Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

New to the sport? Or just not sussed something out yet? Please ask your questions in here, there are many experienced shooters on the forum and someone will for sure come along and answer your question. This is a section for new shooters so if anyone can think of something please submit it.

Moderator: dromia

Post Reply
Message
Author
acormack
Posts: 94
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2016 1:08 pm
Home club or Range: Pentland Rifle Club
Location: Caithness
Contact:

Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#1 Post by acormack »

Hi everyone

We all hear about certain calibers that are barrel burners (Center fire) but what rounds are actually easier than most on barrels? I know it all depends on loads, pressures etc. but what would you get if you were buying a rifle that you planned on handing down to the next generation? Can any center fire last more than say 4000 rounds before it's shot out..?? Tried looking it up online but struggled for anything..!!

Thanks again and looking forward to any replies.
Rockhopper
Posts: 910
Joined: Mon Nov 09, 2015 2:36 pm
Contact:

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#2 Post by Rockhopper »

I imagine if you only use cast lead bullets then the barrel will last considerably longer than if you are using copper jacketed ones regardless of the caliber or type of round?
Laurie
Posts: 650
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 8:20 pm

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#3 Post by Laurie »

.22 Long Rifle is you really want long life - around 80,000 rounds with standard velocity match ammo. Low pressure revolver cartridge loads in leverguns will likely see their barrels outlive their owners if cleaned properly.

For higher pressure rifle cartridges shooting jacketed bullets it's a combination of case capacity / powder charge weight to bore diameter, pressure levels being run at, bullet weights (heavy for calibre bullets burn barrel throats out faster than equivalent pressure light bullet loads), and speed of shooting (that's why modern machineguns have stellite coated throats and the first few inches of barrel).

To summarise, pressure + heat kills barrels.

There is a table on the Accurate Shooter blog that lists 'bore capacity' for a list of common cartridges:

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/?s= ... mit=Search

If you take the take the low bore capacity example at the very top (.30BR) that is basically the same as the 7.62X39mm M43 Soviet in this regard. I would think your average SKS, AK or similar would get 10,000 rounds out of a barrel if full-auto fire is foregone and semi-auto used without getting the barrel really hot.

Down towards the other end (overbore capacity examples), the 6.5-284 Norma will see a barrel out in 900-1,100 rounds in slowfire prone shooting, and can do it (much) faster still with the 'hottest' loads and shooting quickly.

In between, 223 Rem and 308 Win will see 5,000-7,000 rounds life for 'plinking accuracy, or even 'Target Rifle' with standard pressure loads, 2,500-3,500 rounds with the hot loads in FTR competition and the need to hold under 1-MOA or even achieve potential half-MOA groups at 1,000 yards in a top quality stainless barrel.
Last edited by Laurie on Thu Jun 02, 2016 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
WelshShooter
Site Supporter Since 2016
Posts: 1804
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 9:45 pm
Contact:

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#4 Post by WelshShooter »

Anything with "magnum" in the name ought to give you some idea, but there are some other barrel burning calibres out there. The only way you can discern between them is to separate by calibre and bullet mass. For example, the 6.5x55, 6.5 creedmoor, 6.5x47 Lapua and 6.5-284 can all fire the same 139gr bullet. However, the muzzle velocity of each can be and 2,580fps, 2,850fps 2,750fps and 3,140fps (this is based on customer load data for RS60 powders, slightly different barrel length - don't look into this as scientific fact!!) respectively. You'll notice that the 6.5x55 and 6.5-284 are on opposite ends of the spectrum of velocity so naturally one would think that the barrel of a 6.5-284 won't last as long as a 6.5x55.

Another factor is the manufacturer of the barrel. I'd imagine a high end barrel would last longer than a run of the mill kind. Currently, I've only shot as much as 1,500 rounds in a single rifle which uses jacketed ammunition (CZ 527, .223 rem) so don't have experience of burning barrels as such.
User avatar
snayperskaya
Past Supporter
Posts: 7234
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:43 pm
Home club or Range: West Bank of the Volga.....
Location: West of The Urals
Contact:

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#5 Post by snayperskaya »

From experience I have a 1939 Mosin that has had thousands of 7.62x54r through it over the last 77 years and is far from "shot out", the same goes for my 1950 SKS.
Most military service rifles still shot well and could certainly be handed down, there are thousands of Lee Enfields, Mauser K98s, Mosins etc etc that have pasted through who knows how many hands that are still as close to as accurate as when they were made.
I would say it is mainly serious competition rifles that get classified as shot out after a few thousand rounds as accuracy drops off from a competitive point of view,but I dare say they will still be accurate enough to the majority of shooters for many more rounds.

As for AKs.......you'd never shoot out a straight pull AK in your lifetime and you'd probably be hard pushed if it was semi auto.Those hard chromed barrels will take some hammer, especially if cleaned regularly and properly.
"The only real power comes out of a long rifle." - Joseph Stalin

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank.....give a man a bank and he can rob the world!.

More than a vested interest in 7.62x54r!
User avatar
dromia
Site Admin
Posts: 19964
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 4:57 am
Home club or Range: The Highlands of Scotland. Cycling Proficiency 1964. Felton & District rifle club. Teesdale Pistol and Rifle club.
Location: Sutherland and Co Durham
Contact:

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#6 Post by dromia »

As Laurie has said it is the pressure and heat that wears barrels long before bullet wear.

