This is primarily directed at the more avid shooters.  So far in about 6 months I've managed to shoot out two barrels and two buffer springs.  I shoot quite often, and with reckless abandon.  I never looked at barrels in such a temporary light before.  What else do you go through regularly?  My pistol length rifles eat buffer springs, barrels, and extractors like they're going out of fashion.

Holy crap!!!   I only wish I shot enough to shoot out a barrel.

0. I shoot just enough to stay proficient. I do not do mag dumps a that is just a waste of money. I am willing to bet when I die, my A2 will still be in great shooting order.


 

I have a 10.5" with good rifling and horrible gas port erosion. Wish it was the other way around.

My 7.5" barrel lasted about 5k rounds or so, gas port erosion is what caused me to pull it, but after inspecting it, the rifling is pretty much gone as well.  Originally it shot a 1" group at 100 yards.  Last time I took it out the best group I could get was 4", so it was feeling the burn.

I shot out a .243 with 55 grain noslers, killing prairie dogs once.  

This right here.  Well, almost.  I usually put six 30s through before swapping.  Have one 11.5 that ran too enthusiastically a few times but it still does 12 MOA, no tumbling.

Reasons for pulling a bbl vary.  Accuracy is one, seeing something I don't like on a TE gauge would concern me less.  

Especially with pistol bbls, ROF (overcycling) can be the limiting factor thanks to port erosion.  I could put up with tumbling, but not overcycling of a RR.  ROF excesses can be addressed with progressive buffer swaps or adjustable gas metering (at least for awhile).  Ever consider something like the MGI quick change upper w/adjustable gas?  

Sam  

Dang, I don't think I've fired enough round my whole life to wear out a barrel. Not really a issue of money but time, can't ever seem to get to the range these days

ROF is the main reason why I dropped my last two barrels.  I started at 800 and steadily climbed to around 1200 or so, the point at which it was outrunning the mags.  I didn't swap buffers although I'm sure that would have worked a little bit.  I run a piston setup on these guns so an adjustable block isn't available.  However, AA does have a new block with 7 adjustments, which might work.  As for the buffer, last time I checked the MGI buffer and the adjustable block, etc. was more than a new barrel so I never really saw it as a solution.  Pistol length gas systems just don't last long, which is just something you have to factor in I suppose.  However, once it began cycling too fast, the rifling with almost completely gone anyways.

I rotate my guns, none of them gets that much ammo through them to wear out a barrel.

 

Bbl life would be the least of my worries.  At 1200 rpm carrier velocity must be very high, and the hammer has to be seriously impact loading the fcg pins.  Has to, got to - it's just physics.  Remember, energy is proportional to velocity squared.  Your hammer and disco will be taking a beating, but so will your hammer pin holes on which the pins rest.  

If you're beating up a host receiver, OK, fine.  If this is a registered receiver.........well, it's your call.  At the very least use something like a MGI buffer to drop ROF as low as you can stand.      

Are you getting even a barely perceptible trigger slap sensation when running around 1200 rpm?  

Sam
 

On my m16 I shot out a 5.45 upper.  That was the only upper I shot on it since ammo was so cheap.  I would guess around 10,000 rounds down that tube.  I very really take out my m16 as I have a new focus in shooting uspsa.

I cant recall, i already replaced the barrel and fixed the problem.

I have burned out a couple barrel over the past 10 years or so.

Lots of wolf and mag and beta dumps and they last about 7500ish rounds for me.  Notice keyholing when going to 3 Gun Style Carbine courses and you walk up to the target and the holes are no longer round.

I have found that if you switch to a lighter weight ammo it seems like you get a little more time.  i.e. keyholing with 62gr, drop to 55 and it will stabilize for a while, but eventually even 55 will start to fly sideways.

You look at the bore and their appears to still be rifling (so at visual inspection it all seems good)  but obviously not enough needed to stabilize the projos.

I don't shoot as much as I used to and it is spread out over many more machineguns, so the rate of shot of barrels dramatically fallen over the years.  When I owned two machineguns (and one was an M16) and wolf was $99 a case, I shot out a barrel every year or two.

I just replaced one maybe 6 months ago on an M16 that probably had 5 years of life on it.

I have an HK33K with a shot out barrel as well...but I only have put maybe 2K through that one, so I think the previous owner put some miles on it as well.

It's not the barrels that I cry over; it's the 3 S-Class Mercedes that I could've owned if I didn't blast away all that money on ammo.

I thought chrome-lined barrels should be good for twenty thousand? Not that I will ever shoot even half that

S-classes run 90k new and are worth 20k in 7 years.  Depreciation is a bitch!

Not gonna last that long, no way.  12k maybe, MAYBE.  And that's good high quality high copper content projectiles (brass cased) and shot very lightly.  That's my own person experience at least.  I know there was a brass vs. steel test done last year sometime, they got 4k out of steel and 7k out of brass.

I have also never gotten 20K out of a barrel that is regularly shot full auto, never even came close.  Maybe you could get that out of very intermittent semi-auto use, allowing the barrel to cool.