Premature and excessive throat erosion.

[Linefinder]

I have a Win 70 Heavy Varmint chambered in .223 Rem that I use as a pdog rifle. The original factory barrel went almost 14,000 rounds before giving up the ghost. I replaced the barrel with a SST Lilja 3 groove. It has had 1840 shots through it, and the throat has lengthened by .012". Not too shabby. I'm happy.

At the time I had this Winchester rebarreled, I bought a NIB Browning ABolt Varminter in .223 Rem, with the factory chromoly barrel. It has had,I missed logging in shots fired after 1 hunt) approximately 1200-1300 rounds through it. The throat has lengthened by .6"....yep, six-tenths of an inch.

While the normal operating temp of a pdog rifle is "warm", I've never shot this rifle to "hot". It has received the exact same treatment as the Lilja barreled rifle, just actually fired less. I've firing 25.5 & 26 grains of Varget under 55 grain VMaxes through these rifles....well under book-max.

I've got to admit, I'm completely dumbfounded by this extreme, early barrel wear. Especially in light of my experience with the first barrel on this rifle, and the wear rate on the Lilja. Especially with such a mild load in such a mild cartridge.

Anyone else ever hear of anything like this?

Thanks

Mike