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Posted: 7/1/2009 11:27:20 AM EDT
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How many rounds are our barrels typically good for?
Thanks |
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Quoted:
Non-chromed 8,000-10,000. Chromed 15,000-20,000. If you regularly exceed to operational duty cycle specified for the weapon, the barrel will overheat and the throat of the rifling will get eroded and the gas tube will overheat and distort. The numbers above can be reduced significantly. If you are conservative with your rate of fire and don't overheat the barrel, these numbers could be higher than stated above. |
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Your cars manual doesn't say when it worn out, nor will any manual for a firearm. Neither have control of it after it's sent on it's way. You can actually ruin the firearms barrel by improper cleaning.
I agree with the previous est. Provided it is not a match barrel. On a CL barrel, your bolt and it's associated parts will wear out before the barrel will. Prvided al are not abused 458 |
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The specific numbers above would be applicable if you usually shoot slowly, and have moderate expectations re match grade accuracy. If you dump a few mags every range session, even a CL barrel will show some wear in the throat. That is the critical spot. A round fired through a hot barrel is going to cause the wear of 3 or 4 rounds through a cold barrel.
If you have a match grade barrel and expect match grade accuracy, your barrel life may be 2k rounds. If your threshold is when the bullets start to keyhole at 100yds, that could start in a lousy rack grade barrel after a few thousand rounds fired fast, or it could start at 20k or more. 20k is about $8000 worth of ammo today, and your barrel in that case cost about forty bucks to produce. Unless you have enormous financial resources or a source for free ammo, you are unlikely to shoot out a barrel before you manage to put aside a few bucks for a new one. See Steve Adco's thread on barrel life of a stainless SBR. He shot 1 1/2in groups after 12k rounds or so, including full auto. |
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Quoted:
Your cars manual doesn't say when it worn out, nor will any manual for a firearm. Neither have control of it after it's sent on it's way. You can actually ruin the firearms barrel by improper cleaning. I agree with the previous est. Provided it is not a match barrel. On a CL barrel, your bolt and it's associated parts will wear out before the barrel will. Prvided al are not abused 458 Yes i understand that. there are to fany factors agreed. Maybe I should have been clearer on the info I wanted. What is an acceptable rate of fire to ensure no damage of over heating.......10-15 shots a min on semi auto or?????. I remember seeing a chart somewhere. |
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Sorry, but what's your standard of "fail?" going from 0.6moa to 1moa? going from 2moa to 4moa?
Mil standard is 4moa. You could shoot that with a worn out M4 that's seen 20k rounds. You won't get a number that satisfies you until you have some more experience. Maintaining a Krieger barrel at maximum match grade for two thousand rounds might require you to wait 1 minute between shots–– but then it depends on the powder charge! Maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy in a CL carbine might mean no more than 60 rounds a minute, for no more than 1 minute, or no more than 1 mag dump per range trip, or whatever. A rack grade CL barrel can be abused, and you will not notice any accuracy loss for many thousands of rounds, partly because it doesn't necessarily start out all that tight. Even SS will hold up to a lot of abuse, if you aren't shooting Nationals at Camp Perry. Border Patrol recently tested a few Noveske N4 CL barrels. Word is they dumped 6k through it, fast, and MOA went from 1 to 1.5. there's a baseline for you. |
| I did not mention anything about accuracy.....my concern was not getting the barrel to overheat and getting an acceptable rate of sustained fire to ensure no damage....ie throat erosion. I feel I shoot pretty slow compared to the volume I have shot in the military at times on training and deployment and my barrel seems to heat up pretty quick..unable to touch. |
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The only indicator of damage will be loss of accuracy. It won't blow up, even if the bullet starts to tumble as soon as it exits the muzzle. Throat damage will manifest itself in lost of accuracy. Not sure what else you could be worried about. If your concern is "protect the barrel," then don't shoot more than 2 rounds per minute. But realize, a match grade barrel will deteriorate if you sustain that rate of fire for, say 10 minutes, on a regular basis. Not so with a CL rack grade barrel, like a Colt or FN or Diemco.
