Comments on: Barrel Depreciation and the True Cost of Shooting

By: Guy

Guy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:51:32 +0000

Unfortunately the NRA scare tactics, proven unfounded so far, have resulted in price increase across the board of 100% or so. Terrible. Never thought id say this being a life member but I believe it to be the truth.

By: Boyd Allen

Boyd Allen — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:03:22 +0000

Another couple of things that cost many shooters a good,and expensive percentage of their barrels’ accurate lives, is a lack of an organized approach to working up a load, and not moving on soon enough when a given combination does not give the desired result. Between loading five each of various loadings, when a smaller number of shots will tell if there is promise. (If two shots look ugly, adding more won’t make the group smaller.) and persisting with a powder that your rifle does not seem to like, because you have a large supply of it, you can burn a lot of steel.

By: kengine

kengine — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:54:51 +0000

Add some more to the barrel cost to melonite, then every thousand rounds do this calculation to remind yourself why and smile.

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:09:04 +0000

The hammer forged and nitrided barrel of my Steyr SSG (.308) has a service life of many tens of thousands of rounds and nobody ever shot worse with it than with those soft, untreated, stainless barrels.

By: fdshuster

fdshuster — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:20:39 +0000

Extended barrel life with the 30BR, yes, but greatly off-set by the cost of custom match grade bullets. About .25 each for 68 gr. 6mm’s, versus over .45 each for 115/117 custom 30 cals.

Alan Fraser: My procedures also: Save the winning barrel chamberings for match use only, use the lesser quality ones for off-season & informal shooting.

Bottom line: There is no free lunch.

By: Taildrag15X

Taildrag15X — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:24:50 +0000

Just glad my wife doesn’t read the Daily Bulletin, she’s still convinced that all the equipment I have keeps the cost down….

By: Rikky

Rikky — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:03:55 +0000

My Dasher and my best 7mm barrel have both just gone to better places. While I am devastated, especially about the 7mm, I have competed with them for 10 years and 5 years respectively and done some things and won some things. These are the offsets to the baseline cost and these are the things that cannot have a price put on them.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:17:47 +0000

As a hobby gunsmith/target shooter and sometimes hunter, I knew that the cost were high, but Geez. It almost falls into the catagory of a vice, like gambling

By: German Salazar

German Salazar — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 03:18:29 +0000

The only flaw in those calculations is that I’m seeing prices of about $250 for chambering these days from the gunsmiths I trust.

Editor: German, that’s a good point. Some of the top smiths are even charging $300.00 to chamber/fit/crown a barrel. That obviously raises the per shot cost even higher.

By: Lee Gardner

Lee Gardner — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:44:36 +0000

this almost makes me want to cry!