Pulling my hair out... is my long range gun damaged?

Those dings won't hurt a thing....You might want to give that barrel a good cleaning though...I can see plenty of copper fouling in one of your pics.
 
Don't sweat it.
It will get worse treatment over time.
And guns are made of steel, don't forget.
Dents and scratches around the perimeter like that don't hurt anything.
Most of the time even damage in and around the rifling don't either.
Guns are tough.
In future, carefully choose who you let play with your stuff.
If it's an important piece, like a competition rifle, maybe no one.
"Can I borrow your pick up truck?"
No!
"Can I shoot your gun?"
No!
 
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...
 
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Did he just say 1.5K rounds???

:eek:

I thought I shot alot putting 100 rounds down range in a weekend between 2 rifles!!
(note, does not include the pistol rounds I shoot also :cool:)
 
Next time you do this, you might consider using a technique of the old timers, from the days of the flintlocks.
Spread out a bunch of rifles and take turns with them. :)
 
That many rounds could shorten the life, but I doubt it would be noticeable. We're not talking about it going from 30,000 rounds to 3,000. Next time bring something else to shoot to let it cool down.

Or bring a spotting scope and shoot 3-5 shot groups. That way it has tube to cool down while you look through the scope.
 
It's the combination of heat AND volume in such a compressed time period that CAN erode the throat, not just the volume.
Just an FYI.
Denis
 
I guess what I'm asking is, is shooting the barrel that hot really going to damage it much more than than putting 1500 rounds through it cold?
Click to expand...

A very similar question was asked a while back and just about all of us said yes it could. My mind was changed when "Bart B" posted that bullet companies do not let their test barrels cool and they were not having issues with barrels being shot out any faster than those of us who do let them cool. After thinking about it, it made/makes sense to me that since the powder is burning (depending on which powder is being used of course) at around 3500 degrees and add to that it is in a very confined space, it should really not make much if any difference when I shoot until the outside of my barrel is hot since we're really hot to me can be as little as 150 degrees.

So the short answer to your question in my humble opinion is no, you are not prematurely shooting out your barrel.
 
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