This rate of fire does not support training in a carbine class, for example. But if you can afford training, you can afford to replace your $200 barrel after several thousand dollars' worth of ammo. |
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its a rifle...shoot it and change the barrel when you can no longer get the accuracy you need.
as stated above..with ammo costs these days, changing out your barrel for a new one will seem like nothing after thousands of dallors in ammo just to wear it out. nothing will go kaboom when the barrel gets "shot out" you will just get crappy accuracy. shoot it, replace as you go ;] |
| I tested both my rifles with 180 rnd mag dumps starting with a warm barrel at the end of a day of shooting and sighting in. After passing the rapid fire heat test I take it easy on them not dumping more than a few mags at a time and at a slower rate of fire. I actually melted the front HG off one of them during the test and switched to an aluminum 2 pc set to avoid the problem in the future. Any new upper or rifle I get will be tested for operation while hot and dirty and the exposure of the faulty HG proves the neccesity of such a test.I'll admit I was worried about wether or not I had ruined my first weapon by getting it to hot during the first test but it has since proven to be fine. I figure by the time I need a new barrel I'll also have the rest of the weapon worn beyond my trust level and I'll be looking at replacing the entire weapon. |
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Quoted:
Sorry, but what's your standard of "fail?" going from 0.6moa to 1moa? going from 2moa to 4moa? Mil standard is 4moa. You could shoot that with a worn out M4 that's seen 20k rounds. You won't get a number that satisfies you until you have some more experience. Maintaining a Krieger barrel at maximum match grade for two thousand rounds might require you to wait 1 minute between shots–– but then it depends on the powder charge! Maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy in a CL carbine might mean no more than 60 rounds a minute, for no more than 1 minute, or no more than 1 mag dump per range trip, or whatever. A rack grade CL barrel can be abused, and you will not notice any accuracy loss for many thousands of rounds, partly because it doesn't necessarily start out all that tight. Even SS will hold up to a lot of abuse, if you aren't shooting Nationals at Camp Perry. Border Patrol recently tested a few Noveske N4 CL barrels. Word is they dumped 6k through it, fast, and MOA went from 1 to 1.5. there's a baseline for you. My N4 with almost 14 k through her...is still doing less than 2"MOA....no full auto...but the firing schedule is anything that I want to do.... |
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I've read that typically with slow fire the barrel will shoot good groups unitll 3-4k roundsif not chrome lined and 6-7k if chromed. also hammer forged chrome lined I've heard should last over 10k. polyagonally rifled barrels may be even more yet. That's what I was looking for. Thanks for all the other posts as they were still helpful. |
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Quoted:
Non-chromed 8,000-10,000. Chromed 15,000-20,000. According the Field and Stream this month, a .223 barrel is good for 3000-4000 rounds before accuracy will begin to decline to a noticeable degree. I find that number to be very low, but I suppose they know more than I do on these matters. |
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Quoted:
Sorry, but what's your standard of "fail?" going from 0.6moa to 1moa? going from 2moa to 4moa? Mil standard is 4moa. You could shoot that with a worn out M4 that's seen 20k rounds. You won't get a number that satisfies you until you have some more experience. Maintaining a Krieger barrel at maximum match grade for two thousand rounds might require you to wait 1 minute between shots–– but then it depends on the powder charge! Maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy in a CL carbine might mean no more than 60 rounds a minute, for no more than 1 minute, or no more than 1 mag dump per range trip, or whatever. A rack grade CL barrel can be abused, and you will not notice any accuracy loss for many thousands of rounds, partly because it doesn't necessarily start out all that tight. Even SS will hold up to a lot of abuse, if you aren't shooting Nationals at Camp Perry. Border Patrol recently tested a few Noveske N4 CL barrels. Word is they dumped 6k through it, fast, and MOA went from 1 to 1.5. there's a baseline for you. +1 to the OP I only shoot as fast as I can get on target I also never shoot over 500rds in 1 day |
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Quoted:
I've read that typically with slow fire the barrel will shoot good groups unitll 3-4k roundsif not chrome lined and 6-7k if chromed. also hammer forged chrome lined I've heard should last over 10k. polyagonally rifled barrels may be even more yet. I've read the barrels are good as long as they are attached to the gun. There are too many variables for a set number. If the OP posts what he would consider to be out of spec for a barrel we could define them more. Is 1 moa out of spec acceptable? Is firing 4000 rounds "rapid" fire while maintaining under 2 moa @ 100 yards still good? Would you like to know how long the barrel will do its job? |
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