Barrel Life of a 223??????

[KHornet]

I have an old(er) 112 Sav. Heavy BBL, in 223, that has well over 4000 rounds thru it, probably closer to 5000, but it is estimated, the vast majority of which are jacketed. In the past couple of years I have been shooting cast out of it as well as taking it to my annual pdog shoots with jacketed. I decided that I would take it pdog shooting this week for the last time before I put a new bbl on it, because for sure it has been shot out accuracy wise. I shot it over 400 rounds on Mon and Tues, and my kills on pdogs at ranges from 150 to 400 yds were an average of between 35-40 percent. The dogs didn't know it was supposed to be shot out. This is with a 6x24 Tasco scope.

A friend of mine once said that he thought it was about impossible to shoot out a rifle bbl with cast bullets, but that 3000 rds of jacketed was about all that could be expected of any rifle. Guess that theory got shot in the butt. With cast this rifle with plain base cast bullets will stay in a respectable but not spectacular by any means an inch or so at 50 with lite load. At 100, with 40gr jacketed it will with the proper loads at about 3500-3600 do at or close to an inch. I have never been a max vol loader, having almost always found that less that max loads produced the best accuracy for me.

Have decided to order out a new bbl for this rifle, but not put it on right away. Will be shooting cast pb at 50 yds with it for awhile yet, and the 55 lee GC's out of it at 100. May even consider taking it as is for next years pdog shoot.

Then again as I have mentioned before, I have a friend who has a goal of passing on to his offsprings, all of his rifles with shot out bbls. There are worse goals in life!

 

[Josh]

Depends on what you consider accuracy I guess, pdogs at 450 means benchrest accuracy which normally fades somewhere between 3 and 5 thousand rounds. But if that was your deer rifle you could easily put 10 to 15 thousand more rounds through it before it is burnt out.

 

[Brad]

The farther the target the more it is noticed. My AR uppers would clean a reduced 600 yd target at 200 but show wear at a full 600.
That many full loads in a 223 will have moved the throat a bunch.

Before you shoot the new barrel let me measure the throat position with my Stoney Point tool. We can then see where it is at certain round counts.

My AR, a Pac-nor 4 groove 1-7 twist, showed over 50 thou of erosion after 2500 rounds.

 

[Ian]

This one didn't quite make it that far, but it did surprisingly well.

 

[Brad]

Seeing the gas block glow red hot is something else. Glad I'm not buying his ammo!

 

[Missionary]

That was impressive ! Good parts are well worth the money if you need to fire a lot of ammo. Never figured the barrel would die first.

 

[KHornet]

Waste of ammo and a weapon IMO. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

 

[fiver]

that's how my lever guns sound when the kids get ahold of them..

you know if he wasn't using that steel jacketed stuff he coulda run a bunch more.
but it was fun to watch the flash hider unscrew then just go on down range.

 

[Ian]

Made me cringe to watch all that ammo being basically wasted and rifle being beat to hell, but....it isn't like the military or manufacturers much publicize the destructive testing they do, so John Public doesn't normally get to see these sorts of things.

I know a guy in NM who built some suppressors for testing and feedback by the US Army, he basically got data from 10K live rounds fired over a month period, with very detailed data logs of each magazine fired, then he got his stuff back and cut it open to see what happened to the guts. Talk about an education.

 

[fiver]

the bad thing about runs like that is they aren't really a good comparison to normal usage.
remember the 5,000 round torture tests the magazines used to run back in the day?
they did prove out the action design more than anything else and I guess it would simulate a lifetime of use by a normal user.
but.... yeah I know.
for guy's like us 5-k is less than a years shooting, maybe not all on one gun but in a few years it is.
the 9 I bought the wife in april is already well past 700 rounds, it'll be past 2-k by this fall.
I don't consider that a torture test by any stretch.
but if I went and run them all at one sitting [in full auto for sure] I bet the wear would be accelerated a bunch.

 

[KHornet]

I definitely agree Fiver. And Ian, I also cringed watching the thing!

 

[9.3X62AL]

I have a bullet-button AR-15 with Del-Ton upper, 1:9" barrel and mil-spec chamber. I did a crude spec check of its throat depth prior to any firing, using my Stoney Point tool with modified 223 case and substituting a .222" pin gauge with squared end aspect in place of a bullet. Leade clearance was .110" measured in this fashion. My Ruger 77RC's leade clearance measured in this manner gave a .075" finding. The 77RC has about 1500 rounds through it, 95% jacketed, and most of those were a relatively mild load of 55 grain BalTips atop 25.0 grains of WW-748 and WSR primers in commercial cases. FWIW.

