The cost of burning up a barrel

I never really understood when guys say well you spent all that money on ammo what's $400 for a new barrel. Well it's $400 more!
there are so many factors to barrel life, there are guys who have burned up a barrel in one weekend. Then the guy that's shot his 220swift for 50 years.

What's also funny is guys who continue to buy cheap rifles instead of rebarreling something they already have (like me).

I am finally buying some nicer rifles, and I am looking at replacement barrels as I go. Most of my newer guns aren't really expensive, but I have been picking action designs with barrel nuts so I can easily swap them myself. At least for the higher volume shooters...

Really depends on a few things. Time and money.

For guys shooting high end precision rifles or compete with them, it can be an important factor.

If I reload at 75 cents a round and burn my barrel in 3000 rounds I've spent 2250 on ammo. However getting another high end barrel installed on the rifle can cost you over 500 bucks pretty easy. Barrels for my AI AT ruin about 600-1000 bucks.

Then for someone who competes, 3000 rounds is not a lot of rounds. At that rate you could end up needing a new barrel on the middle of a season. And if you don't have a rifle with a user changeable barrel system you have to figure in gunsmithing time as well.

So for some the difference between a barrel life of 3000 and 5000 is a serious consideration.

Most that talk about burning up a barrel will never shoot enough to burn up a barrel; those that will burn up a barrel have already built that math into their process as a cost of their process.

A burnt up barrel can mean different things to different people. If I am competing at 1000 plus yards or just shooting cans in the backyard. Probably the most liberal, is when bullets start keyholing it needs to be replaced. For some people it is once It exceeds 1MOA, they say they’ve burned up the barrel. In reality, they could probably use that same barrel to hunt with the rest of their life with acceptable hunting accuracy.

When you talk about dollars, it reminds me of when I went to the knob creek machine gun shoot a few years back. Guys were paying $200 to do a mag dump from an AK or Thompson into the berm. Accuracy didn’t matter, and I imagine those rifles were smooth bore at that point. The barrel was probably toast after a weekend with near constant shooting and not much time to cool down. Judging by the lines, they probably made $30,000 on that barrel, if they replaced it.

I spend 70¢/round reloading for my 6 creed match rifle. I expect to get 1400 rounds out of each barrel. That’s $980. I spend $300 with a smith and $300 to Bartlein on special pricing for a group deal they offer our state association, so $600 for the barrel. Total cost of ownership is $1580, with about 40% of that coming as barrel cost.

So the cost of the barrel isn’t insignificant.

ETA: in precision rifle competition, my standard for “burned out” is defined as the round count at which the barrel begins regularly losing velocity due to throat erosion. At that point, there’s too much risk of my data changing during a match (200-250 rounds), so it simply isn’t worth the risk. Entry fees, ammunition costs, fuel and food for travel, hotel costs... I budget $650-800 for every 2 day event, about the cost of a barrel, so sacrificing performance at a match just to save a bit of barrel life doesn’t make sense.

It took me 17 boxes of bullets to fry the barrel on my 7mag. and it was a BLAST!
I couldnt care less about barrel life, OR the cost to get to the end of it. At the end of the day its about how much fun I had, and it will ALWAYS be cheaper to shoot than most of my other hobbies are/were.

I used to burn a barrel every year shooting Highpower also. About 3500 rounds of relatively hot 223. I could have gotten maybe 1000 more, but then would be out of sequence for the next season. In that case, I was shooting $300 barrels (and bolts), and ammo would run $1250ish to kill one. Barrel cost accounted for ~20% of the total cost of ownership.

Still meant changing barrels every year.

Before matches started getting cancelled for CV, I was planning to burn through 3 barrels this season at PRS matches, and I have 4 more on order from Bartlein due in June. Can’t really ignore the cost of barrels when I have to drop $1200 on barrels every June, and then another $1200 with the Smith every August when they’re done, no more than I can ignore the cost of components every winter when I buy 24lb of Varget and 24 more of H4350, 1,000pc of brass, and 5,000 bullets all within a few months. At least primers are cheap...

Newtosavage said:

I read a lot about people who are concerned they will burn up a barrel with one caliber vs. another.

That makes me wonder, how much coin have you spent on ammo or reloading components, range time/fees and gas to burn up that barrel, and how does that compare to the cost of replacing the barrel?

For instance, if one caliber is good for say, 3K rounds, how much have you already spent to get there as compared to what it might cost to replace that barrel?

Sometimes I think we worry about the wrong things.

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Well, for me, when I was shooting a lot of long range rifle, I was burning through at least 1000 rounds a month, and that was a slow month. I actually settled on .308 on the advise of my gunsmith. I could shoot it in F Class where we shot to 600 and I could play with reaching out farther when the opportunities presented themselves. He also told me that I could get a lot more wear out of a barrel with .308 than I would with a hotter round. With a .308, you burn the throat a lot more quickly than you burn the barrel. This leaves you with the option of just having an inch or so knocked off and having the chamber recut and then having the barrel refitted. At least it saves you the cost of the barrel.

