Barrel life of a 6.5 Creedmoor

[k80skeet]

I am thinking of buying one of the new lightweight Savage's in 6.5 Creedmoor and wanted to know what the barrel life is on that round before buying. I didn't want to make another mistake like I did by buying the 6.5X284 with a very short barrel life of 600-900 rounds. Tnanks.

 

[Mark Walker in TX]

Match accuracy should be 2000 rounds or so...

 

[Preacher]

Hunting accuracy will go probably 2500 to 3000......

 

[cliffe]

k80skeet, did you wear out a 6.5x284 barrel yourself in 600 -900 rounds?? cliffe

 

[Hombre0321]

A fact of life today with the loadings and cartridges we have is that Barrels are expendable, just as much so as primers, powder, cases and bullets. What we trade for this very short ( In Some Cases) barrel life is accurate cartridges "we hope".

I have a friend who competes almost only in club shoots at 500 yds. His 6.5X284 has very close to 3,000 rounds on it and is just as accurate today as it was the day he got it. How is that possible? When we hear that the 6.5X284 is a notorious barrel burner? He gets this type of result by loading down and not pushing the speed envelope. There is no way he could have this barrel life if he loaded the 6.5X284 any where close to its potential. His loading would not do very well at any longer distance, but at his self imposed limit of only shooting 500 Yds it does a better than average job and he manages to win some of the time.

I have for a long time now in my match rifle chambered in 6MM Dasher, been changing the barrel out for practice shooting which I do a lot of, at least 3 times a week I am at the range. The practice barrel is in 30BR and serves me well. Barrel life for the 30BR is really an unknown becuase almost no one has ever shot one out. many have over 5,000 rounds on them and mine has over 4,000 and is still shooting as good as it ever did. For a match I just switch back to the Dasher.

I have just recieved a new barrel in 6.5 Creedmoor and plan on shooting it quite a bit. So far it is very accurate, more than I am, and while I only have about a 1,000 shots down the barrel it shows no wear with a borescope. Ballistics on the Creedmoor should do very well with bullets with BC as high as .617 or so and results that are better than the .300 Win Mag it should serve you well......

Roland

 

[Mudcat]

Keep in mind that a lot of us that shoot the 6.5x284 are doing so at 1000, not 500. You WILL see accuracy degrade at 1000 well before you ever will at 500, but then, you probably wont see me shooting the 6.5x284 at that short of a distance. On teh 6.5CM, I have one at 900 rounds currently and its showing some wear when viewed with the borescope, but nothing more than I expected to see. I am thinking for XTC use, we are talking 2500-3000 before it gives it up at 600. But, I havent gotten this one there yet so I dont know for sure, but it would certainly make sense when we are getting 2000 out of a 6xc at that distance before we move the bbl to a short course use.

Keep in mind, however, that it all depends on what you want to use it for and what your accuracy needs/ability are. For my 6.5cm hunting rifles, I will likely never change the bbl.

John

 

[Hombre0321]

Mudcat, After reading your response I checked my log on this 6.5 Creedmoor barrel. It has 1016 shots fired on it as of today ( range day). Mine shows almost no wear at all . Now with that said, this barrel on my Farley actioned rifle is strickly for trigger time, as is the 30Br barrel. They serve the only purpose of letting me shot this rifle as much as I want with out worrying about shooting out my match barrel. I do shot high BC bullets in the 6.5 Creedmoor but since I am interested in "Trigger Time" i do not push them like you would need to in a match.

Interestingly enough I did shoot a match (club shoot) last month with the 30Br barrel. For a cartridge designed for 200 and 300 Varmint For Score shooting it did pretty well in this Mid-Range Benchrest match. My third target agg. size and score was for five shots for record on this third target. It shot a 50-3X with an agg of 1.287 that was at 600 yds. Now we won't talk about the other three targets in this 20 shot match, with there aggs of 3.75--4.17--4.97. But still not to bad for a cartridge shooting at Mid-Range distance with a Flat Based Bullet with a BC of .296.

I really like the 6.5 Creedmoor, there are great bullets available for it and I think the potential for this cartridge is yet to be discovered.....

Roland

 

[offgrid]

Had 2800+ rds on my 6.5CM (Kreiger barrel/700) when I sold it, was still shooting 1/2 moa out to 500yds.

 

[Raptor]

Mudcat is right on. Accuracy at 500yds and 1000yds is two completly different things. I had a 6XC that would shoot under .5 at 500yds but would only shoot around .8 to moa at 1000yds. Best indication the barrel is going south on you.

As far as barrel life goes on the Creedmoor I would say around 2000 to 2500 depending on how you shoot it. I am on my 3rd 260 barrel and the first two were used in tactical matches and went right around 2300. Then one on it now is at 2800+ and still shooting tight. It was set back at 1800+ and I have not used it in comps just my favorite shooter. You get them hot they will be gone at around 2000rds.

 

[memilanuk]

Here's some info from folks that have shot the snot out of their 6.5 CMs...