December 5, 2022. Dan Lilja, a barrel-maker, has created a FAQ page on RifleBarrels.com that provides a wealth of information. You’ll find many answers to common questions on the Lilja FAQ Page. Dan’s FAQ addresses the issue of barrel life. Dan examines factors that influence barrel longevity and gives some predictions for barrel lifespan based on caliber and chambering. For those who missed it, we are republishing it. An increase in copper fouling, a deeper throat, and decreased accuracy are all signs of a barrel’s declining life expectancy. Q. Q. What barrel life, in terms of number of rounds fired?, can I expect from a new barrel?
A: This is a great question that our customers often ask. There is no simple answer. There are two types of barrel life, according to me. When we ask this question, accurate barrel life is the most common. There is also absolute barrel lifetime. This is when a barrel can no longer stabilize a bullet, and accuracy is wild. This question is only being asked by benchrest shooters and, to a lesser degree, other target shooters. Benchrest shooters firing in matches where precision is measured only by group size, accuracy is everything. It is not important to a score shooter who fires at bulls or targets that are larger than the rifle’s potential group size. For the varmint hunter who shoots prairie dogs-sized animals, the difference in accuracy between a rifle that is.25 MOA and one that is.5 MOA may not matter in the field. Heat is the biggest enemy to barrel life. The barrel’s throat area is the most affected by heat erosion. This can cause barrels to lose their accuracy. Even though cleaning can cause damage to the crown, it is not impossible to cause problems. Heat accelerates throat erosion. A fast varmint-type cartridge will burn out a barrel in a few hundred rounds, if the rounds are fired one after another and the barrel does not cool between groups. A cartridge that burns less powder will last longer, or a cartridge with a larger bore for a given powder volume will also last longer. A.243 Winchester cartridge and a.308 Winchester are both based on the same case, but the.308 will last longer due to its larger bore. Stainless steel barrels will last longer that chrome-moly barrels. This is due to stainless steel’s ability to resist heat erosion better that chrome-moly. Barrel Life Guidelines by Caliber Type and Cartridge Type
As a rough guide, I would estimate that a cartridge of.222 Remington calibre could have a barrel life of 3000-4000 rounds. Varmint-type accuracy should last a lot longer. Medium-sized cartridges such as the.308 Winchester 7×57, and the 25-06 have 2000-3000 rounds of reliable life. Hot.224 caliber-type cartridges won’t work as well and it is best to expect 1000-2500 rounds. Larger magnum hunting-type rounds can shoot between 1500-3000 precise rounds. The larger 30-378 Weatherby rounds won’t shoot as accurately, and will be closer to the 1500-round limit. These numbers are based upon stainless steel barrels. These numbers would be reduced by approximately 20% for chrome-moly barrels. The.17 and the.50 calibers are unwritten rules and it’s hard to predict what they will do. The 22-inch long rifle (.22LR) barrels have a life expectancy of between 5000 and 10,000 rounds. One of our Anschutz barrels has 200,000 rounds and our shooter, a small-bore competitor, reported that it had stopped shooting. Barrel life prediction is a complex and variable task. This is something you can only do with your barrel. Increased copper fouling, increased throat depth, and decreased accuracy are all signs of a barrel’s declining life expectancy.
It might be interesting to highlight a few exceptional Aggregates I have fired with 6PPC benchrest rifles that had thousands of rounds through them. I know of benchrest shooters who would not fire barrels that had more than 1500 shots in them in registered match benchrest matches. In 1992, I fired my 100-yard 5-shot Aggregate at a registered match in Lewiston. It was a.1558. It was fired in the Heavy Varmint category. That barrel had approximately 2100 rounds through it at that time. Another good aggregate was fired at 1997 NBRSA Nationals in Phoenix. This was during the 200-yard Light Varmint event. With a 6PPC barrel with over 2700 rounds through it, I was second at this yardage. This barrel was copper-fouling quite a bit so I retired it after the match. However, accuracy was still excellent.
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