Barrel Burners?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Here it is.

Hey There:
No offence intended here. You keep asking this same question.
CB900F and ShunZu said it right as have others. With modern powders and some common sense care you will have a hard time shooting out any barrel.
The .300 mags used to be assumed at 1000 round life spans. this is not true any more. The .220 swift "was" a real barrel burner, years ago. But with modern powders and shooters having more knowlegde of how to care for their guns this problem has all but disapeared. Heat is the number one factor concerning barrel burn out. Too much heat from magnum "spec" velocities and you can burn up a barrel. I have never heard of any bolt gun in .223, 243
and like calibers burning out barrels. Again ! If you go out west on a P-dog hunt and shoot thousands of rounds not cleaning or allowing the gun to cool down, you will more then likely do some damage to the barrel.
If you are concerned about what caliber to chose, Oh well, that is going to be a tuffy. There are so many good ones out there now it would be insane to brag one over the other. they all have their place. The .223, 243 etc are fine rounds and will be extremely fun and accurate with the right loads. If you want more range the .22-250 will carry farther, the .220 swift and rounds like it will go more distance yet. You need to decide that part. They are all very good rounds. I'd be more concerned about what rifle to get it in. But that is a different can of worms and would get you atleast several hundred responses.
Every one has an oppion. Good luck.
 
With modern powders and some common sense care you will have a hard time shooting out any barrel.

Too much heat from magnum "spec" velocities and you can burn up a barrel. I have never heard of any bolt gun in .223, 243 and like calibers burning out barrels.
Click to expand...
Question: Does the course of fire in an NRA High-Power match produce "too much heat" ?

How about the pace of shooting in a Bench-Rest match?

F-Class?

None of these put a lot of heat into a barrel, yet competitors plan for barrel replacement because they know how long barrels chambered in the various cartridges best suited to their games, will last.

Even in "ideal" conditions of pace, temperature, and cleaning (whatever your definitions of those are), every round down the pipe puts incremental wear on the throat. Eventually that throat wear will manifest as a reduction in accuracy.
 
With modern powders and some common sense care you will have a hard time shooting out any barrel.
Click to expand...

Where is this new miracle powder?

Can you cite an example of a 'reduced wear' powder that doesn't subject the barrel to hot gasses?
 
Lets be real.

Hey: lets be real here . The guy was not talking about 1000 yard shooting.
Nor was I. Where do we have to go with this.
My point stands. the every day hunter / plinker does not burn out barrels.
If you shoot F class and do not replace a barrel now and then , shame on you. This was not the subject at all.
I general my answer is good and "you" of all on here should know that.
yes the heat from an F class gun hurts the barrel.... That is almost a silly statement. the heat from a machine gun burns barrels out faster yet.
I did not understand this guy was going F class and or any other type of competition styled shooting that would give him this type of problem.
As for powders and barrels they are better. and most here would agree.
There are many new powders out there now. They all have heat and presure.
that is what they do. But fo rthe calibers in question there are many new powders that have different results and work better then the stuff we used to have. Some calibers are just prone to barrel wear period. But the .223 and 243 do not seen to be part of that crowd. Cleaning and letting the gun cool slows down the barrel wear as you should know. and I'm sure you do but just decided to give me a hard time ......:)
 
I'm not a chemist, but: Back before WW II, single-based nitrocellulose powders were common. The Hercules HiVel series, for example. These burned hotter than DuPont's IMR line.

The original loadings for the .220 Swift used HiVel.

It would take a better metallurgist than I to explain why some high-quality steels deal with high temperatures better than other high-quality steels. From reading, however, that seems to be the case.

So: The number of rounds before some significant erosion of the throat occurs has been increased, these last sixty years or so. There comes a poiint where degradation of accuracy is obvious. That's inevitable.

For a benchrest competitor, that degradation is noticeable far sooner than for the typical deer hunter. IOW, it's a function of what the rifle is used for.

