1917 Browning Question of sorts

[Jim V]

I have a friend who is the owner of a 1917 browning water cooled that he has converted to 8 m/m by using a Maxim barrel. A couple weeks ago we had it out (along with a bunch of other machine guns) and ran 7,500 rounds thru it in 2.5 days. When my friend was cleaning the gun he found that 8" of rifling was gone from the MUZZLE end of the barrel. The barrel had been new when he converted it to fit the Browning. Has anyone seen a machine gun barrel wear out from the muzzle end before? He checked the throat erosion and there was only 3 points difference from when the barrel was installed. The remaining rifling is sharp and the guns shoots as well as it did when we started.

A good part of teh ammo was cupro-nickle jacketed if that would make any difference.

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1911's forever, or at least until they come up with a hand held electronic rail gun.
Ne Conjuge Nobiscum

 

[fal308]

Could it have been an out-of-spec barrel to begin with? Perhaps oversized at the muzzle end and the bullets are bouncing in the barrel? Or maybe the water isn't cooling the muzzle end of the barrel sufficiently?

 

[Jim V]

The only place the barrel showed any heat transfer was at the muzzle end where the water in teh jacket does not reach. The jacket was kept full of water the entire shoot (while shooting). According to Bruce, the barrel was consistant in bore diameter when he checked it before converting it.

The neat thing is that the accuracy has not deteriated.

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1911's forever, or at least until they come up with a hand held electronic rail gun.
Ne Conjuge Nobiscum