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hello,

Could someone tell me how long a heavy barrel in these calibers would be expected to last:

1. 6,5-284
2. 6,5x55
3. .243
4. .223

Thanks
jonj

It won't really matter if the barrel is a heavy or light contour. I have rifles in several of these calibers.

The 6.5x55 is an old swedish mauser I have no idea how many rounds that barrel has seen in it's 90+years of life but the riflings in it look like they were made yesterday.

The .243 has seen about 1,000 rounds and is still what I'd call new.

My .223 rifle, which I compete with, is on its second barrel. The first one was replaced at about 15,000 rounds. It looked fairly good but accuracy had fallen to where I could shoot better groups than it could hold. The current barrel has about 2000 through it and it is aas good or better than I am.

What little I know about 6.5x.284 is that I's a pretty fast round and might fall into the "barrel burner" category so I can't really help much with that one.

A .223 will last I bet 3000 rounds. I have yet to burn one out before trading or selling. I love .223. I think its a perfect balance of a varmit caliber. The 220swift too much, 22hornet too little.

A .243 about the same. Dominating factor I bet would be more damage from cleaning. Its hard not to do. Never burned a barrel out yet.

6.5X284. They are really not that fast. Never had one, but know alot that do. I will find out.

Only thing I have burned out is a 300RUM. And due to lack of knowledge how to take care of a barrel, I ruined my 270win, I had since I was 12. I still hunt it however.

Thanks a lot guys

jonj

Here's another way to look at it.

It takes a bullet about .0006 seconds to travel down a 24 inch barrel at 3000 fps so figure about 10,000 rounds and that barrel will last about 6 seconds. I know some competition shooters that change out barrels every 1000 to 2000 rounds shot through it so their barrels last less than two seconds.

Not very long huh.

Properly cared for any of the mentioned cartridges should handle 5,000 rounds in a barrel and still be shooting satisfactorily.

Shoot the barrels hot and one might only get 1,000 rounds or less.

I have a heavey barrel 223 that has close to 10000 rnds and still going strong . Any of the cal. that you listed if you don't shoot it hot , clean it and just take care of it will last many thou. rnd . Or you can shoot it so hot that you burn your self ,don't clean it or worse abuse it while you clean it , the barrel may last 1000 rnds . Take care of it and it will take care of you.

barrel life is just a mith, ok sure it might decrease in accurasy after a long time but not that bad, as long as your not crap shooting a semi auto. you will fine with any.

a heavy barrel will just keep the heat down and acuracy up

shootr

Alot of good points besides the crazy myth post. I bet more barrels including mine dies from the cleaning process more than actually burning it out. Its very difficult even with bore scope, and coated rod, to not make any contact with a barrel. And the more copper fouling, the harder to clean, the more handling. I know I have ruined a crown or two. I have ruined barrels when I was a kid with that stupid hoppes kit and three piece rods. But I keep trying and trying to improve. I have used wipe out for the past 2 years trying to cut down on cleaning. Its a start. I have had a few guns built with super smooth Krieger barrels, which has really cut down on the cleaning.

Quote:

ORIGINAL: gopher slayer

barrel life is just a mith, ok sure it might decrease in accurasy after a long time but not that bad, as long as your not crap shooting a semi auto. you will fine with any.

gopher slayer

I assume you mean by crap shooting a semi auto you're referring to "spray & pray" or just a lot of rapid fire burning the rounds up.

I've got a BAR in 30-06 but don't shoot it any faster than I would a bolt action, and always allow for a little "barrel cool" time when working up loads or practicing a lot at the range.

firstshot
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Make your first shot count!

Military rifles (namely .223) see thousands and thousands of rounds, and many are fired through a hot barrel. The M-16 A2 is expected to hold 3 MOA, if not it is replaced. This is not ideal for a target shooter but would due for a plinker. Match shooters replace their barrels at 3000 rounds or the first slight sighn of accuracy loss, but these same barrels which usually still yeild MOA accuracy would be perfect and have many thousands of rounds of life left for an average shooter. As with anything there are extremes but don't listen to the hype about barrel burn out unless you shoot thousands of rounds a year you should never have to worry about it.

Dad gone man, you can almost hold 3MOA slinging a rock by hand. I would hope the Marines can hold that with 5000 rounds maybe. Most on this page are looking for something a tad tighter. The magic 1MOA comes to mind. You can get 3MOA with a 200 dollar el cheapo rifle. No problem. Making that gun into a 1.5MOA rifle, is not that difficult with some time but might have to double that price. Cutting that in half to .75MOA is a challenge and usually expensive and much extra care has to be taken. I maybe just talking for myself, but thats what most of us here are striving for.

Nothing but the best that the lowest bid can offer! The 3 MOA is the extreme, an indicator for replacement, the NATO ammunition is also factored into this. NATO's requirements are not very demanding of the manufacturer. Most A2's will hold much better but with iron sights few notice as long as the rounds strike center mass on a human torso sized target the misson is accomplished. I guess my point is that if you start with a quality barrel holding .5 MOA, many thousands of rounds later the performance may slowly degrade to 1 MOA, depending on the purpose of the weapon that is not horrible. Until you are capiable of shooting better groups then your rifle/barrel can hold there is no sense in replacing the barrel.

The official testes on the A2 with the latest barrel twist (1:9 vs the A2's origional 1:7) shows over 6,000 rounds fired before any detectable spread in group size and over 10,000 rounds fired before a "noticable" differance was recorded. Quality ammo was used (produced by Winchester USA) NATO SS109 (U.S. M855) Ball, 62 gr flying at about 3,200 FPS at the muzzle (20" test barrel). They did have varying results using this round in the older slower twist barrels (1:12 had accuracy problems, bullet lacked flight stability) and with the faster 55 gr. in the 1:7 twist barrels (barrel errosion occurred sooner than with the 62 gr / 1:9 setup). Still noticable group spread did not occur until after 6,000 rounds.

All that said and making a statement based on these test results; an average shooter should get at least 6,000 rounds from a quality barrel with close to new accuracy. Some slightly less, some more depending on the rate of twist, bullet weight, and speed.