I don't have a fixed accuracy lifetime estimate of any barrel. Way too many variables in usage patterns--caliber questions (bore/chamber ratio, pressure gradient) to give a hard-and-fast answer. I imagine my new 22-250 barrel's accuracy lifetime won't be as long as it would be had its chamber been cut to 22 Hornet, but there are prices to pay for a 150%+ velocity up-tick and 200%+ range extension......principally in barrel life and powder consumption. Everything costs something.

ETA--Military organizations set specs for barrel and ammo performance, and (briefly) for M-16/M-4 systems that spec is 2 MOA in the ammo/platform equation/fixture-fired, and an expected service life of 5K rounds. Much can occur during 5K rounds of usage, esp. when that usage involves full-auto sequences and/or casual maintenance.

 

[Tony]

Several years ago Dick Wright interviewed Tony Boyer and Dwight Scott for Precision Shooting Magazine. Wright asked the question "What is the accuracy life of a barrel used in bench rest (IBS/NBRSA) competition?" Boyer and Scott answered "600 to 900 rounds." I guess a lot depends on how critical your needs are and whether you have a top drawer barrel maker as a sponsor.

 

[Pistolero]

Depends entirely on the ammo, rate of fire and how accurate you want to call "accurate".

Read about the most amazing (and EXPENSIVE!!!) ammo/gun test I have EVER heard about.....
worth the reading time, IMO.

http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/

Rooskie ammo made a quality AR barrel into a LITERAL SMOOTHBORE in under 4,000 rds (IIRC) while
Lake City standard military ammo was still accurate and barrel still fine at 10,000 rds. - with a
good bit of throat erosion, of course.

Pay your money and make your choice. Even with several replacement barrels, the 10K of
Rooskie dogpoop ammo was cheaper than the Lake City stuff. If cheap is the only criteria.


Bill

 

[Ian]

These days you can get a rack-grade AR barrel for under a hundred bucks and swap it out in half an hour tops. If cheap is the object, it's still money saved shooting garbage ammo.

 

[Pistolero]

Yes, no doubt if cheap is the goal, and reloadable brass is unimportant. Amazed me that
the Russian ammo could destroy a barrel that quickly.

Bill

 

[Cherokee]

All interesting...lots of money went downrange in those tests. I think I would stick to the brass cased ammo. Reliability has some merit. Besides, majority of my ammo is my ammo from LC brass with Hornady bullets.

 

[fiver]

that's pretty much what I have been shooting the last 2 weeks.
LC cases and 50gr hornady's with H-322 in between them.
somehow I got a batch of 50gr sp's mixed together with a batch of 50gr spsx's.
I can't tell the difference until the bullet hits a ground squirrel, then I can see the difference in the scope.
I need to try this combination in my Ruger varmint rifle.

I do wonder about barrel life at times.
from the Douglas on my Ackley, to the not sure but wonderfully accurate barrel on the 25-06.
I wanna use them for all kinds of things but just keep on wondering how much longer I have, if I use them for light fast varmint type loads.
I know zipping the light bullets fast down a 220's barrel will burn it up so figure it has to happen to the others the same way.

 

[Cherokee]

I really don't shoot rifles enough to worry about barrel life. My M1A and Mini14 are from the 80's and still shoot fine. The more current AR's are not used for mag dumps or matches, so no concern there. My handguns are 90% cast bullets, so no concern there for barrels, just mechanical. My XDm 9 comp has 26k rounds thru it and SA already replaced the slide; barrel looks great. I figure my rifle/pistol shooting routine will not require any barrel replacements before I can't shoot any more.

 

[Hummer]

In Aberdeen Proving Ground Testing on the M16A1E1 (adopted as m16A2) using XM855 ammo (62 gr FN Bullets) groups started opening up at the between the 2400 and 3600 round points. At 4800 rounds they were right below rejection (7.2" at 100 yards). At 6000 rounds could not keep rounds on a target 8'X12' at 800 and 700 meters. At 600 meters we covered the entire board.

The test was repeated with same ammo,(same results) M193 ammo ( a little better) and SS109 loaded by FN. The SS109 ammo took the barrels to 12,000 rounds and were right on rejection at that point. US ammo is loaded with WC846 and it really eats barrels quickly as do most ball propellants. In other words we had same dispersion at 12,000 rounds that we did at 4000 rounds of XM855.

You obviously maintained a very cool firing schedule and really took good care of your barrel with frequent cleanings. Most of the Match AR shooters I know tell me they pull barrels at 2000 rounds using 69 and 77 gr. bullets..