been using 308 caliber rifles up until now.
 
I suppose it depends on a ton of factors. First and foremost: how accurate are YOU? i.e. would you even notice an accuracy loss of 1/4 MOA?

And then it depends on your shooting habits, how hot you let your barrel get, how hot you load your ammo, how you clean, how the barrel was manufactured and what it's made of, etc, etc.


I have a 243 that's seen several thousand rounds. Rumour has it that this cal will shoot out a barrel in 1500 or so rounds and I'm at several times that and still shooting MOA out to 600 yards. I'm sure that it was probably more accurate when it was new, but it's still more than sufficient for my needs.


For what it's worth, I wouldn't expect to shoot out a 7mm RM before I got bored with it, probably 2,000 rounds plus.
 
i purchased a Re. Mod. 700 BDL SS in 7mm rem. ultra mag. a few years ago. i was told at the gun shop, a long long way from where i live , not to buy it because they had too much powder and would burn the barrel out. i use this rifle for moose hunting i'm not a target shooter,at least not with this rifle and it has enough recoil i wouldn't want to be. i think prosper is right, i wouldn't really worry too much about burning a barrel out before i got bored with it.
 
Throat erosion is overwhelmingly caused by powder, which is why most barrels can be set back and made to work like new. The more you burn, the more you wear. "Magnum" basically means more powder.
 
A good shooter can tell the accuracy is dropping off. At that point, the barrel is 'shot out".

Depending on barrel shank diameter, the barrel can be set back a few inches and may be as good as new.

I tried competing in F Class with a 22-250 Improved. A barrel would not last a season. At 1000 rounds it was toast. I burned up 4 of them before conceding. The accuracy was still be thre but as the barrel got rougher it would cause the thin jackets on the Sierra 80s to blow up.

A 7 rem mag will be done at 1500 rounds. You would be better of with a 6.5-284. I jsut downsized froma 6.5-284 to a 260 rem improved. 2900 fps with a 142 and only 53 gr of powder.
 
It doesn't have anything to do with magnum vs. non-magnum, and more to do with case capacity vs. bore size. More fire down a smaller hole = less barrel life relatively speaking.
 
The term is "overbore" and for the average shooter or hunter, barrel burning will never be a problem as they simply won't use the rifle enough for it to become a problem and/or they simply don't put enough rounds down range to develop their shooting skills to a point where that 1/4 MOA increase in group sizes can be directly attributable to a "burned-out" barrel.
 
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