I've been considering one of these overbore beasts for some long distance work. One concern I have about this round (and others in the Weatherby line) is excessive throat erosion and reduced barrel life. I think in order to be effective with a round like the .30-378 I'd need to practice fairly often. I'm not expecting to shoot this gun as much as my .223 or even my .308, but I am wondering what kind of barrel life might I expect after modest amounts of practice, say 40 rounds or so a month. I hope those of you with .30-378s or experience with other high velocity, overbore cartridges (i.e. .257 Weatherby) might be able to help me out here. Thanks.
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.30-378 Weatherby and barrel life
- Thread starter rhetor
- Start date
Gale McMillan
Member In Memoriam
You shouldn't let barrel life concern you any more than gas consumption on a high performance car. Its all part of the cost you pay for performance. Barrel costs add up to about what you pay for bullets and powder. If you want to put a number on it you can figure about 6 to 800 rounds of prime and a 1000 max.or in years at your schedule some where between 2 and three years.
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
Concur with Gale.
Where is it written that the only loads you shoot are "full house"? If you down-load 3/4 of your practice loads, you'll probably double your barrel life.
Or, get some old military critter, and set it up with the same trigger and length of pull. Add weight if necessary, and create a duplicate for everyday shooting...
Just a thought...
Art
Where is it written that the only loads you shoot are "full house"? If you down-load 3/4 of your practice loads, you'll probably double your barrel life.
Or, get some old military critter, and set it up with the same trigger and length of pull. Add weight if necessary, and create a duplicate for everyday shooting...
Just a thought...
Art
Gentlemenn, thanks for the advice. The high performance car analogy made good sense to me. Actually, I wasn't going into this project expecting the .30-378 to be an inexpensive proposition, but I did want some accurate idea about overall costs such as the barrel life matter. The reduced load suggestion is an intriguing one too; I haven't encountered much reloading data on this cartridge, but slow burning powders along the lines of RL 25 seem to yield the best performace. It seems to me I've come across warnings about light loads in overbore cartridges being dangerous at some point. Nosler's reloading guide #4 has some data for the .30-378 but no reduced loads.Any thoughts on this matter/ (Perhaps this question belongs on another section of the board?) In any event, thanks again for your wisdom; it is much appreciated.