I mean, I don't mind spending money, but I don't want to spend money that I don't need to. I like Krieger barrels and they aren't just $400. They're more like $500 and you have to hope that they have what you want in stock when you need it or you're gonna be waiting for it. That, plus the cost of having the barrel fitted. My gunsmith is a friend of mine, so I think he gives me a bit of a break compared to other customers, but I do still have to pay him. I love to shoot and not having to buy another barrel meant that I could shoot that much more.

I don't think that considering barrel life cost me anything.

Of course, if were talking barrels for an AR15, you can actually get a good barrel for under $200 and they just drop right in. I'll burn those up all day long.

The one I burnt up didn't cost me a dime, nor did replacing it. M16A1 shooting up ammo leftover from a range. It needed a new barrel anyway.

TonyAngel said:

I like Krieger barrels and they aren't just $400. They're more like $500

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Krieger blanks are $335, as confirmed on their site right now. Some of their finished barrels are more, naturally, but then you’re not spending as much at the smith.

LoonWulf said:

It took me 17 boxes of bullets to fry the barrel on my 7mag. and it was a BLAST!
I couldnt care less about barrel life, OR the cost to get to the end of it. At the end of the day its about how much fun I had, and it will ALWAYS be cheaper to shoot than most of my other hobbies are/were.

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340 rounds to cook a barrel ------ I'm impressed!!!!

My "barrel burner" rounds are a 243 and a 6.5 CM- but these are hunting rifles that see very low round counts (think 1 box or so a year) so they will outlive me. 308, in a quality barrel, will have a nice long life. I rarely saw a M24 in the army that got "shot out". Larue will replace any barrel you shoot out on one of their rifles for $150 (as per Mark Larue). For a typical AR-15, you are better off to just buy a new complete upper on sale from PSA and then strip the old upper for parts than replacing a barrel.

tbs said:

340 rounds to cook a barrel ------ I'm impressed!!!!

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lol bout 1700. Only reason I knew is I was keeping the boxes at that time. I'm actually shooting quite a bit more now and hunting less. I think that one took me almost 8 years. I've already got 400 or so rounds thru my .280AI that I got just a few months ago.

The fellas at the top of the discipline I know have a reserve of barrels and not just one brand, if you run one at a time you’ll always be behind the curve.
Serious competition is a financial commitment.
J

Newtosavage said:

For instance, if one caliber is good for say, 3K rounds, how much have you already spent to get there as compared to what it might cost to replace that barrel?

Sometimes I think we worry about the wrong things.

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That’s kinda like saying “I spent $40,000 on a new car, so paying $10,000 to replace the engine and transmission isn’t a big deal”

It’s the same reason that a vast majority can make a $400 a month truck payment, but think it would be impossible to save $400 a month to pay cash.

Basic centerfire rifle ammo averages roughly a dollar a shot. Reloading gets basic ammo down to roughly 1/3 that price unless shooting. Do the math.

I have about 5000 through a rem 700 .270 and it’s pretty well shot out. Almost all reloads.

I read a lot about people who are concerned they will burn up a barrel with one caliber vs. another.

That makes me wonder, how much coin have you spent on ammo or reloading components, range time/fees and gas to burn up that barrel, and how does that compare to the cost of replacing the barrel?

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I look at it like tires, if you don’t use it a lot tires will last many years if you drive 100,000 miles a year, that’s just part of the cost of operation.

As you point out, the cost of a single item isn’t much compared to all of the smaller costs over time but it is a relatively large price tag when it comes time, even though it’s far less often.

I can definitely see competitor shooters going through multiple barrels a year. They are into keeping the accuracy to a high standard. And in competitions where 1/2 MOA will cost you a match, I can see changing barrels frequently. Most shooting sports are not cheap once you really look into them considering the cost of guns, ammo, equipment, repair parts.

Burning out a barrel means something different to me due to my military experience. A barrel is burned out and needs changed when it starts keyholing and/or causing you to miss the target.

I have burned up a few M60 barrels to the point that they were glowing and as soon as I stopped shooting the drooped down.

When I was racing,my race engine builder had a sign hanging on his wall - " Speed cost money - How fast can you afford ". It's the same way when it comes to rifle barrels.
When you shoot over bore cartridges and then push the velocities to the limit,your barrel isn't going to last a long time. Most hunting rifles will last several lifetimes in any cartridge,but if you compete or shoot all the time,you can easily shoot out barrels in a season or a couple years depending on the amount you shoot.
My 22 Creedmoor is probably the lowest barrel life cartridge that I shoot,the barrel will probably be toast around 1200 rounds maybe less. That's why I buy 2 or 3 barrels when I build a gun that has a short barrel life. It's just part of the game!

tbs said:

340 rounds to cook a barrel ------ I'm impressed!!!!

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Bullets not cartridges. Bullets normally come 50 or 100 to the box.

I always enjoy this topic! I cannot count the number of people I've spoken with over the years who swore anything more than a box or two per years of ammo (as in 20 rounds) would eat up a gun. Drove me crazy as they criticized my 'ammo wasting' ways LOL. As noted, F-class and benchrest guys have very different barrel life expectancy than casual hunter or plinker.

I saw a barrel go from decent to shotgun from one F class match to the next at one weekend event. He thought he could stretch that barrel another 30 rounds, but he couldn't.

Bullets, too. I saw a guy go from good to worthless with a new case of bullets and his barrel was not much worn.