18 Months and 15,000 rounds later, I’ve leaned quiet a bit about an 11.5” SS barrel and how it will handle hard use. After over a year of weekly, if not daily hard use(including a classes with Hackathorn and Super Dave),  numerous other shooting events, and adding a steady amount of sustained full auto, Its time to see what’s left of this barrel.  A few weeks ago I spend some time testing the Geissele select fire trigger burning through over 1500rds of his ammo almost as fast as we could load and swap the 10 mags we brought; definitely the hardest day of its life. I shot it one more time at 50yds, and was easily still hitting golf balls, but made the decision to take it apart and see how it looks.

Think back 18 months to when the upper $tainless $teel barrels were the must have because of the “extended life”, and “increased” muzzle velocity, and whatever hype was being spouted at the time.  I compared several different barrels – and yes for some reason the SS barrels do produce more muzzle velocity than chrome lined barrels.  Regardless of the rifling, or brand – SS barrels of the same length, by different makers, will produce the same muzzle velocity as the others.

This is the first barrel I played with the idea of moving the gas port 1” forward-as it would be shot suppressed almost all the time.  It began life as a Wilson, SS 1:8 16” CAR barrel I purchased from Rock River. My shop guys cut it down, threaded it, plugged the gas port and drilled a new hole 1” forward.

It was mostly shot semi auto, but did see a significant amount of full auto use – most all just burning through mags for fun – so it was sustained full auto.  I always cleaned the barrel after every use with Hopped #9 – wet patch dry patch. Every 5K rounds I’ll spend 30 minutes with copper remover, wet patch dry patch until the patches came out white.
From day one it was an easy 1MOA shooter, - last time it was sandbagged and shot for “groups” was around 12k rounds, and it shot great.  It was shot out to 600yds once, 330yds a few times, and the extent of its consistent longer range work was smacking a 6” plate at 250yds. (To this day that plate is a piece of cake with ball ammo). The majority of the rounds impacted targets at 50yds and closer.

Overall the last 18 months have been boring.  Clean or dirty – and shooting suppressed makes EVERYTHING dirty. Semi or full auto, rounds fed and extracted like clock work from the Wylde chamber. The unpainted parts of the barrel are now gold/copper colored by the excessive heat. Last March when it was below freezing, M855 was clocked at 2718fps, 3 months later at 50 degrees 2752fps, and recently at 75degrees 2780 fps. I’ll lump those variances into temps and different lot numbers.  
According to a GI TE gauge – it has worn so that 2” of the rod enter the rifling – the gauge has another 1” before the reject line.  I’m not sure what, if anything the reject line means, because the gauge was made for 20” chrome lined 1:12 M16 barrels?  But there is measurable wear.

A big surprise came when I measured the land/throat erosion with my stony point gauge.  I checked when new, and never remembered to check again until yesterday.  After all that use, the OAL of the cartridge to seat into the lands increased by 50 thousandths.  That’s almost nothing for that much use.

I’m not sure what I expected from this barrel. I understand how barrels last and SS barrels wear, leading to long range accuracy loss, but I had never known first hand of a hard use SS carbine barrel.  There’s not much to say, the barrel has held up fine, and is still a good barrel for that application today.  If SS barrels that cost twice much last as long, under the same circumstances, I’ll be amazed.  So yes, a SS barrel is more than good enough for a fighting gun.  
 

Old pics:


About 10K rounds of carbon build up


As shot for groups at 12K rounds. 5 shots on paper and done. 100yds.


As configured for the Super Dave class


I shot a perfect score on an M16 qual course – 50-300 meters


Accuracy check




And who would believe it handled all that full auto without “M4 cuts”!

testing trigger/endurance for suppressor vid

I think I remember you saying that your next beater barrel would not be SS.  Does this still hold true?  Any specific reasons why?

Quoted: I think I remember you saying that your next beater barrel would not be SS.  Does this still hold true?  Any specific reasons why?

After looking at the pricing again, I reconsidered my thoughts. Initially added wrong and was thinking the SS was more then they really are...

Along those thoughts, I still believe that the "good" high dollar SS barrels are an absolute waste of money for this role.

