Barrel life of a .308

L

Ldoll

New member
Someone posted a topic earlier on the barrel life of weatherby calibers. These are powerful loads and I guess shouldn't expect a long life. What kind of life could I expect out of a factory winchester barrel in a .308? I shoot 168 grain factory loads and the barrel has a 1 in 12" twist if it matters. Thanks a lot.

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L.D.
 
"Barrel Life" might best be interpreted as how long you can get near-original accuracy. Some guns have continued to be accurate even after the throat shows noticeable flame-erosion.

My '06 still shoots very tight groups after some 4,000 rounds of mostly max-pressure rounds over 30 years...

Dangfino, Art
 
It depends on alot of different factors; type of barrel. i.e. stainless, chromoly etc.,whether or not you're shooting max loads of slowburning powders with heavy bullets , twist rate, barrel heating during use etc. The average life of a good stainless barrel from a custom maker such as Lilja, Shilen, Pac-Nor, McGowan, Douglas etc. is approximately 4000-6000 rounds, again depending on shooting and cleaning habits. A chromoly will average 20% less than that, again approximately. Some barrels seem to last forever, while others don't go more than a few hundred rounds before showing deterioration in accuracy.
Mike
 
When we were doing the Marine M40A1 program we fired a 1/2 MOA rifle till it become a 1 moa rifle which was the cut off for accuracy degradation. It took just under 10.000 rounds to reach that point, we wore out 3 marines and 1 M40a1
 
Ldoll:

Re barrel life in any rifle, depends on caliber, type of ammunition used, type of use (a lot of rapid fire is hard on a barrel), care and attention received and so forth.

Re personal experience, with the model 70 standard target rifle, factory barrel, 308 win caliber, the following might be of interest.

When last I fired this particular rifle, it then had well over 6000 rounds, National Match Course Competition, through it. Despite a lot of throught erosion, shooting off a rest, with a scope sight at 600 yards, the rifle held the 10 ring elevation (2 minutes of angle)with a goodly number of X's, with THREE DIFFERENT LOADS. Total score was 591 out of a possible 600 for 60 record shots. I lost a few into the 9 ring, out the right or left side, purely a case of my misreading the wind.

Not likely that all rifles would do this, but it does happen. Hope this helps some.
 
If your an avid reloader and can cast your own .30cal "hard cast" projectiles, your barrel will out last your great great grandchildren. You can case harden projectiles at home in your oven, including 55g .22 cal for .223 shooting, and push 3,200fps. We do this regularly. You're not going to shoot moa with that .223 but we consistently shoot 1.75 MOA with an FN and a Schmidt Rubin k31! .Good shooting
 
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