What was your barrel life of your 300 WM?

[Mr.Knowit all]

I saw online, in books and magazines that many people get 1,000-1,500 rounds out of their barrel on their 300 WM and I was shocked to hear that. I know that many people believe that lighter faster projectiles are believed to shorten life more than the slower heavier projectiles so it depends what you shoot and your load, etc... I'm not sure how much it matters but I shoot heavier bullets. (208 gr. ELDM and 230 gr. OTM)
Let me start off by saying I do NOT shoot competition and I do NOT consider myself a great shot. If I can shoot something close to .25 min. at 100 meters I am very happy. That being said I believe that I am good enough to notice a loss of accuracy in one of my rifles.
I am not sure if I have just been lucky or what but I usually get approx. 2,500 rounds out of my barrels. I shoot mostly Rock Creek but I have had just as good of luck with my Bartlein barrel. All barrels had 5R rifling. I use Bore Tech carbon remover (only) after every time I shoot. (Each time I went out shooting my 300 I shot anywhere from 40-180 rounds). I am sure that it removes some or maybe even most of the copper because I have not had my rifle copper foul or my groups suddenly open up in over 10,000 rounds cleaning it that way. I have used more aggressive cleaners on my 300 but it is rare- 95% of the time it was just BoreTech carbon remover.
To any 300 WM owners that have gone through a barrel- what type of barrel life did you guys get?
Thank you for any feed back.

 

[Gb300wm]

I shot f-class for a couple of years with the big win mag and my 30" tube was still 10 ring accurate at 1375 rds. when I replaced it. Plenty firecracking in the throat though. It was, for the most part, done.

 

[Wingnut00]

I shoot prs and with that bein said my barrels get hotter than hell. First barrel I used 210 bergers runnin 3040fps and seen accuracy startin to fade about by about 1150rds and finished out shooting for the fall and pulled the stick at 1280rds. Rebarreled chambered to mrk 248 mod 1 and ran 230 bergers at 2930fps and that barrel is shit with a little over a thousand rounds. Like I said I get em extremely hot which don't help but I would be willing to bet if a guy was to back velocity off a touch from my numbers and not get your barrel so hot 2500rds should be obtainable. Whether it matters or not my first barrel was a brux m-24 and second one was a bartlein m-24. Both 26" and used h-1000 in both.

 

[FatBoy]

OP,

At what distances do you generally shoot? A barrel that is shot out for 1k competition will generally still shoots great at 600. That barrel at 100-200 yards, you may be no degradation at all but you have fliers and off call shots at 1k.

I consider a barrel shot out when it goes off call at the furthest distance I compete with it. I am pretty good at calling my shots and if I'm off call for 40-50% of my shots for a couple/few matches I call it done.

Of course there are exceptions to this, and everyone has their own expectations.

Chris

 

[Mr.Knowit all]

208 gr. at 2909 fps was the fastest I pushed anything out of my barrels. About 75% of the shoots were 230 gr. OTM at 2788 fps. I used H1000 also.

Chris (FatBoy)- That is a good point about the fliers at 1k. I will have to pay more attention to that. It has been my experience that fliers past a 1k were usually a bad wind call on my part and/or was a stabilization issue. To stop any stabilization problems all my barrels have at least 1-9 twist or faster on my 300WM. I need all the help I can get.

I shoot past 1200 meters as often as the wind and my wife allows. LOL

 

[FatBoy]

I shoot 230 OTMs at 2785fps from a 1:10 27" tube. At 400' AMSL it's stable to 1250y, which is as far as I have. I expect maybe 1100 rounds out of this tube, but it gets shot with a 30-P1 on the front so the fouling is terrible and is certainly going to end it early.

 

[4xforfun]

I shoot a gaggle of 300 WBY's. Every one of them now has over 1000 rounds on them. My hunting gun has 13xx loads on it and is very accurate. My 1st 1k bench gun had 13XX rounds on it before it threw the first noticeable flyer....Pella Ia...HG shootoff.....2 1/2 inch 9 shot group in the 10 ring with a 13" flyer!!! The group beforeit was a 2.7" 5 shot group in the LG shoot off. It has 15XX rounds on it now and I used it in the state 1k "F" class last year with zero problems (other than a cross fire ) I ran that tube HARD....it got VERY, VERY hot many , many times. Same with all of my other 1k Tubes. No other noticeable flyers on any of the tubes I own. My guess is that a 300 WBY would be every bit as bad as a 300 Win. I run RL 25 in all of them and 210, 215 and 230 Bergers.

Tod

 

[people]

I shoot past 1200 meters as often as the wind and my wife allows. LOL

Please explain.