Barrel gone bad

[Link]

What happens when a barrel loses accuracy? If it were just the first part of the rifling people would rechamber until the barrel was just a stub. How many times can you setback with success?

;}

 

[clowdis]

Until the shank diameter gets too small to form a shoulder or too small to thread. Throat erosion is usually the killer and depending on how long you wait to setback it can exceed the shank length by a lot.

 

[K22]

As "clowdis" stated, throat erosion is usually the culprit, but a damage crown can also cause loss of accuracy and erratic poi. Although rare, a scope can go bad also.

Fixing a damage crown is much easier and cheaper than resetting / replacing the barrel so I always have my rifle smith check the crown before going further. Also, changing a scope to see if that is the culprit is a relatively easier test. I try to rule those two issues out first.

However, throat erosion is much easier to diagnose than a damage crown. I work with my trusted rifle smith for advice. He is right way more often than not. Excessive throat erosion is easy to identify by a professional rifle smith.

 

[Rook 6]

When I was in high school/college in the 80’s, I was shooting a factory 700 BDL Varmint on a budget. That factory barrel was amazing. I set it back once when it started to open up and the groups shrank again.