I'm pretty much of the opinion that heat buildup is one major enemy. I've seen 50BMG barrels that were so shot out that the bullets sorta wobbled out of the barrel and hit the water not many hundred yards out into the Yellow Sea. We were shooting at aerial sleeve targets. At the end of the day, we were instructed to empty the ammo cans. So, put the oldest barrels in the guns and have at it. Wound up with 55- or 60-caliber tent pegs. Fun, though. :D

(Bangity-bangity-bangity) "Hey, I just love these 30-round mags!" Yeah, so do the barrel makers.
 
No matter how cool you keep the barrel, or how slowly you shoot, define any accuracy standard and a 308 barrel will last longer than 243. That's reality folks. Your choice if you want to ignore reality.

Doesn't have to be 1000 yards either. When your 1/2 MOA barrel blows out to 1.5 MOA, your effective range for prairie dogs gets cut in half, at least.
 
Keep in mind anyone who has enough $ for ammo to burn out a barrel in any caliber can either A: buy a new rifle B: have your rifle rebarelled. Not to mention that some will get kinda bored after shooting thousands of rounds and likely will be looking for something else to shoot unless shooting competetively. Worring about barrel life is wasting time IMO. How many here have shot out a barrel?
 
"...a 308 barrel will last longer than 243. ..."


That may, or may not, be true. Saying it certainly doesn't make it "reality" But even if it is true - by the time it happens poor Auburn will be trying to remember his great-great-grandson's name.

:)
 
That may, or may not, be true. Saying it certainly doesn't make it "reality" But even if it is true - by the time it happens poor Auburn will be trying to remember his great-great-grandson's name.
Click to expand...

By the same logic, saying it 'isn't true' won't make it reality either.

Look at the history of .243 Win. It won the popularity contest over .244 (6mm Rem) due to the fact that the twist rate allowed use for both deer and varmints. .243 Win is a bit overbore, and is often used for prarie dogs, prompting many shots, much more heat than other varmint cartridges, and wear results.

I've seen articles that listed the heat of the burning gasses from a powder charge at 3000 degrees F. Even though the burn time is short, the heat and burning gas wear the barrel. Single based or double base is a qualification on what ammo is used. (N140 for powder, or N540, as an example). In both cases, the heat is still significant.

What do you really think brought down the World Trade buildings in 911? The impact of that much mass (airplane), or the heat from the burning fuel heating and weakening the steel?

Many of the arguments posted here have no basis in fact. Barrel steels for ordanance are graded with standards. Chrome Moly 4140 or 4340 is what it is...it hasn't improved over the years.

About the only thing you can note is that for certian barrel burning cartridges, 'some' manufacturers had resorted to chrome lining barrels to resist erosion. (.223 WSSM is an example)

So how can it be claimed that:

- by the time it happens poor Auburn will be trying to remember his great-great-grandson's name.
Click to expand...

..After all, you don't know how it will be used.


I'd wager that if you take a .220 Swift to the range, shoot a 100 rounds each time, that after just 20 range trips (and 2000 rounds), the barrel has already noticeably degraded in accuracy. That would be similar to two prarie dog weekends, or a couple of years for a casual range shooter. I've seen this kind of thing many times. And what good is an innacurate .220 Swift?

That's not a lifetime Shawnee. That's less than shooting every other weekend in a year. Do ya'all get out and shoot much?
 
"What the real answer to the original question is: DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT."


High-5 to Ya, Tarvis !!
Click to expand...


Tarvis did say that. He also posted a link to Lilja's site. On the page linked is a Q&A on barrel life that stated:

As a very rough rule of thumb I would say that with cartridges of .222 Remington size you could expect an accurate barrel life of 3-4000 rounds. And varmint type accuracy should be quite a bit longer than this.

For medium size cartridges, such as the .308 Winchester, 7x57 and even the 25-06, 2-3000 rounds of accurate life is reasonable.

Hot .224 caliber type cartridges will not do as well and 1000-2500 rounds is to be expected.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Auburn...

As you can see now, the personal jabs have begun and that means we have hit bedrock here and further discussion is pointless.

