How Long Will Your Barrel Last? Dan Lilja Offers Some Guidelines
Barrel-maker Dan Lilja’s website has an excellent FAQ page that contains a wealth of useful information. On the Lilja FAQ Page as you’ll find informed answers to many commonly-asked questions. For example, Dan’s FAQ addresses the question of barrel life. Dan looks at factors that affect barrel longevity, and provides some predictions for barrel life, based on caliber, chambering, and intended use.
Dan cautions that “Predicting barrel life is a complicated, highly variable subject — there is not a simple answer. Signs of accurate barrel life on the wane are increased copper fouling, lengthened throat depth, and decreased accuracy.” Dan also notes that barrels can wear prematurely from heat: “Any fast varmint-type cartridge can burn out a barrel in just a few hundred rounds if those rounds are shot one after another without letting the barrel cool between groups.”
Q. What Barrel Life, in number of rounds fired, can I expect from my new barrel?
A: That is a good question, asked often by our customers. But again there is not a simple answer. In my opinion there are two distinct types of barrel life. Accurate barrel life is probably the type most of us are referencing when we ask the question. But there is also absolute barrel life too. That is the point where a barrel will no longer stabilize a bullet and accuracy is wild. The benchrest shooter and to a lesser extent other target shooters are looking at accurate barrel life only when asking this question. To a benchrest shooter firing in matches where group size is the only measure of precision, accuracy is everything. But to a score shooter firing at a target, or bull, that is larger than the potential group size of the rifle, it is less important. And to the varmint hunter shooting prairie dog-size animals, the difference between a .25 MOA rifle or one that has dropped in accuracy to .5 MOA may not be noticeable in the field.The big enemy to barrel life is heat. A barrel looses most of its accuracy due to erosion of the throat area of the barrel. Although wear on the crown from cleaning can cause problems too. The throat erosion is accelerated by heat. Any fast varmint-type cartridge can burn out a barrel in just a few hundred rounds if those rounds are shot one after another without letting the barrel cool between groups. A cartridge burning less powder will last longer or increasing the bore size for a given powder volume helps too. For example a .243 Winchester and a .308 Winchester both are based on the same case but the .308 will last longer because it has a larger bore.
And stainless steel barrels will last longer than chrome-moly barrels. This is due to the ability of stainless steel to resist heat erosion better than the chrome-moly steel.
Barrel Life Guidelines by Caliber and Cartridge Type
As a very rough rule of thumb I would say that with cartridges of .222 Remington size you could expect an accurate barrel life of 3000-4000 rounds. And varmint-type accuracy should be quite a bit longer than this.For medium-size cartridges, such as the .308 Winchester, 7×57 and even the 25-06, 2000-3000 rounds of accurate life is reasonable.
Hot .224 caliber-type cartridges will not do as well, and 1000-2500 rounds is to be expected.
Bigger magnum hunting-type rounds will shoot from 1500-3000 accurate rounds. But the bigger 30-378 Weatherby types won’t do as well, being closer to the 1500-round figure.
These numbers are based on the use of stainless steel barrels. For chrome-moly barrels I would reduce these by roughly 20%.
The .17 and .50 calibers are rules unto themselves and I’m pressed to predict a figure.
The best life can be expected from the 22 long rifle (.22 LR) barrels with 5000-10,000 accurate rounds to be expected. We have in our shop one our drop-in Anschutz barrels that has 200,000 rounds through it and the shooter, a competitive small-bore shooter reported that it had just quit shooting.
Remember that predicting barrel life is a complicated, highly variable subject. You are the best judge of this with your particular barrel. Signs of accurate barrel life on the wane are increased copper fouling, lengthened throat depth, and decreased accuracy.
Benchrest Barrel Life — You May Be Surprised
I thought it might be interesting to point out a few exceptional Aggregates that I’ve fired with 6PPC benchrest rifles with barrels that had thousands of rounds through them. I know benchrest shooters that would never fire barrels with over 1500 shots fired in them in registered benchrest matches.
I fired my smallest 100-yard 5-shot Aggregate ever in 1992 at a registered benchrest match in Lewiston, Idaho. It was a .1558″ aggregate fired in the Heavy Varmint class. And that barrel had about 2100 rounds through it at the time.
Another good aggregate was fired at the 1997 NBRSA Nationals in Phoenix, Arizona during the 200-yard Light Varmint event. I placed second at this yardage with a 6PPC barrel that had over 2700 rounds through it at the time. I retired this barrel after that match because it had started to copper-foul quite a bit. But accuracy was still good.
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Tags: Australian Military, Barrel, Barrel Tests, Benchrest, Dan Lilja, Lilja Barrels, Moly Bullets, PPC, Varmint
Good artical. Ive found a cut rifled barrel will last longer then a button rifled barrel but have done no official test. Yet another factor.
A factor that is rarely discussed is the hardness of the barrel. But to me it seems that harder barrels last longer, way longer.
I am not discussing benchrest accuracy now as that is not my game, but varmint and practical accuracy.
It seems for example that factory Sako .338lm TRG barrels (4140 as far as I know) last for above 4000 rounds while a 416 barrel seems to last for half amount of rounds.
A well made button rifled barrel will last every bit as long as a cut rifled barrel.
Barrel life is in no way influenced by whether it is cut it buttoned.
I disagree and I’ve had it confirmed with ammunition test barrels we’ve made for bullet makers, ammo makers etc…
Button rifling for starters will work harden the bore. This works against you in barrel life. Cut rifling doesn’t work harden the bore.
Like it’s been pointed out though the first thing I ask is what is the caliber, what are you using the gun for and what are your accuracy requirements. You answer those questions and then we go from there.
Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels
Sako and Tikka barrels are hammer forged, they seem to last longer than button and cut rifled barrels.
Seems European cro-molly hammer forged barrels lasts longer, then US stainlees steel ones.
I do belive the Sauer 200 STR barrels are hammer forged, and they last quite a while!
Thing with hammer forged are they are rarely up to the task of competitive shooting. Generally it`s cut or button rifled. Looking through my old barrel records I can definitely say the cut rifled barrels have outlasted the button barrels every time. I believe this opinion is widely shared.
300.000-500.000 active shooters in Scandinavia uses the Sauer 200 STR rifle, with hammer forged barrels.
They are very accurate!!
Not BR shooting, but with slings, prone, kneeling, standing.