Barrel Burners?

[Auburn1992]

What cartridges are generally considered barrel burners? What is the barrel life expectancy of a .223 (shooting 40-55gr loads), an 22-250, and a .243 shooting 95+ gr loads? I am interested in a Remington VLS in 243 or an XR-100 in 223 or 22-250. Thanks alot for the help!

 

[JWarren]

"Barrel Burning" is dependent on a number of things-- including the nature of the barrel if I understand correctly.

Some rounds with steeper shoulders have more propensity to erode the throat of the chamber-- effectively killing accuracy.

While I am no expert on the topic-- and I can't speak regarding .223's barrel life, certain calibers are known to have shorter barrel lives.

Thinking off the top of my head, .243 Winchester comes to mine as well as practically ALL of the WSM and WSSM rounds.

I am sure you'll get a lot more information soon on this topic.


-- John

 

[atblis]

Well

Some of it has to do with how you load it. 243 isn't really a barrel burner unless you're loading it hot with certain bullets.

Some rounds are thought of as being hot, so people push them harder than they would a round that's not generally though of as hot.

223 is one of the better varmint rounds for barrel life.

 

[eldon519]

Life expectancy is tough to define because it depends what the barrel is capable of to begin with and what you expect from it. If you are happy with 2 MOA and your rifle starts out shooting 0.5 MOA, it's probably gonna last you a long time. If you are a competitive benchrest shooter who demands 0.5 MOA, it may not take nearly as long for the barrel to become inadequate.

 

[tkendrick]

.264 Win Mag. I've owned two of them, and I really like that cartridge.

But go try and get one built and see how fast the gunsmith will try and talk you out of it. I even had a gentleman on this forum tell me I was a fool for wanting one.

BTW: most who bad mouth it, have no experience w/it.

 

[Shawnee]

"BTW: most who bad mouth it, have no experience w/it."


That observation is true of several calibers.

It's true of the .243 and the 30/30 for sure, and even the humble .22 Hornet is much better than the wags give it credit for too.

 

[JWarren]

BTW: most who bad mouth it, have no experience w/it.

Its not about "bad mouthing." People are trying to help the best they can.


-- John

 

[tkendrick]

Its not about "bad mouthing." People are trying to help the best they can.

Trust me, I know the difference between bad mouthing and friendly advice. Most of the comments I got were definately along the "worthless peice of c#@$ cartridge" lines.

Nothing "trying to help" about that.

 

[R.W.Dale]

.264 Win Mag. I've owned two of them, and I really like that cartridge.

But go try and get one built and see how fast the gunsmith will try and talk you out of it. I even had a gentleman on this forum tell me I was a fool for wanting one.

BTW: most who bad mouth it, have no experience w/it.

Agreed! and what gets me is 7mm rem mag which is almost identical gets no such "barrel burner" label.

With modern powders and modern stainless barrels I feel the whole barrel burner line is a thing of the past. Much like engine break in periods and typewriters. OH! sure there are some extremes like 22-6mm or 30-378wby that are hard on barrels. But rounds like 220 swift and 264wm just flat get a bum rap.

 

[JWarren]

Nothing "trying to help" about that.

Agreed.


I was refering to those post that are similar to mine above-- make an attempt to say what they know.

The "This or that _______ is a piece of crap" posts have practically no redeeming value in my opinion.

Wait...

Some are valid. When it comes to workmanship, there are indeed some firearms that are "pieces of crap." I won't mention any here.


-- John

 

[frogomatic]

short mags, and super short mags do tend to erode throats quicker than others.

the burn rate of the powder you use can affect barrel life. if the burn rate is too slow for a particular cartridge length not all of the powder will be burnt while it's still in the cartridge. If powder burns in the barrel it causes erosion pretty quickly. this is why the WSM, and WSSM cartridges tend to be hard on barrels.

 

[JWarren]

if the burn rate is too slow for a particular cartridge length not all of the powder will be burnt while it's still in the cartridge.

