bigbulls

A rifle will last longer than you if you maintain it. A rifle chambered for a standard cartridge like a 30-06, .270, etc... will last tens of thousands of rounds before the barrel is worn out enough to replace it.

The only reason that competitive shooters replace barrels after only 1000 rounds is because they, and their competition, can shoot good enough that just a couple thousandths of an inch can mean the difference in a win or loss. A standard hunting rifle will never be that accurate nor will us hunters ever require that kind of accuracy out of our hunting rifles.

Doe Dumper

I cant imagine wearing one out. If you even make a half hearted attempt to maintain the gun it should outlast the shooter easily.

WWhunter

stalkingbear said it first but I'll reinterate what he said....HEAT is one of the biggest enemis of your barrel. If you are out blasting away as fast as you can pull the trigger your barrel will invariably wear out faster. Fire a few shots....let it cool and then fire a few more. Don't let it get so hot you can't touch it. With that said I was on the military marksmanship team and we proabably fired 500-1000 rounds/day out of our M-16's. They would get so darn hot you would burn your fingers. I shot that same rifle and carried it on missions the entire time I was in the service and it still shot as well the day I was discharged as when I joined.
So....blast away and don't worry about it.
WW

skb2706

No offense but..........your buddies don't make any sense at all. Do they treat their vehicles the same way. You realize that a rifle barrel installed cost about the same as a set of tires on their trucks.

I 'need' to shoot some of mine all the time. I have prairie dog rifles that I shoot as much as 400 rds. in a day. The last thing on my list of BS things to worry about is how long the barrel will last on any of them.

Bowtech 360

Our .22 rifles at school for rifle team put like 500 rounds a day for 3 months out of the year. Some of them rifles are 10+ years old and shoot perfectly.

eldeguello

WEar out a gun by shooting it? Well, it can be done. For example, a good .30/06 BARREL will last about 10,000 rounds, if you let it cool down between shots. Some of the faster hot rounds wear out the barrel faster than that.

But after shooting out a barrel, it is no problem to rebarrel.

The key to long life is not to shoot so much you overheat the barrel, and keep it clean & well preserved between uses. If you do this, your grandchildren will be able to use it-50 years from now!!*

(*Unless Obama becomes president!!)

White-tail-deer

I've been told that a 7mmRUM barrel is good for about 1000 rounds. Other than that I think you would need to really abuse your rifle to wear it out.

tcshooter

Do younot use the brakes in your car or truck because you'll wear out the pads and rotors? Parts fail,barrels included, sodon't worry about it. If you wear out a barrel, be happy about two things 1)that you had the time and money necessary to expend thousands of rounds doing something you enjoy 2) like Doritos, they make more rifle barrels every day.

Alsatian

I looked through the several posts here. The worst case I saw was a barrel wearing out in 3,000 rounds. Suppose that would actually happen, do you know how much shooting that is? That is shooting 100 rounds/year for 30 years. Depending on how you are using your rifle, 100 rounds/year is a lot. Typically what I do is go to the rifle range before a big game season and end up shooting about a box of 20 shells getting the rifle sighted in. Last year I found my rifle just happened to be sighted in and I only shot 10 rounds during this activity. I then shoot 1 or 2 rounds in the actual hunting season. Thus, for me, in reality it might take me 150 years to shoot 3000 rounds through my rifle. Of course, your question is oriented towards shooting more rounds than just enough to confirm your zero.

I guess another way to look at it is so what if you wear your gun out after shooting 3000 rounds. If you shoot that much you have gotten a very great deal of pleasure out of this rifle and ought not be feeling badly to have to replace it after that much use. Would you feel bad about replacing a car because it wore out after being driven 300,000 miles?

I think it is also the case as someone mentioned earlier if you don't let your barrel get too hot -- if you pause between shots long enough. I wait at least 60 seconds. This is probably unnecessary, but I do it anyway.

Aside from barrel usage, I agree with others who sayif you take care of your rifle it will last considerably longer than you will. I clean my rifles after every use. This involves cleaning the barrel and running a lightly oiled rag through the barrel to leave a thin coating or oil in the barrel. It also involves running a lightly oiled rag over all surfaces of the rifle, including removing the bolt and going over all of its exernally accessible surfaces. I try not to overdo the oil so it doesn't drip off the metal onto the wooden stock, which would be bad for the wood. When I put the gun away for a season, this protective coating or oil remains on the metal surfaces. I keep the gun in a dry closed wooden cabinet. I've heard it is a bad idea to keep a gun enclosed in a cotton gun case, as the cotton may absorb moisture and cause your gun to rust badly. I have some guns that are not in the gun cabinet, and these I keep inside silicone impregnated socks that are supposed to wick up moisture and keep this off the surface of the guns. I think if you protect the metal of your guns like this, they will last a very, very long time. I inherited several guns from my father that are pretty old -- a 1953 vintage Winchester Model 12 shotgun, a sporterized springfield .30-06 probably from this same time period. They show no signs of wearing out from age. I am guessing that my 18 year old son will be able to hand these on to his son in working order when he dies if he takes as good care of these things as I do.

claydee

Great question!!!
Great answers!!
Thanks guys!!!