Rapid Fire Question, Any Harm?

J

JRiggs

New member
This may sound like a goofy question, but Im just curious. I have a Beretta 92fs pistol. Yesterday I loaded up my five high caps and basically fired them off as fast as I possible could. Needless to say, the barrel was quite hot. It almost burned my finger when I touched it. Ive never fired the pistol in this manner before, but I just had the erge to blow off some old ammo. Question is, does the intense heat from rapid fire have the potential to damage the pistol in any way? Thanks for any help.
 
My understanding is that with machineguns, sustained automatic fire can heat a barrel to the point where it is ruined, but it's hard for me to believe you could manage the kind of sustained fire (or afford it even) to do that to your Beretta. Just a guess though.
 
My Dad told me about some guys he know in WWII that, in the absence of other cooling fluids, used to relieve themselves on their machine gun barrrels to cool them down. If it burned you to touch it, I don't think I would push it too far.
 
Not a big problem for pistols.

The velocity is relatively low, and the rate of fire isn't likely to be sustained for long periods of time.

It may accelerate wear a little, but I wouldn't worry about it.

It will probably be a little harder to clean--in my experience, a hot barrel seems to collect more metal fouling.

Rifles are another story.
 
I doubt 60rnds of rapid fire qualifies as threateninng to a quality firearm.

I dont think you could re-load quickly enough with enough magazines to do any serious damage.
 
The local public outdoor range has rules against rapid fire not because of heat concerns but because they claim to have had an incident where someone was shooting as fast as they could pull the trigger and they hit a squib followed by a good round. The pistol promptly disassembled itself in sort order and did cause injury to the shooter. I tend to think I would have the control to stop shooting in the case of the squib (pretty noticable when they have happened to me) but I suppose it could have happened as advertised.
 
An indoor range at which I shoot has a picture of rifle just after a "live round follows squib" exercise. It's prett darn impressive.

Mike P. Wagner
 
At Fort Dix, in boot camp, we were shown an M16A1 that had been through the squib/full power cycle -- all but the bits that had been dug out of the operator's face and arms. We were told the soldier lost an eye and got a medical discharge. This is why I don't buy those cases of Paraguayan Air Force surplus 9mm you see at gun shows, and why I get my finger the hell off the trigger if a shot doesn't "feel" right.

I've dumped a few 15 round mags out of my P95 as fast as I could pick up the front sight, just as a "perp high on cocaine" exercise. My best kept all 15 rounds on a 5" Shoot-N-See at 7 yards. I wouldn't do more than one mag at a time.
 
The [only] nice thing about squib loads in a semiauto is that they can't cycle the slide so that shouldn't be a problem with the 92FS. But if you don't check for the reason the slide didn't cycle and just rack another one, then you could be in for an unpleasant surprise.

In general, if you can touch the barrel, whether you get a little burned or not, it's not too hot. In other words, if your sense of feeling is normal, you'll know before you touch it if it is too hot. Only if the barrel changes color (dull red when viewed in the dark) is a change in temper possible. But keep in mind you can change the temper of the lands before the outside of the barrel shows high heat.
 
Not to pick nits, but don't count on a squib not cycling the action. I had that happen to me with a Ruger PC9 RIFLE. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary on the squib but the second shot was really loud. No injuries, and true to form for a Ruger, there was no damage at all to the rifle after I pounded both bullets out of the bore with a dowel rod. As was mentioned previously, firing a hot rifle barrel dramatically accelerates wear. If you check the web pages of custom barrel manufacturers they will confirm this. Hot in a rifle barrel means firing a three or possibly five round group at a benchrest for maximum accurcy, in other words slowly; We are not talking about full auto or anything close to that. I would say the same thing applies to a pistol barrel, but I wouldn't let it keep you up at night unless you are doing it all the time. As was mentioned, the rifle cartridge has a lot more powder burning and a lot more velocity. The pistol barrel is not nearly as big of a concern. I seriously doubt that 99% of the shooting population will ever wear out a pistol barrel from shooting it.

[Edited by 444 on 05-19-2001 at 03:27 PM]
 
I don’t believe that you could damage the pistol firing it as you described.
Back in the 80’s at a local IPSC match and we would often have a “blow-off” side match to end the day. 60-70 steel targets at 15 to 70 yards, two man teams, just knock-em down. We often would fire 75 rounds each in 30 seconds or so. No one ever damaged their handgun that I am aware of.
I once had a round that was left in the chamber at the end (230gr RN cast) get so warm that the lube melted and oozed out. :)
 
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