Thanks very much for the responses guys. You were all right, it still shot really really well.
I actually just gpt back from putting about 1.5k rounds through it over 2 days -- it was a blast.
The barrel was incredibly hot for much of this time though... so much so that sometimes I could see heat waves to the left and right of the sight picture. It was about 36 degrees farenheight out, if that matters. I let it sit and cool for about 10-15 mins probably 5 times each day, but even then the barrel never really went back to a "cold" state, just "warm".
Now, I suppose, for one final question: do you guys think this damaged the rifle at all? I'd always heard that as long as you aren't shooting full auto, your barrel will be alright in terms of heat... I also know that barrels have finite lives in terms of number of rounds through them, so there goes 1.5k of my 5k.
Also, I'm using iron sights for now, so it is a little harder to really check the exact accuracy. But even with the barrel scalding hot, I could hit a 10 inch target off hand at 200 yards about 33% of the time -- that is the only gauge I really have though.
I guess what I'm asking is, is shooting the barrel that hot really going to damge it much more than than putting 1500 rounds through it cold? Or will I just need to replace my barrel a little sooner?
Edit: I did the math on it, and in 11 hours of shooting (over both days) I shot 1.5k rounds, which ends up being one round every 26.4 seconds. I guess I took more breaks than I thought, but there we definitely times where I shot 120 rounds over a 10 minute (600 second) period...