Wait a sec... you may have to help me on this...

Isn't the flash of a firearm indicitive that power is still buring in the barrel?

Or is it is a question of temperatures?


-- John

 

[R.W.Dale]

sn't the flash of a firearm indicitive that power is still buring in the barrel

NO!

All of the powder in a rifle cast that WILL burn will do so in the first 3 or 4 inches of BBL.

The flash you see is a result of the superheated rapidly expanding gasses

 

[JWarren]

Thanks Krochus.

Oddly, I have never spent any time thinking about that question.



-- John

 

[Auburn1992]

"It's true of the .243 and the 30/30 for sure, and even the humble .22 Hornet is much better than the wags give it credit for too."

A .30/30 is a barrel burner?

p.s. how do I "quote message in reply"? it won't let me click the box!

 

[CB900F]

Fella's;

Powder technology has made radical advances since the introduction of, say, the .220 Swift introduced in 1935. Or even that barely of-age cartridge, the .264 Winchester magnum, introduced in 1958, a mere 50 years old this year.

Given today's powder's, and loaded sensibly, either of the aforementioned "barrel burners" will provide a helluva lot of shooting before throat erosion becomes a real-world factor.

900F

 

[JWarren]

p.s. how do I "quote message in reply"? it won't let me click the box!

Cut and paste the text you want into your reply box.

Now highlight it. Do you see that little icon that looks like dialogue in a comic book on the tool bar above your text box?

Click that.

You should now see

on one side of the text and [QUOTE /] on the other.

Now it is quoted.


Hope that helps.


-- John

 

[Larry E]

If you're looking for a varmint rifle for high volume shooting the .223 is the way to go. I've had two .243's, and two .22-250's, and loaded to near their potential they will use up a barrel a lot sooner than a .223. The .243's short neck and 20° shoulder is not kind to barrel throats. The .22-250 is a little easier on barrels, but not too much. The more powder that's burned in a certain bore size the harder it is on the barrel in general. Shooting fast can use up a barrel pretty quickly too.

For a rifle that's only going to be fired a few times a year during hunting season a .243 will last forever though.

 

[frogomatic]

loaded sensibly

BINGO!

Published loading data is there for a reason.

I've only been a gunsmith for a short time, but I've already seen several instances of questionable reloading practices causing problems in guns.
One fella brought in an AR complaining that it wouldn't cycle. I checked it out, test fired it, and no problems. Two days later he was back with the same problem, so I asked about ammuntion, and if he reloads. He said he reloads, and I asked him about the loads he was using. he said IMR4831. There was the problem, wrong powder resulting in a slower pressure curve, which caused the cycling failures. I explained the problem and recommend he try Varget (I use it in my AR with very good results), he then proceeded to tell me I'm an idiot, and the 4831 works fine in all his other guns, so his AR must be broken. No ammount of reasoning (even when I demonstrated how well it works with properly loaded ammo) could convince him otherwise.
Then there was the guy that loaded some 8x57 with Win296, and brought in the pieces of his Mauser asking if I could weld it back together...I'd still like to know how he survived that fiasco.
Or the pyro that brought in a Blackhawk with a burned out barrel, the cause, he liked to use 4350 in his reloads "cuz it makes a big@$$ fireball"

...

"Genius has it's limits, but stupidity knows no boundries"

 

[Shawnee]

Hi Auburn...

No the 30/30 isn't a "barrel-burner", it just gets treated like a roman candle when it is actually a very useful and effecive caliber. People were depending on it to put the very food on their table before most of us were even born. In Truth, it has fewer real shortcomings than most of the people who look down their nose at it.
And besides the "barrel burning" tale - the .243 gets spoken of a lot as if it is some underpowered cartridge - and that is horse mustard.

