How to define barrel life?

[Pan]

Barrel life is normally listed here as 1500-3800 rounds, depending on caliber. Just how do you know when your barrel is worn out? Say I had a new barrel which gave outstanding presision, 1/4 MOA at 200 yards. After 1600 shots I can not get that presision any more.It has opened up to 1/2MOA.
Do i toss the barrel in the bin, or will a new load get me back to my presious 1/4 MOA?

Thanks,

 

[Hipshot]

I'm no expert but I've been through the problem. The area of most wear will be just ahead of a chambered bullet, the throat. You might 'chase the lands' by loading bullets a bit longer. I am now loading to the point where my bullets are into the lands. Perodically I check a loaded round to make sure that the length still goes into the lands, if not, then I've got throat wear, and I seat bullets further out until they are in the lands, again. If you are seating for a little jump, seating out further may also help so that the jump is the same as it used to be. The cure, beyond that could be cutting a few inches off the chamber end of the barrel and rechambering and re-threading, as well as recrowning if necessary. BTW, a damaged crown will also mess with accuracy. The rechambering of the barrel is less expensive than getting a new barrel. I wound up doing that, but because it was pretty expensive, I decided to go for a long barrel so that I could afford to have it cut once or twice without having to buy another new barrel.

 

[tightneck]

It really depends on what kind of accuracy you want to attain in the discipline you are shooting. If its a varmint rifle then going from a quarter moa to a half aint that big a deal. On the other hand, Benchrest shooters will chuck a barrel if it goes from agging in the .2 area to agging in the .230 area.