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Barrel Life -- What Is Your Experience?

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My worst barrel went 1800 shots before being pulled. It was the 24" chrome moly barrel that was on the Model 700 Classic in year 2003? My pet loads from other rifles shot poorly right out of the box. Over the next few years I wasted time and money testing many combinations of components. It was only when I bought a Hawkeye that the problem became visible. The barrel blank steel was extremely saturated with inclusions, large cavities along it's entire length. Total crap steel from who knows where. I made a call to Douglas Barrels for a match grade SS replacement.

My longest lasting barrel was again a new Remington 24" SS takeoff bought cheap for $50.00. I modified it to fit a Winchester M70 SA. It went 7000 accurate shots, loved any combination of loads it got fed. It got fired often and usually got hot and stayed hot for long strings of shots. Accuracy never fell off when hot. It was a cheap barrel and I had plenty of replacements on hand.
 
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What does barrel life me to you?
Obviously there are Many factors in how long a barrel will last. But I’m interested in hearing what that means to you, your barrel, your discipline, caliber, barrel marker, etc.
What determines Your barrel life? MOA, throat erosion, grooves wearing.
Have you set back or rechambered a barrel to get more life out of it? Have you tried a different/longer bullet, changed your COAL to extend the life? Have you put it on another rifle or sold/given to a friend?
Is it really a dead barrel, or dead for your discipline?
Maybe you never consider a barrel being bad, because it’s just for hunting or you just shoot for the fun and not keeping score?

There is no right answer here, I’m just curious on what your guys opinions and experiences are, and I thought this would be an interesting discussion.

Let me know your
Caliber
Barrel maker
Discipline
Number of rounds through it
What was your best barrel life, why
What was your worse, why
What determines the barrel is shot out
Any other information you want to give on this subject.
To me, based on the shooting I do(IBS score benchrest) with 30 cal barrels, barrel life is measured in grouping size and does it group consistently. If it won't group in the .2 plus or minus a bit area it will be hard to compete with. I have gotten an average of about 2800 rounds of good life from my barrels, with one exception...a Shilen super match that was competitive till just a bit over 6000 rounds. Man, would I like to find another like that one!! Why was it so good? Only a guess...really good steel. When the barrel starts to group in the +.25" range and throw the occasional flyer I take them off.
 
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To me, based on the shooting I do(IBS score benchrest) with 30 cal barrels, barrel life is measured in grouping size and does it group consistently. If it won't group in the .2 plus or minus a bit area it will be hard to compete with. I have gotten an average of about 2800 rounds of good life from my barrels, with one exception...a Shilen super match that was competitive till just a bit over 6000 rounds. Man, would I like to find another like that one!! Why was it so good? Only a guess...really good steel. When the barrel starts to group in the +.25" range and throw the occasional flyer I take them off.
Rule of thumb seems to be that the barrels that last the longest are the ones that aren't required to soot the tightest. The one caliber combination that comes to my mind for extraordinary life of barrels is 308 Winchester. I've never worn one out, in fact I have one that is on rifle number three and still has much of its life remaining. It has several thousand on it now and not even showing any effects such as fire cracking of throat erosion.
 
.308 in FTR w/ N150 and 200.20x bullets.

I stop trusting my barrels around the 1500 round mark; they'll go longer for sure, but they seem to not shoot as well as they once did. If I could afford to replace them every 7-800 I would. :)

I shoot the piss out of them (I shoot fast, and usually 7-10 sighters every match at 1k), brush them with reckless disregard etc.

Shortest barrel life was 800 rounds (an anomaly)
Longest? Never run one seriously past 2,300 rounds.

I shoot against some good folks, and I need all the accuracy I can get. I pull them earlier than most for that reason.

I've never set back and rechambered, and I wouldn't do it on a barrel north of 500-600 rounds. I know a lot of BR guys do it though; just not my thing.

Edit: This isn't to say my way is the correct way. It's probably not. I once watched a guy with 4000 rounds on a tube shoot high-x count at 1000 in a well attended state match. Pretty funny how that works.
I’ve got 2000 or so rounds on an FTR barrel and been debating about twisting on the new barrel when I came across your post. I keep making excuses for the barrel but it’s given good service and I can’t keep it tuned. My X count is declining and I got beat yesterday in a trigger contest under ideal shooting conditions. When your competitors are cleaning targets a 196-5x ain’t gonna cut it at midrange. The competition demands we stay at the top of our game including equipment. Thanks for sharing your experience.
 
Plain and simple, if I don’t feel that I can win with the barrel on my rifle, it’s coming off. Components are too expensive and my time is too valuable to show up to competitions just to sling lead at a target for a sub par score. Watch your X count as it will show when the barrel is getting close long before score.
 
I consider shot out as whenever I start noticing a loss in accuracy. It doesn't mean I necessarily get rid of the rifle, I'm not shooting any formal competitions. A friend of mine still shoots a 220 Swift that's well past it's prime accuracy days, but it's still accurate enough for shooting varmints.
 

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