BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
I would have thought you would have to work awfully hard to wear out a 6.5 Swede. Harder than that for sure. Just goes to show you.
life span of barrels
- Thread starter mike Crawford
- Start date
I would have thought you would have to work awfully hard to wear out a 6.5 Swede. Harder than that for sure. Just goes to show you.
Mine rarely stick around long enough to get burned out... but I have one .243 on it's second barrel... love shooting that gun... but I doubt it will need a third barrel... it just has too much competition for range attention.
BUM; I was a bit surprised myself! Especially considering that it took well over double that to wear out the original C-M Remington tube.
It was a Pac-Nor 5 groove barrel, and I have had good luck with Pac-Nor. For some reason, this one failed early.
We sectioned the barrel after it was replaced, and there was a good 5" of heavy erosion ahead of the chamber.
Hope my new barrel does better for life....it is shooting ½moa right now.
Regards, Dave.
- Location
- kingston Ontario
Well the gun finally made it too the gun smith .. I am just over a hour away and have to do the Saturday morning thing as I work construction .. The barrel is indeed shot out out .. The barrel looks like new on the outside .. But the gun smith said """ Some one shot alot of shells out of that """ It is my 257 roberts built on a 33/40 action and a Douglas barrel .. I thought I got one hell of a deal when I bought it . Just a beauty of a custom built gun ' that looks like new .. but shoots not so good .But I guess I know why it was for sale ..
Went on the Google search ,, and you can buy barrels already threaded for Mauser rifles and I am thinking from what I have read .. I can use ""A LOT "" of different calibers as long as it is no longer than a 30-06 length .. Of course I can just rebarrel in 257 roberts too or 7x 57 .. or 6mm remington ..
I would never have thought a rifle that had a new barrel installed on it would be shot out .. 257 should not be a barrel burner.
Anyway .. I know what the problem is .. Now I just have to rebarrel this gun I guess .
I am assuming because the 33/40 is a small ring .. the list of model 96 barrels is what I am looking for ..
Went on the Google search ,, and you can buy barrels already threaded for Mauser rifles and I am thinking from what I have read .. I can use ""A LOT "" of different calibers as long as it is no longer than a 30-06 length .. Of course I can just rebarrel in 257 roberts too or 7x 57 .. or 6mm remington ..
I would never have thought a rifle that had a new barrel installed on it would be shot out .. 257 should not be a barrel burner.
Anyway .. I know what the problem is .. Now I just have to rebarrel this gun I guess .
I am assuming because the 33/40 is a small ring .. the list of model 96 barrels is what I am looking for ..
- Location
- Steel Town
I had an interesting conversation with my gunsmith, as I had him inspect the barrel of my Danish M69. This particular rifle was built in the early 1970's and saw a lot of action with Danish shooting clubs up to at least 2006. The barrel has plenty of rifling left, and in fact, looks excellent. There was some minor throat erosion that he took care of by cutting about 1 inch off the base of the barrel and re-chambering, but that was it. So, 6.5x55 cannot be that much of a barrel burner.
He's re-barreled hundreds of target rifles over the years, and his opinion is that stainless wears out faster than CV, and that it is more prone to throat erosion. But he also told me that stainless is much easier to work with. I never expected to hear that.
He's re-barreled hundreds of target rifles over the years, and his opinion is that stainless wears out faster than CV, and that it is more prone to throat erosion. But he also told me that stainless is much easier to work with. I never expected to hear that.
Great thread, good info.... I kept thinking about the last time I fired my Finnlight, 7RM, and how I kept firing "just one more round, ok, one more...", for a couple of 10 and 12 round strings.... I was trying to hurry and accomplish everything I wanted to do that day, so I know I pushed it a little harder than I should have, especially with that fluted barrel..... at least it was a very cool day here, which helped to quickly cool everything down.... I know I want to take that rifle to the gunsmith here and have a look at the throat to see how it held up..... that rifle only has had about 350 rounds through it now.... usually, I fire 3 round groups with hunting guns....
- Location
- kingston Ontario
I would say overall I have had good luck buying used guns .. I have seen gun shops check th heavy barrel guns as they are more apt too be shot a lot over hunting rifles ..I would never have guessed this gun would be shot out ..
NOW TOO SEE ABOUT A GETTING A BARREL
NOW TOO SEE ABOUT A GETTING A BARREL
Machine guns don't need 1/2 moa accuracy. 5 moa is great if you're just visually tracking where shots are hitting
From the Remtek website:
During the tests which led to its adoption, 29 different XM249s had more than 500,000 rounds fired through them. Unlike most gun writers, who can tell you everything you will ever need to know about a particular weapon after firing less than 100 rounds through it, it would be more than presumptuous of me to imply that observing and firing 500 to 1,000 rounds through the M249 in one afternoon could possibly generate any really significant conclusions. The weapon I fired had already more than 10,000 rounds fired through it. The only time this vicious little jewel stopped cranking was during belt changes. I encountered no malfunctions or stoppages of any kind.
M60's had expensive stellite lined barrels, a very hard and extremely wear resistant metal, it is so hard it is used to make valve seats, lathe cutting tools, and hip replacement joints among other things.
The military expected a minimum of 10,000 rounds of useful minimum life out of normal unlined 7.62x51mm (.308 win) rifle barrels and 25,000 out of chrome lined ones. Current M134 Minigun stellite lined barrels are rated as good to 200,000 rounds before needing replacement!
The biggest cause of all rifle (both military and sporting) barrels wearing out early is over cleaning and the biggest cause of damage to rifle barrels is neglect!
The military expected a minimum of 10,000 rounds of useful minimum life out of normal unlined 7.62x51mm (.308 win) rifle barrels and 25,000 out of chrome lined ones. Current M134 Minigun stellite lined barrels are rated as good to 200,000 rounds before needing replacement!
The biggest cause of all rifle (both military and sporting) barrels wearing out early is over cleaning and the biggest cause of damage to rifle barrels is neglect!
- .50 cal Browning M2 HMG barrels weigh twenty eight pounds. The 7.62 NATO barrels for the C1/C5 GPMG (mod Browning M-1919A4) weighed seven pounds. Bursts we generally kept to two trace (ten rounds). Mounted, C6 on the Leopards, we used four trace ranging and two trace engaging. Eventually, the barrels would burn out. Leopard C1 had two C6 MG. two spare barrels for the coax, and one spare barrel for the AAMG on the cupola ring mount. If they looked bad when cleaned, they got brought to the 'Gun Plummer' (Wpns Tech, Land), or he would go/no-go them during annual inspection or before live fire ex or gun camp.
- On the pad, if your trace started dancing through the sky: time for a barrel change.
- I think we probably burned through more FN C2s before noticing, but we did not always get tracer for them, so it was hard to notice during field firing. They sure could get hot though. We had one qual where we started at the 600, ran to the five and fired two thirty round mags in bursts, target drops on timing, when it comes up again run to the four hundred and do two mags in bursts, target up again - run to the three hundred and do two mags in bursts. 180 rounds in about five minutes. Then, another relay on the same FN C2s about five minutes later. FN C2 weighed 15.4 pounds loaded, so bursts were kept short - a challenge at 675-750 cyclic. I usually got three rounds, two if I tried hard, in a burst. I heard of guys being able to fire single shots with an FN C2 on auto, but I could never do it.
- When we got the C9 Minimi to replace the C2, I was in Germany. We did a gun camp and I ran the range for our C9 gunners in Recce Sqn. We put four guns on the mound at once with four in waiting, and would fire two boxes (plastic box held a 200 round belt of Lake City 4B1T), change barrels, fire two more boxes, then pull the gun off the firing point to cool and put up another LMG in its place.
We went through a small mountain of cased 5.56 mm 4B1T. Two boxes (200 rds ea) to a can, two cans to a crate - 800 rounds in a wooden crate. Belted. It was all Lake City because the IVI stuff had not got to us yet. The 5.56 ball ammo for the C7/C8 was not Canadian yet either, it was headstamped FNB.
- On the pad, if your trace started dancing through the sky: time for a barrel change.
- I think we probably burned through more FN C2s before noticing, but we did not always get tracer for them, so it was hard to notice during field firing. They sure could get hot though. We had one qual where we started at the 600, ran to the five and fired two thirty round mags in bursts, target drops on timing, when it comes up again run to the four hundred and do two mags in bursts, target up again - run to the three hundred and do two mags in bursts. 180 rounds in about five minutes. Then, another relay on the same FN C2s about five minutes later. FN C2 weighed 15.4 pounds loaded, so bursts were kept short - a challenge at 675-750 cyclic. I usually got three rounds, two if I tried hard, in a burst. I heard of guys being able to fire single shots with an FN C2 on auto, but I could never do it.
- When we got the C9 Minimi to replace the C2, I was in Germany. We did a gun camp and I ran the range for our C9 gunners in Recce Sqn. We put four guns on the mound at once with four in waiting, and would fire two boxes (plastic box held a 200 round belt of Lake City 4B1T), change barrels, fire two more boxes, then pull the gun off the firing point to cool and put up another LMG in its place.
We went through a small mountain of cased 5.56 mm 4B1T. Two boxes (200 rds ea) to a can, two cans to a crate - 800 rounds in a wooden crate. Belted. It was all Lake City because the IVI stuff had not got to us yet. The 5.56 ball ammo for the C7/C8 was not Canadian yet either, it was headstamped FNB.
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Phat Eagle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Fraser Valley, BC
Many (like the C9) are designed to spray rounds over a "beaten zone". MOA accuracy is not desirable in this application.
That said, I've seen C6 chew their way through 5000 rounds on a weekend range ex without detriment to the two barrels equipped.
Can't speak for hunting rifles, but I've replaced good quality AR barrels (Stag) after 25-30000 rounds. Throat was shot out and accuracy dropped off quite abruptly.
I'm around 1600 rounds thru my factory Stevens 200 barrel in 25/06. It was sub moa when I Did my part. Now it's 1-1/4" group at 100 yards. It's slowly opening up but I've just been seating bullets out further. Seems to hold its groupings.
Approx 800 75 gr Vmax at 3550 fps and 500 117 gr interlock at 3100 fps with 300 random rounds of various makes making up the rest. All from a 22" barrel. Groups started opening around 1200 rounds
Approx 800 75 gr Vmax at 3550 fps and 500 117 gr interlock at 3100 fps with 300 random rounds of various makes making up the rest. All from a 22" barrel. Groups started opening around 1200 rounds
Ar180shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ottawa, ON
Barrel life depends on several factors. Acceptable accuracy is one of them. If 2-3 MOA is acceptable, then you'll get a much longer barrel life than if it must remain below 1 MOA. Barrel treatments such a chrome lining and nitriding greatly increase barrel life as well.