As for the whole "barrel-burner" gig - that got started by custom barrel and gunmakers, cartridge designers, and people who shoot (or claim to shoot) 10,000 or so shots per year and consider (or claim to consider) a barrel "shot out" if it won't group half-minute groups at 600 yds. It all sounds wonderfully erudite but - for 99.99999999% of us, it's a non-problem. Of course shooters being as zany as they are - that doesn't stop some folks from going on and on about "barrel burners" as if everyone shoots 1000 rounds per month all year long. It's fun fodder for the gun-zines and the gun forums but about as relevant as the color of your socks for most shooters/hunters.

 

[USSR]

With modern powders and modern stainless barrels I feel the whole barrel burner line is a thing of the past.

Hardly. When a guy has to rebarrel his rifle after putting less than 1500 rounds down it, it's a barrel burner. There are numerous cartridges out there that are in this category, modern powders and stainless steel barrels aside.

Don

 

[RugerOldArmy]

IMO we haven't reached the point there are no barrel burners. In fact, one of the worst I can think of (.223 WSSM) was a recent addition.

Yet the gas cutting from the amount of powder burned, and the degree to which a cartridge is overbore isn't the whole story.

If you don't clean the barrel and you shoot until the barrel is cherry-red hot it, you're going to burn the throat out significantly faster.

 

[MachIVshooter]

"barrel burners" are any high pressure, high velocity cartrdige that you keep cranking off round after round when the barrel is hot. I've got a number of guns that will push lighter bullets close to or over the 4000 FPS mark, but when the barrel gets warm enough that I can't comfortably rest my hand on the area just in front of the chamber, I let it cool. Thus far, all my barrels are still happy campers.

A number of very sharp gunsmiths have told me that so long as I maintain this practice, there's no reason I souldn't get 2-3K rounds or more from my .220 Swift and .17 Rem before they need to be cut back and rechambered.

 

[bogie]

Well, a lot of benchresters tend to run fairly hot with the 6PPC... In that the "top" of the recipes in the books is pretty much our starting point in working on a load... Then again, custom actions, custom barrels, and we have done this before...

A barrel is generally competitive (if it starts out that way) for a thousand rounds, maybe a bit more. That is IF you clean it correctly, and don't otherwise damage it.

Shooting slower means less erosion and cracking in the first few inches after the chamber. If you've got a heavy barrel, you can always set it back a bit...

 

[Shawnee]

Now we are getting closer to the Truth of the "barrel-burner" Urban Lore and thus closer to good advice for the typical hunter/shooter.

That Truth is it is absolutely wrong to label this or that caliber a "barrel-burner.

The blame for barrel burn-out belongs squarely on the shooter and nowhere else - the shooters who load at/above max loads, and/or don't give adequete care to their barrels, and/or shoot their rifle until the barrel burns their skin just to touch it, and/or shoot 1000 shots a month.
Yes, several calibers (eg. the pointless WSSMs) - will bring the above mistakes back to haunt their owners in the form of throat erosion etc. quicker than others. But let's don't blame the caliber/cartridge because what has really happened is we have simply given the idiot a more effective way to wreck his/her rifle.

And for all the times I've read that X caliber is a "barrel-burner" I have yet to see such an expert mention (in real numbers) how much the accuracy is affected.

Just my personal suspicion but I think many who toss that condemnation around so carelessly are simply parroting something they read somewhere - and the others have forgotten to mention that they are long-range target shooters and think their barrels are "burned out" when their rifle changes from 1/2" groups at 100 yds. to 1.25" groups at 100 yds. Of course they are probably correct in terms of their competitive needs.
But their competitive needs have utterly no relevance to the hunter/casual target shooter - so when they run the "this/that caliber is a barrel-burner" trivia on some newbie dude asking about rifles for hunting, they are, to put it very politely, doing the newbie a very real disservice.

And it's good to remember that for every serious long-range target shooting competitor there are probably at least a thousand hunters/shooters who probably won't fire their centerfire rifle 2000 times in their entire life.

By the way, Auburn... the Remington VLS in .243 should be absolutely top-notch.