Worn Barrels

LOL the passion!!!

I visit our range often, almost too often and see all sorts of things. The amount of guys that have never shot past 200M is astounding, all while sitting at at 1400m range. Most hunters never shoot past 200m in the field, so why do it at the range.

Me, I'm built different, and practice my hunting rifles out to at least 1000m, and sometimes further, just because I can, plus its great practice. When you pull out your 22lr and start shooting from 2-500m most get blown away that it is even possible. Like really!

I know I'm not shot out with this barrel, just figured I would start the info search for when it is out. I suspect another 1-2K rounds into it, so end of this year, early next.

For those that might say too much heat crackling in the barrel, well you need to watch the MDT video of when they cook a barrel with 1000 rounds, and then clean it up and shoot it. I know I'm not there yet, and many think they torture their barrels with 5 quick shots.
 
If you are shooting the rifle at extended ranges, vertical stringing will tell you when the barrel is reaching its limit for precision long range. Time then to set it back and rechamber, or replace.
 
wallz said:
LOL the passion!!!

I visit our range often, almost too often and see all sorts of things. The amount of guys that have never shot past 200M is astounding, all while sitting at at 1400m range. Most hunters never shoot past 200m in the field, so why do it at the range.
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Don’t you know that shooting long range will wear your barrel out faster because the bullet has to go farther? lol
The gunsmith that built my first target rifle told me that a competitive barrel only lasts 2.5-3.5 seconds. I never questioned his math but he may have been right.
 
I'll give you my experience with my 308 barrel.
The rifle was a Savage 10BA 1-10" twist
The rifle was shot from new till the barrel was replaced at 4,800 rounds.

The most common load was 43gr of Varget over a 180gr SMK running at 2650.
The rifle was shooting between .45MOA and .60MOA till around 3800 rounds.
The group size began to slowly increased to between .6MOA to .9 moa till around 4200 rounds.
I was already looking for a replacement barrel at that time.
From the time I ordered my barrel to the time I replaed it at 4800 rounds the group size opened up to 1.2MOA

At the time 500 180gr SMK's cost $300. 1LB of Varget cost $50/lb
The $900 wasted shooting crappy groups for the last 1,000 rounds was the cost of the replacement barrel.
 
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thump_rrr said:
I'll give you my experience with my 308 barrel.
The rifle was a Savage 10BA 1-10" twist
The rifle was shot from new till the barrel was replaced at 4,800 rounds.

The most common load was 43gr of Varget over a 180gr SMK running at 2650.
The rifle was shooting between .45MOA and .60MOA till around 3800 rounds.
The group size began to slowly increased to between .6MOA to .9 moa till around 4200 rounds.
I was already looking for a replacement barrel at that time.
From the time I ordered my barrel to the time I replaed it at 4800 rounds the group size opened up to 1.2MOA

At the time 500 180gr SMK's cost $300. 1LB of Varget cost $50/lb
The $900 wasted shooting crappy groups for the last 1,000 rounds was the cost of the replacement barrel.
Click to expand...

With the cost of components, barrels are dirt cheap... and missing is very expensive.

The math above is pretty typical of a 308win barrel... however, the starting point of a factory barrel isn't very exciting for me. I rather start with a match barrel prefit which can shoot in the 2's and 3's with little load work up.

Factory barrel averaging 0.6moa trying to hit a 0.5moa target at distance is going to need way more rds as a 0.3moa combo (assume no wind). Add in the typical winds and the hit/miss ratio can be a few times as many shots. Of course, the targets can get bigger to increase the hit rate but then the 0.3 setup would be pretty boring.

At $2 per bang, will not take many misses to buy that match barrel ... which is a whole lot more satisfying to play with (we haven't even discussed the heat induced misses).

When the match barrel wears to 0.6moa, it will likely have seen 3000rds (maybe more)... and there is no point in shooting it more to get worsening performance. Besides, the next 1000rds eats up another $2k, with an ever decreasing hit rate... compared to a $700 barrel to get back to high hit rate again, barrels are cheap

And missing is very expensive.

Jerry
 
At one point when I was actively competing in short range bench rest, I would re-chamber my "worn out" 6ppc barrels to 6x45 Rem and thread them on a 40X and shoot gophers. Chamber and muzzle ends were parted off, shortening the barrel to about 18". The repurposed barrels shot great and I didn't worry about getting carried away for an afternoon. By the time one of those repurposed barrels were junk, I would have put more rounds down the barrel shooting gophers than I did competing. I'd then give that barrel to my gunsmith buddy who would make muzzle brakes out of it, or whatever. I don't compete much any more so my pipeline of gopher barrels have nearly dried up to about 1 barrel every 2 years max but I still have 3 left in reserve and ready to go.
 
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I would think a poor target barrel could be re-purposed to a great hunting rifle barrel? if the chamber/leade was the only issue
Modern 6 and 6.5 have the base diameter of WSM's and RUM's ?

might be heavy , outside milling brings its own set of problems
 
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