[Jeff23]

Over the years, I've often heard about "shot-out" barrels. I'd be interested to know others' experience with this. I've heard everything from stories of barrels that are shot out after a few hundred rounds to remarks about the near impossibility of shooting out a barrel.

Obviously, there's wear on the rifling of barrels; I guess the question is "how much?" It seems to me that the rifle itself matters as well as the cartridge / load. What practices contribute to barrel wear? What do you do to minimize it? How much is barrel wear influenced by methods of breaking-in a new rifle? Does bore-lapping have anything to do with it? Cleaning practices? Are there products you can use to clean the rifle that will help reduce barrel wear, or aren't they really necessary?

 

[chips]

it would take a lot to shoot out a barrell. its my understanding that military machine guns such as the m2 have to have the barrell changed every 10,000 rounds. those barrells are put through a lot, and get very hot. i would imagine that a barrell on a hunting or sporting rifle would last longer than that as long as its well taken care of.

 

[IRISH9]

It depends on the caliber, a copper jacketed bullet zipping down the barrel at 4000 fps is obiously going to wear out a barrel a lot faster than one going 3000 fps.
Pressure and gas flow may well have something to do with it as well, a .22-250 barrel should out live a .30-378 super magnum with the same speed loads yet a .30-30 should last a life time if it's well looked after.

 

[rpm]

The only shotout barrel I've ever seen was a 30-40 krag you can drop a bullet into the bore from the muzzle. The rest of the "shotout" barrels I've seen just needed a good cleaning.Theres good deals to be had on guns like this if you keep your eyes open

 

[goldeyeslayer]

saw a .22 swift of my cousin that was on its third barrel(he shot lots of rodants)

 

[Grouse Getter]

Most of the so called "shot out barrels" are not really worn out but have eroaded throats due to excessive heat from large powder capacity. If you examine the first few inches ahead of the chamber in on of these barrels with a borescope the surface of the bore will resemble crocodile hide. Many of these barrels can have a couple inches cut off the rear and rechambered and have accuracy restored to almost new. It is possible to wear out the rifling in a barrel of a lower velocity low capacity round but that would take many, many rounds, more than the avereage shooter would likely fire. It is said that a barrel will wear out faster from excessive cleaning than excessive shooting.

 

[Jeff23]

Aha! I see there must be a balance between not cleaning it enough and cleaning it too much.