barrel life of a .357 magnum

In order to determine how many rounds it takes to wear out a barrel, you need a large sample of guns that have reached that point. Most never make it that far. Shoot whatever ammo you want that is within industry standards, and leave the barrel wear issues to your great grandchildren.

The bigger issues than narmal wear are abnormal wear - flame cutting and forcing cone errosion. certain powders are known to be more prone to causing both. Also one of the bigger causes of accelerated forcing cone errosion is over-obturation from bullets being too soft for the pressures at which they are being propelled. Both issues are less common in factory ammo.
 
Do check the breechface for pitting and cracks, especially around the firing pin hole. With low power loads, and some combinations of case and primer, there can be some leakage and resultant damage. Not common, but do check.
 
Stay away from light bullet (125) full power 357 loads and you should have no worries.
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+1. This should cut down on the flame cutting. If you fire enough .357 Magnum to cause wear to weaken the frame or barrel, you've spent many times the value of the revolver in ammunition.
 
A friend wore out a .38 barrel shooting nothing but wadcutters at PPC.
But it took him 150,000 rounds to do it.
It actually would have lasted longer, a stuck bullet blown out by the next and a bulge was what ruined it. But it was very eroded and would not likely have made 200,000.
 
MY S&W M19 4" has 49,000 rounds thorugh it almost equally divided between 38SPL and 257MAG ammunition. I have other pistols with 55,000 and 65,000 rounds through them. SO FAR...no big deal.
And so it goes...
 
7,000 rounds of wadcutter loads would basically mean the gun is broken in. If there is damage to the gun it is not from 7,000 light target loads.
 
I use to trade a gent back in the late 70s my lead for his linotype. He claimed he was on his 2nd M 27 because he shot out the barrel of his first, I assume with linotype loads. Maybe BS.
 
Assuming wear only and not abuse, like over-aggressive cleaning or use of corrosive primers, it takes a long time to wear out a revolver barrel, even with jacketed bullets. The type of throat erosion seen in rifles can occur in the cylinder and forcing cone of revolvers, but not so much in the barrel itself. Erosion in the corners of the grooves is common in auto pistols fired with bullets having thick and hard jackets, and the same thing will happen in revolvers with those bullets, but few revolvers fire auto pistol ammunition.

Jim
 
I have owned a lot of revolvers, some new and some used. Only one of them has what I would call significant wear of the rifling. It was made in 1915. (And it still shoots pretty well, actually.)

If that particular S&W lasts as well as mine has, you should get many decades of shooting out of it. :)
 
Most guns/barrels will probably outlive their owners with ease, especially if you have a lot of them to choose from. So no need to worry. :o
 
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