Listen to whomever makes the most sense to you and Best of Luck with your rifle no matter what flavor you choose !

:):cool:
 
No personal jab was intended on my part buddy. Just trying to address the points made. Both sides of the discussion should be allowed that, no?

You can't make a faith based point on the need to be teaching the theory of Intelligent Design in science without allowing the someone else to make a faith-based point about the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I'm sure you'll agree that students would benfit from spending 1/3 of the time discussing Intelligent Design, 1/3 of the time on Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and 1/3 of the time on drawing logical conclusions based on overwhelming observable evidence.

;) (Just kidding you here! See the link...)
 
Hi Ruger Old Army...

"That's not a lifetime Shawnee. ....... Do ya'all get out and shoot much?"

Sounds like a personal jab to me. :uhoh:

"That's less than shooting every other weekend in a year."

Yes ROA, we have all heard of prairie dog hunting - but please allow me to illustrate a point for you.

Even though every person you know may go out "every other weekend" to shoot prairie dogs - that is just a wee bit short of all the hunters in the World.

To illustrate - the entire population of the prairie dog state of Wyoming is exactly ONE-FOURTH the population of the City of Cincinnati.
Which is to say the city of Cincinnati may well contain as many, or more, hunters/shooters as the entire state of Wyoming (or Montana) and none of them go out every other weekend to shoot 200 prairie dogs.

YOU may "go out every other weekend" to shoot oodles of prairie dogs (though I doubt it), and a couple of the others may shoot 2000 rounds per month at the target competitions - but those experiences - however valid for you - are simply not typical across this land of 150 million shooters. That's why the "barrel burn-out" you worry about and want to blame on caliber is really a non-issue for 99.9999999999999999999999 % of the shooting public.

:cool:

Perhaps this will help you a bit, ROA.

I've spent 30 years as a Hunter Safety Instructor in three different states. During that three decades I've tried hard to tell classes (full of individuals of varying interests, backgrounds and skills) the things about hunting and shooting they can use - and to NOT tell them things that are just trivia, extrania, Urban Lore, or just plain Misinformation (and there is plenty of all that around). It's especially important with kids and newbies to NOT bog them down with minutia and superstition or speculation. That just makes it harder for them to learn what they need to learn.
In a high percentage of classes I have had to deal with some "specialist" who wanted to spout his/her knowledge of gun trivia and stage some pointless debate. Such people were actually an impediment (and sometimes a clear annoyance) to the bulk of the people in the classes who are there to learn the things they actually need to know.
There is nothing wrong with "specialties", of course, but that's what they are - "specialties" and they should be kept in the appropriate perspective.
 
Shawnee,

You made the point that some shoot more than others. I agree with it, and agree it factors in the decision.

Nothing personal. I like to debate ideas. No intent to offend.

Let's agree to disagree on the concept of 'overbore barrel burners...'.
 
Thank You.

Hey there:
Thank you to Art, Horsemany, and Shawnee. I am sure many here have burned a barrel or two. But the fact remains that The guy that posted the question to start with more than likely will not be shooting to that point.
Stories of barrel burn out this and that can at best confuse a beginer and that will "burn " in his mind forever. The powders are better then in the past the steel used in barrel making is better and the result has been fewer burned out barrels. Competative shooters are no different than race car drivers and must replace things now and then. Hopefully he will not teach his grand children about barrel burn out and just let them enjoy shootin the rifle.

To share knowlegde is one thing but to go to the extremes for such a simple question seems counter productive if we are trying to help.:)
 
I dunno Wildfire. I think the debate is wether you're really helping him out. The OP stated:

I'd plan on shooting just around 20-40 rounds a week (max would be 80). So it would be anywhere from 240-480 per year with 95-110 gr .243 bullets. If I got the xr-100 (.223) it would probably be around 75-110 a week... 900-1320/year with 50-60gr
Click to expand...

And he was looking at shooting 40-80 rounds a week. At the low end that works out to 2080 rounds a year, at the high end 4160 a year.

