Real life experiences with 204 barrel life??

[WyleWD]

I have a partner who has a Salvage 204 Ruger. He has just over 1600 rounds through it and over the coarse of the last couple months that he's shot it he is noticing an obvious drop off in consistent accuracy. He suspects that the barrel may be going away. Of couse we'll check it with a borescope as soon as we can get ahold of one.

But in the mean time does anyone have any real life experience with how long the barrels do last on these things?? Just curious. WD

 

[JASmith]

I don't use the .204 Ruger but can help fill in the picture.

There is a nice article at http://www.gunandgame.com/forums/general-rifle/128454-throat-erosion-2.html that discusses bore capacity and probable barrel life. They use the .308 Winchester as a baseline (~3000 rounds) and are careful to caveat that generic barrel life is influenced by the intrinsic accuracy of the barrel and the demands of a shooter.

For example, a .25 moa barrel will have less life than a .5 moa barrel if the shooter demands .25 moa from the barrel.

I ran the math and found that the .204 Ruger should have a nominal barrel life of about 2/3 of that of the .308 Winchester. That means that 1600 rounds definitely is in the region where accuracy may start to drop off.

 

[WyleWD]

Thanks JA. Appreciate your doing the math on it. I'd have guessed 1300 give or take a couple hundred depending upon how it was loaded and shot. You've confirmed my suspicions. Thanks for the response. WD

 

[johnmyers]

Wayne
Don't have one myself but my gunsmith who used to live in southern IN rebarreled all of his 22-250s when they were shot out to 204s. He is a prarie dog shooter and said he has doubled or tripled his bbl life with 204s. He loves them because they are so fast and flat and last longer.

 

[jo191145]

In real life I've burned up three Savage 204R barrels. No idea what a Salvage is
First barrel showed signs of trouble at roughly 3000 rds. By judiciously choosing the correct powders and bullet coatings I got another 1000rds down it before it gave up totally.
Second barrel was shot out the day I bought it. Very fine grooves from the factory. Most accurate barrel I've ever seen for the first three shots then it would scramble.
After 1000rds or so of attemting to bring it around it was apparent accuracy was gone.
Third barrel is still functional but accuracy started slipping around 2500rds. Still shoots under .5moa easy enough.

No one can really say when a factory or even custom barrel will go south. The 204R in general is'nt a barrel scorcher but they surely don't last forever.

 

[BigDMT]

My first barrel (24"), I was running a 34gr Midsouth VN bullet at only 3715 fps. I got about 3000+ rounds out of it before it finally went from a 1/3 MOA barrel to a 3/4 MOA barrel. Then I changed it to a 26" barrel only because I wanted a longer barrel. But I wasn't running the load hot on purpose in the first barrel so it would last longer and I was satisfied with it's life. If you load conservatively for speed, you might see 3000-4000 rounds before accuracy drops off significantly. Otherwise it maybe more like what the other fellas are saying.

BUT! Your partner does not have that high of a round count so keep these things in mind...................................

Once the lands starts to erode a bit with a higher round count, the seating depth of his bullets might need to be bumped out. We call it "chasing the lands". All competition shooters have to do it from time to time because they shoot so many rounds.

Another thing is that once a rifle's barrel "settles in" from a high round count, the whole load may have to be changed if a seating depth adjustment doesn't fix the accuracy problem. So he might have to go back to the drawing board and find a new recipe it likes using his, now different, "bullet modified" barrel.

If all else fails, your partner could always have it re-chambered to clean it up and bring it back to spec. There's a good chance the accuracy will come right back after that. The bore scope will tell you all about that when you get it of course.
If it has been an accurate rifle in the past, I'd try all these things before re-barreling since it only has 1600 rounds through it.

 

[SShooterZ]

I think part of it depends on your shooting habits also.

When shooting up a prairie dog town and the action is hot and heavy, the shooter might have a tendancy to overheat the barrel and doing some damage.

If it's just an occasional paper puncher, I'm certain it will last much longer.

I have 1200 at least down mine and thus far, accuracy has remained pretty consistent. Mine too is a Savage, Model 12 single shot.