My maximum shooting distance now is 600 yrds and I shoot cast bullets exclusively in my many centre fire calibres, all I need for accurate target shooting at 600 yrds is 1800-2000 fps with good cast bullets and expect thousands and thousands of rounds from my barrels before accuracy diminishes.

So the question isn't really about what calibres wear out barrels its is about what loads wear out barrels, just as you don't drive your car at full speed the whole time neither do you need to shoot your rifles at full stoke the whole time.

Speed is good for flat trajectory when shooting at unknown distances, or can help at the longer distances, but then so do heavy bullets.

As velocity increases so does the pressure and heat in the barrel and therefore barrel wear.

We all drive most of our guns far too fast for most of the applications and distances we shoot at.
Image

Come on Bambi get some

Imperial Good Metric Bad
Analogue Good Digital Bad

Fecking stones

Real farmers don't need subsidies

Cow's farts matter!

For fine firearms and requisites visit

http://www.pukkabundhooks.com/
Laurie
Posts: 650
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 8:20 pm

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#7 Post by Laurie »

snayperskaya wrote:From experience I have a 1939 Mosin that has had thousands of 7.62x54r through it over the last 77 years and is far from "shot out", the same goes for my 1950 SKS.
Most military service rifles still shot well and could certainly be handed down, there are thousands of Lee Enfields, Mauser K98s, Mosins etc etc that have pasted through who knows how many hands that are still as close to as accurate as when they were made.
I would say it is mainly serious competition rifles that get classified as shot out after a few thousand rounds as accuracy drops off from a competitive point of view,but I dare say they will still be accurate enough to the majority of shooters for many more rounds.

As for AKs.......you'd never shoot out a straight pull AK in your lifetime and you'd probably be hard pushed if it was semi auto.Those hard chromed barrels will take some hammer, especially if cleaned regularly and properly.
Agreed, there are vast numbers of ex military rifles out there which will still hit a target at up to 500 yards, but inspect their throats with a borescope, measure the COAL needed to get anywhere near the rifling with the various methods / tools around and look at their precision or lack of it and their longer distance elevations on targets and one needs to think hard about what is 'shot-out' or not.

Military rifles do wear out in everyday forces use! Otherwise, why did notoriously stingy governments and GB War Office officials sanction large numbers of armourers and things like whole factory based recon programmes? Many years back I bought 200 Portuguese surplus 7.92X57mm heavy ball rounds from Annan Guns when on holiday in the area and had a good chat with the proprietor on the calibre. "Do you know?" says he, "...that only a couple of years back we were giving away a free KAR98k with a purchase of 200 rounds. (I'm astonished at this statement!) "However, ..." he continues with a grin ".... rifling wasn't part of the offer!" Parker-Hale, A.J. Parker, Schmidt & Larsen and others each bought tens of thousands of surplus KAR98s, Number 4s and others ion the 1950s and 60s as 'scrap grade' for a few shillings (pennies?) each unit price purely for the actions to be refurbished and more often than not nothing other than the action was usable.

Some years back I interviewed the about to retire Head Armourer at G E Fulton & Sons Bisley for a Target Sports feature on Number 4 as 1st generation TR rifles and I got a wealth of material and information from this Enfield expert and former warrant officer army armourer. He told me that if you wanted to be competitive in the old pre-1968 Service Rifle discipline that used NRA supplied Radway Green Mk7 a new barrel per season was essential, and that the top SR guys and girls rebarrelled twice per season. Back then the standard NRA Bull was somewhere on the larger side above 3-MOA, so this isn't just a modern precision rifle match shooting phenomenon.

One very good thing about many of these older military rifles with their 40,000-50,000 psi max chamber pressures and chrome-moly barrels is that throat erosion is usually smooth unlike stainless barrels with modern higher pressure rounds which 'firecrack' and even see chunks fall out of the lands making then unusable. I've personally owned ex military rifles that have an inch or more of totally eroded rear barrel and there are many photographs around of things like sectioned 7.62 TR rifle barrels that have no rifling for the first six inches of barrel. Around 7,000-10,000 rounds of standard 7.62 ball does that. Yes, they'll still bang, yes, they'll just hold the 'black' at 500 or 600 yards. try chronographing them though and see how much MV has been lost not to mention grouping ability.
acormack
Posts: 94
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2016 1:08 pm
Home club or Range: Pentland Rifle Club
Location: Caithness
Contact:

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#8 Post by acormack »

Makes for some interesting reading guys, after looking at the overbore cartridges on Lauries attached list, I was surprised to see the 243 win up there with the rifles we all hear are barrel burners (6.5-284, 220 swift and 22-250). Every day's a school day on here..!!
Laurie
Posts: 650
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 8:20 pm

Re: Rifle caliber's that aren't barrel burners?

#9 Post by Laurie »

Yes, 243 is fairly hard on barrels - 2,000 rounds at the outside. That doesn't bother most users as they're deerstalkers whose annual round count is low. It is an issue in target shooting and even more so the very effective 243 Ackley Improved version which has seen some use in mid / long-range benchrest shooting.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests