Rapid fire damage barrel?

Grizzlypeg

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
80   0   0
Location
Winnipeg
At what point does continued rapid fire begin to cause barrel damage? Is there permanent erosion at the throat? Permanent barrel distortion? Or is the effect from extreme heat reversible?
 
Last edited:
Rapid fire won't hurt your barrel, per say. Heat is the big problem so if you do some rapid fire, and then stop to let the barrel cool, there is no real problem other than general wear you get from any shooting.
 
How about sustained rapid fire as in some shooting competitions where 100 or more 5.56 or 7.62 rounds are fired in roughly 4 minutes?
 
I have run a 250 rnd belt of 8x63 swedish thru my 1919 semi auto fast as i could barrel was smokeing so bad i couldent see the sights anymore from smoke and heat "waves"


before i could easily hit a clay bird at 100 meters in 3 shots on its tripod and all set fro 100 meter range

after i could still do it

Ive run several belts thru same way barrel looks (rifleing) and functions the same as new......
 
How about sustained rapid fire as in some shooting competitions where 100 or more 5.56 or 7.62 rounds are fired in roughly 4 minutes?

100 rounds within 4 mintues = 25 rouds per minute. - you are about inside the "big army" spec, which they set it so their equipment will last forever......
 
Obviously, any firing causes wear to the barrel.
Rapid fire wears down a barrel faster because of the increase in heat. However, I wouldn't call 100 rds in 4 minutes rapid, because as stated, that only works out to 25 rds per minute.
Since Canada doesn't allow high capacity mags, it's hard to reach a damagingly high rate of fire.
So basically, don't worry about barrel wear. You should be able to pump thousands of rounds through your barrel before you notice a decrease in accuracy. If in doubt, buy a barrel-guage.
 
Barrel wear is not the problem, throat errosion is! Each and every round will errode the barrel, the faster you shoot the more accelerated the errosion, even after as little as few hundred rounds. If you just keep shooting you will heat up the barrel, if you keep shooting after that then each time you shoot a little bit of your barrel is gone forever, it can not grow back. The average barrel is good for 5,000 rounds or so, fire fast and heat it up and you lesson your barrel life.

Scott
 
Last edited:
I agree, 5000 rds seems VERY low!

As a point of reference, I was issued a brand spankin' new C8 (16" chrome lined 1:7" barrel) and with a considerable amount of "rapid fire," (90 rpm +) including full auto, put well over 20,000 rds through it before it was shot-out & replaced.
It shot about 3 moa when I got it, and it shot about 5moa when I had the barrel replaced. Still good enough for my line of work. :D
I realize that not all civilian legal AR15s are mil-spec, but I don't think that there's anything magical about a Diemaco/Colt Canada C8 barrel. I would expect roughly the same performance out of any chrome-lined carbine barrel.
 
Last edited:
m39a2. Are you saying that its x thousand rounds life whether you shoot slow or fast? Or are you saying that the number of rounds you can shoot down the barrel is lessened, on a barrel that is heated?

How about the chrome lined barrel? Does it offer advantages in regard to throat erosion?
 
Obviously, any firing causes wear to the barrel.
Rapid fire wears down a barrel faster because of the increase in heat. However, I wouldn't call 100 rds in 4 minutes rapid, because as stated, that only works out to 25 rds per minute.
Since Canada doesn't allow high capacity mags, it's hard to reach a damagingly high rate of fire.
So basically, don't worry about barrel wear. You should be able to pump thousands of rounds through your barrel before you notice a decrease in accuracy. If in doubt, buy a barrel-guage.

If one really wanted to you could fire 100 rounds in a little over a minute with 10rnd pistol mags in an AR, why? Other than to "blow away" 20-30 bucks, I dunno.
 
Chrome lining barrels is done to create a barrel that is resistant to heat and wear. The perfect solution for a battle rifle. Military rifles are chrome lined to give them service lives in the tens of thousands of rounds, however a SS or CM barrel will blow the doors of a Chrome-lined barrel for accuracy. Trust me, if you could buy a match barrel with a 30,000 round match-winning life, nobody would buy anything else.

The combination of the extremely high pressures generated by exploding powder and to a lesser extent the heat of the burning powder damages all barrels. The hotter the steel is, the more easily it is worn and literally burned away. Sustained fire where a barrel gets hotter with each successive shot increases throat wear and causes the steel to crack ("Fire cracking"). Search for borescope images of fire-cracked barrels and you will see exactly the damage caused by rapid fire.

Each barrel is different and each steel is different. Stainless barrels are more heat resistant then Chromoly barrels and cryo-treating the steel improves resistance to wear, but over-heating a barrel is a fast-track to serious barrel wear.
 
I agree, 5000 rds seems VERY low!

As a point of reference, I was issued a brand spankin' new C8 (16" chrome lined 1:7" barrel) and with a considerable amount of "rapid fire," (90 rpm +) including full auto, put well over 20,000 rds through it before it was shot-out & replaced.
It shot about 3 moa when I got it, and it shot about 5moa when I had the barrel replaced. Still good enough for my line of work. :D
I realize that not all civilian legal AR15s are mil-spec, but I don't think that there's anything magical about a Diemaco/Colt Canada C8 barrel. I would expect roughly the same performance out of any chrome-lined carbine barrel.


The C8 barrel is hammer forged...so is the C9. The typical commerical barrel and US military barrels are button rifled. I have no quantitative numbers or study to back up , but it appears that hammer forged barrel take obstruction testing better. (such as glock and HK) I will leave the hardcore metallurgy to those with a graduate degree to explain....

The materials used are also different -US military barrel steel specifies a grade of steel with vanadium. Most commerical barrels don't.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom