Has anyone heard or experience using frangible bullets wearing out a barrel? I've googled, searched THR with no definite answer. I want to use IMI frangible bullets for close quarter training. During googling, I've found out that frangible ammo smoothes out the barrel after 2000 rounds and I also heard that it is better because it is softer. They contradict each other.
Frangible Bullets wearing out barrel
- Thread starter flyskater
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Geronimo45
Member
All ammo wears out the barrel. Don't worry about it.
bigfatdave
Member
how much for 2000 rounds of fancy frangible ammo?
a quick search turns up 500 round cases of Winchester 9x19mm frangibles for $239.95 ...
239.95 * 4 = 959.8
So you're looking to spend over $900 on ammo, and can't afford to chance maybe replacing a barrel?
dogtown tom
Member
If by "smoothes out" you mean it wears out the rifling......no.
Soft lead fired at high velocities tends to leave more lead deposits in the barrel rifling....thereby "smoothing out" the barrel. A barrel with heavy lead deposits will be less accurate and increase pressure as the lead builds up.
Several manufacturers caution against using soft unjacketed lead bullets in handguns with polygonal rifling.
The OP didn't say anything about cost concerns. He found two pieces of information that appeared to be conflicting and wanted more information.
ApacheCoTodd
member
I wonder if the wearing issue has more to do with earlier frangible composition projectiles. We had some come our way long ago when the concept first started catching on and I happened to have a box of "fire-lapping" ammo sitting there at the same time.
While several of us were fingering up the frangible - we all seemed to consider it to be rather rough or almost abrasive. A friend then performed a very un scientific and bubba-like though interesting test in that he drew the ammo along a piece of tissue paper and found it to be about as abrasive as the rounds in the earlier stages of the fire-lapping kit.
I don't recall the manufacturer to name but it was one of the bigger national companies. We passed on selling it as none of the local police at the time would buy it anyhow.
While several of us were fingering up the frangible - we all seemed to consider it to be rather rough or almost abrasive. A friend then performed a very un scientific and bubba-like though interesting test in that he drew the ammo along a piece of tissue paper and found it to be about as abrasive as the rounds in the earlier stages of the fire-lapping kit.
I don't recall the manufacturer to name but it was one of the bigger national companies. We passed on selling it as none of the local police at the time would buy it anyhow.
LeonCarr
Member
I have heard the frangible non toxic ammo will actually clean your barrel of previous bullet fouling, but the tin/polymer bonded powder stuff the bullets are made of is still softer than the barrel steel.
Just my .02,
LeonCarr
Just my .02,
LeonCarr
Vern Humphrey
Member
What wears out barrels is gas flames -- check any barrel, and the wear starts around the chamber mouth. In rifles, you get an "alligator skin" effect just forward of the chamber. As a barrel wears out, you will begin to lose accuracy -- you can often restore accuracy by seating the bullet out a little deeper, until eventually the throat is gas-eroded too far to compensate for.
A second cause of wear is cleaning -- more guns have been worn out by enthusiastic cleaning than by shooting.
Bullets -- any kind of bullets -- are waaaay down the list of things that wear out barrels.
A second cause of wear is cleaning -- more guns have been worn out by enthusiastic cleaning than by shooting.
Bullets -- any kind of bullets -- are waaaay down the list of things that wear out barrels.
Here's what I read from other forums
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=27041
http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?1993-Frangible-Damaging-to-barrels&
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=27041
http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?1993-Frangible-Damaging-to-barrels&
As Vern Humphrey mentions the big concerns include the high pressure gas flames.
Most frangible rounds are lighter weight than is normal for a given caliber. To retain much energy and cycle the firearm they are pushed to much higher velocities.
This is a recipe for more flame cutting, and increased wear.
(As he also mentions cleaning is a bigger source of wear. Those steel bristle bore brushes are the worst, and the copper brushes on steel rods only a little better. The cleaning solvent plus the scrubbing of metal also gives you what amounts to a polishing paste or very fine sandpapering effect and wears away more rifling than hundreds of fired rounds every time it is done. )
Now certainly some may be made of a material that comes into contact with the bore and wears it down faster. Typical bullet materials are soft, and some frangible projectiles are not entirely soft.
However many of them are soft, or made with materials that contact the bore little different from the copper of any other bullet.
Many frangible rounds are so expensive that you could buy a couple new guns, and certainly a couple new handgun barrels for the cost of the ammo you put downrange. So the wear is not really a cost factor.
Many of them are $2-3 a round.
Even if they actually wore down the barrel in 2,000 rounds as the OP is concerned with, that would be $4,000-$6000 in ammunition.
Many handgun barrels cost from around $60-$200.
While I like durable and don't want to have to replace a barrel that should last a long time, if you are going to be spending that kind of money on handgun ammunition, a barrel that costs around 5% of the ammo costs every couple thousands rounds even if it did wear it out that quickly would not be a huge factor.
Most frangible rounds are lighter weight than is normal for a given caliber. To retain much energy and cycle the firearm they are pushed to much higher velocities.
This is a recipe for more flame cutting, and increased wear.
(As he also mentions cleaning is a bigger source of wear. Those steel bristle bore brushes are the worst, and the copper brushes on steel rods only a little better. The cleaning solvent plus the scrubbing of metal also gives you what amounts to a polishing paste or very fine sandpapering effect and wears away more rifling than hundreds of fired rounds every time it is done. )
Now certainly some may be made of a material that comes into contact with the bore and wears it down faster. Typical bullet materials are soft, and some frangible projectiles are not entirely soft.
However many of them are soft, or made with materials that contact the bore little different from the copper of any other bullet.
Many frangible rounds are so expensive that you could buy a couple new guns, and certainly a couple new handgun barrels for the cost of the ammo you put downrange. So the wear is not really a cost factor.
Many of them are $2-3 a round.
Even if they actually wore down the barrel in 2,000 rounds as the OP is concerned with, that would be $4,000-$6000 in ammunition.
Many handgun barrels cost from around $60-$200.
While I like durable and don't want to have to replace a barrel that should last a long time, if you are going to be spending that kind of money on handgun ammunition, a barrel that costs around 5% of the ammo costs every couple thousands rounds even if it did wear it out that quickly would not be a huge factor.
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