243 Winchester barrel life?

R

reynolds357

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I have never kept one long enough to shoot barrel out, but thinking about building one for long range playing (I know about 6 Creedmoor) and was wondering about average barrel life in a bolt action using common sense fire rates.
 
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Overbore

The .243 is known as a barrel burner by high volume /high rate shooters, but I cannot give you a figure. Seems like I read D. TUBB set some record or won big with a custom .243 years back, but at that level one can afford to rebarrel. Lots of case capacity to deliver heavy, slick 6mm slugs. I shot against a fellow with a 6mm-06 in the wind once, my .308 (and my lousy wind reads) were not even close.

If I had to guess, for a match shooter, or a prairie dog shooter..........? Half the life of a .308, maybe 3000 rds........wild guess. Medium game hunter, 2-3 boxes a year, a couple of lifetimes. My Dad's Savage, 110, thirty years old, is as accurate as it was when he hunted it. I've got a Mossberg 800M , likely 50 yrs old, that will shoot 85 gr BTHPs into tidy clusters, but I doubt there's 500 rds through it.
 
I've worn out several rifle barrels, and I have 4 .243s. "Wear out" is also an undefined term. For me, if a settled barrel is shooting 1/2" after about 100 rounds, then I'll think about a set-back or rebarrel when the group size exceeds 1". For a .243, that is going to be around 2000 rounds, +/- 500 depending on factors. Those factors are the bullet, how hot you get it and what powder you use.

I have a 15 year old .260 Rem barrel that will make it to 10K, but it started life as a 24" barrel and it is now 21.5 inches. It has been cut back, rechambered, and recrowned.
 
MarkCO said:
I've worn out several rifle barrels, and I have 4 .243s. "Wear out" is also an undefined term. For me, if a settled barrel is shooting 1/2" after about 100 rounds, then I'll think about a set-back or rebarrel when the group size exceeds 1". For a .243, that is going to be around 2000 rounds, +/- 500 depending on factors. Those factors are the bullet, how hot you get it and what powder you use.

I have a 15 year old .260 Rem barrel that will make it to 10K, but it started life as a 24" barrel and it is now 21.5 inches. It has been cut back, rechambered, and recrowned.
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That is kind of what I was thinking.
 
I've got a Mossberg 800M , likely 50 yrs old, that will shoot 85 gr BTHPs into tidy clusters, but I doubt there's 500 rds through it.
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I've got the same rifle, it was my great uncle's then it was a 14th birthday present to me, my first centerfire. Came with two cigar boxes full of dies and well used Norma brass. Still a heck of a shooter.
 
Barrel life means different things to different people. Competitive shooters like benchrest shooters use it to mean the number of rounds before groups start to open perceptibly, so maybe 1,000 rounds or one competitive season. Hunters mean the number of rounds before you can no longer shoot a deer vitals-sized target at X yards. Depending on whether you are shooting factory loads or hand loads and what your critical distance is that could be as low as 3,000 rounds or as high as 10,000 rounds.

The 308 Win/7.62X51, the 243's parent cartridge, is known to be fairly easy on barrels, much like the 30-06. High volume shooting might be hard on a 243's barrel due to the combination of high pressure/high velocity, much like a 22-250. I would guess a 243's best accuracy barrel life to be about 2,000 to 3,000 rounds depending on bullet weight and velocity.
 
Absent strings of rapid fire, I would expect reasonable hunting accuracy to last somewhere between 3-5,000 rounds. Due to all the different factors possible its impossible to give a firm, reliable estimate.
 
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