Steve, great review

I am sold on the Wylde chamber and I want an SS barrel  for my next build.

That was done with/on a wilson? Color me impressed.

Quoted: That was done with/on a wilson? Color me impressed.

There is no practical application with a carbine where anyone will ever see any difference between a Wilson Arms barrel and any of the uber tactical expensive barrels.

I had an Oly SS 16" carbine barrel, I think 1988 or 89, and used it hard, mag dumps, just generally lots of shooting, for years.  Then gave it to my older son who used it for carbine classes and other hard use.  

Finally we changed the barrel, he thought the lugs in the barrel extension were too worn, though I didn't, but changed it anyway.  It still headspaced good with the old bolt, and with a new one he had bought.  We estimate, from the number of cases of SA Battle Pack shot through it, not packs, CASES, that it had at least 20,000 rounds through it.  A deputy friend, a firearms instructor, is currently using it on one of the department guns.

It still shoots with acceptable accuracy.

I have a similar barrel set up with the 1" forward gas port.  It also runs like a top, although I run mine a little slower and higher drag than Steve does.  I have a new Gemtech M402 for that setup.  Not much time with the can on there yet.  Been to busy/cold.

At some point I'd like to mess with one of the new adjustable gas blocks and the can on a barel like this.

Nice write up, considering that's 14,500 (just guessing) more round that the average AR sees


But did you follow the shoot clean shoot clean shoot, break in procedure  

Quoted: Nice write up, considering that's 14,500 (just guessing) more round that the average AR sees But did you follow the shoot clean shoot clean shoot, break in procedure

HAHAHAHAH!!!!  Steve uses the "Aim fire, aim fire, aim fire............" break-in procedure on all his rifles.

thank you for the write up.  this is the kind of practical info that brings me back over and over to ar15.com.  rra prices on ss are not that much more than chrome, and i am going to try a ss barrel in my next ar.  then i can place more of the blame on me.

I was wondering where all the money I spend with you guys goes...

Ammo for Steve!!  

Keep up the good work

So, if we're not using our carbine as an LMG, is there any reason to choose a CMV barrel over an SS one?

Love the write up!  Have read it about ten times now and it always brings me back down to earth after all the intranet facts.
Any experience with kreiger stainless barrels and how well they last?

Thanks for the post Steve.  Is the conclusion regarding stainless based on more than one barrel?

I used to shoot NRA service rifle using a DPMS match upper with stainless barrel.  I had maybe 2500 rounds though it when I used it to shoot rattle battle.  When I cleaned it after shooting that match I noticed that there was extensive copper fouling.  Looking at the throat of the barrel, it is clearly worn with portions of the lands actually missing.

I don't know how the accuracy was affected, as I replaced it with a WOA barrel after that match.  Is the rifling at the throat visibly worn on this barrel?

Excellent post, bigbore. Any idea about the gas port erosion? Any comments on CL vs SS for gas port erosion issues? thanks.

Hi sir,
I was thinking the same about my barrel after shooting lot of wolf ammo.
After a good cleaning with sweet 7.62 copper remover and JB paste the barrel looks like new again.
It was just subborn wolf jacket metal in the bore.
Try it but go easy on the jb paste and use a good bore guide

Nice write up. And seeing as I just picked up a WOA 18" SS from you guys, Im pretty sure itll last a life time now. I average 100rds a month maybe.

Can I order a barrel like this? I am looking to get a new barrel for my sear gun. I usually fire it suppressed. Can you tell me more about moving the gas hole? What differences did you see? What would the price be?
Thanks

So how is the larue LW-50? Is it going to do better than this or worse?

who makes the Wilson barrel blanks ?

Is that barrel 410 or 416? I just got a PSA with a 416 SS barrel and hope it can withstand some abuse. I will admit I think I run my rifles harder than I really do so I'm sure it will be fine.

pretty cool report....thanks

Thanks for the write up.

Good stuff.  Stainless barrels are all I own anymore. Only way I'd buy a chrome lined barrel now days is if I were running full auto and precision was not a factor.

Where can I find the video listed in the first post of this great thread? The link worked a long time ago.

interesting.  Thx