Hertinberger bimetal bullets - hard on barrels?

Buckmastr

Buckmastr

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How hard are the Hertinberger bimetal bullets on barrels?
Reason is I shot a box of bullets out of my 308 and cleaned it afterwards. There was no copper fouling based on the lack of blue on the patch. More of a grey patch...
I would have thought that the copper from the bimetal would have shown up on the patch.
Leaves me wondering how these bullets will affect the barrel life.
 
My thought is its a military ammo. Military rifles often have thousands of rounds through them, makes no sense to be harmful in any way. IMO the most harmful thing a person can do to their barrels is shoot long, fast strings and/or not properly clean them. Literally the worst thing you could do is the mad minute, trying to beat Snoxall.
 
Perfectly ok - won't harm your barrel more than anything else in the greater scheme of things. The bimetal that is used for bullets is a softer metal than what most people think. It is made for mass volume shooting in military firearms.
 
This neat article was posted some time ago:
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/
Of course the tests is done with .223/5.56 and not .308/7.62 so take the precise numbers with a grain of salt.

They had worn out hammer-forged, chrome lined, milspec barrels with bimetal jacketed ammo after ~6000rnds. The copper jacketed lasted all 10,000rnds and they estimated it may go to 12,000rnds total. A cut-rifling, non-chrome-lined civilian barrel would likely last less (but how much can't be said for sure).

I don't shoot bimetal stuff through premium/match/target barrels but have no issue using it in regular hunting barrels. I'll probably never put 5000+rnds through a hunting-rifle barrel in my lifetime so I don't bother worrying about it.

It's also interesting to note that the bimetal ammo is cheaper than copper by a large enough margin that you can afford multiple replacement barrels with how much you save in ammo.
 
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