Given the Lilja information posted be the 'barrel wear denial crowd':

As a very rough rule of thumb I would say that with cartridges of .222 Remington size you could expect an accurate barrel life of 3-4000 rounds. And varmint type accuracy should be quite a bit longer than this.

For medium size cartridges, such as the .308 Winchester, 7x57 and even the 25-06, 2-3000 rounds of accurate life is reasonable.

Hot .224 caliber type cartridges will not do as well and 1000-2500 rounds is to be expected.
Click to expand...

and considering the fact that he is looking at .22-250 ( a 'Hot .224 caliber type cartridges') Shouldn't he expect to run into this issue in the first year?

The part that I take issue with is unsubstantiated claims such as:
The powders are better then in the past the steel used in barrel making is better and the result has been fewer burned out barrels.
Click to expand...

Stainless has been around for years, like chrome moly. And each ordanance graded steel 'is what it is'. What is this new set of steels that you claim has replaced the chrome moly and stainless of the past? Why doesn't Lilja know of it? Where are these new miracle powders and pray tell of just how much do they reduce wear? I'd love one if it existed.

You can claim anything you want based on unsubstantiated dogma, but don't expect people to all buy into such 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' claims.

How much do we help the original poster when we make claims that fly in the face of overwhelming observable reproduceable evidence?
 
What would be a good replacement barrel, if needed, for a .243 remington 700? (varmint/bull barrel)
Click to expand...

Some of the best are Shilen, Hart, Pac-Nor, Kreiger, and Lilja. Really, replacing a barrel is very often one of the most rewarding enhancements you can make on a rifle. And based on how often you shoot, might be a ways down the road.

Personally, I really like Shilen and Pac-Nor. I kind of look forward to the point in which I need to get a new barrel, since my experiences with them has been so good.
 
Hi ROA...

Either his 20-40, maybe 80 rds. per week was typo - or his "240-480 rds per year" was a typo.

At 500 rds per year he's looking at at least a decade before the accuracy falls away from the competitive level of accuracy and into the "still just fine for varminting" level.

;)
 
Wow>

According to that the barrels on my Rem. 700s .223s should have been junked many years ago. 55 grainers at 3130 fps still print clover leafs at 100 meters. And still take P-dogs at Ranges beyond 500 yards. But for now i'll just keep my junk burned out barrels.
I moly coat all my own bullets and most of the time can shoot well over 50 rounds plus before any noticeable loss of accuracy in the P-dog fields.
Just lucky I guess. I'm done and won't sling any more stringy food around.
 
Hi ROA...
Click to expand...

Hiya.

I think at this point, I've stated my perspective, and don't seek to add much further to the debate. I'd love to be convinced that barrel wear is a thing of the past, and would welcome any information on new steels, powders that cause significant reduction in wear, and any data supporting the fact that wear is not an issue based on verifiable evidence as opposed to personal anecdotal stories.

It shouldn't be lost on many that a decade at 480 is 4800 rounds, not the 2500 UPPER LIMIT listed by Lilja, and that .223 Rem (burning 25-ish grains of powder) is not a .22-250 (burning 36-ish grains of powder) inquired on by the original poster. These aren't arguments that lend credibility to the positions taken, are they?

At this point, I'll bow out of this debate, and watch in hope of any verifiable reproduceable information that runs counter to the overwhelming body of evidence that points to the fact that some cartridges wear barrels faster than others, particularly the overbore ones.

Good luck with that!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

A
  • Locked
Remington 700 VLS versus Remington XR-100
Replies
2
Views
2K
RevolverMan567
R
A
  • Locked
Replacement Barrels & A Cartridge Q
Replies
3
Views
531
db_tanker
D
A
  • Locked
.22-250 versus .243
Replies
14
Views
4K
Art Eatman
A
T
  • Locked
Barrel Burners - 243 vs others?
2
Replies
33
Views
8K
HOOfan_1
H
K
  • Locked
Barrel burners? The real numbers.
2
Replies
33
Views
9K
MCMXI
MCMXI
Back
Top