Some body fill me in on barrel burners

[fox fire]

  Would ya'll care to give me a list of barrel burners please?  and the life expectancy for the caliber if used with of the shelf ammo.          I'm just curious, I've heard the 220 swift was one of the more notrious rounds also heard .243 mentioned,  any thing that pushes the 4000fps barrier.   (just wunderin)

[Graybeard]

Mostly just folks who know little but read a lot and they've not learned anything new since the early days of the Swift's introduction. In those days bullet and barrel steel technology had not yet caught up to the speeds the swift ran at. Today's better barrel steels and bullets have made most of those old wife's tales mostly false.

It's true tho that you can't take a round that generates that kinda velocity and put it on a PD town and shoot 300 rounds a day and expect it to last. It's the heat more than the speed really. You can burn out a barrel with heat but with today's barrel steels ya gotta work at it. Use a little common sense and most all of them will last longer than most folks will shoot in a life time. Besides if you are lucky enough to wear out a barrel with honest use you had a lot of fun and a new barrel is not that expensive.

[gunnut69]

Amen to GB!! When my buddy and I cruise a gunshow for that next good deal the calibers to watch out for are the 223 andsimilar rounds. They along with the high speed 22 centerfires such as the Swift and 22-250 can damage a barrel when fired too often too quickly. A good frien used the 223 for his PD rifles. They typically shot several thousand rounds over a long weekend but that was spread out of over half a dozen rifles. When the barrel on one heated they simply switched to another. Same caliber same action type just a cool barrel. They bought the first Dillion loader I had ever seen to keep up with those voratious shoots.. While  I've seen rifles ruined in a single weekend shoot.. Haet's the enemy..

[MZ5]

Here's a very interesting graph and blurb about barrel life:
http://www.browning.com/library/infonews/detail.asp?ID=79

Now, I have no clue what the conditions for the firing tests were, but I'm sure they were pretty severe indeed.  More than anything, that page illustrates 2 things, IMO:

1)  The thing(s) said above about heat, like from extended firing string w/o cooling.
2)  Chrome lining is da bomb! 

[Graybeard]

For accuracy to go to pot that fast as shown in their charts it seems to me they must have been shooting mighty fast and not allowing proper cooling. Either that or they have a serious problem with their barrels. A .22-250 barrel should not go to pot that soon.

[Keith L]

We should all shoot enough to wear out our guns...

[MZ5]

For accuracy to go to pot that fast as shown in their charts it seems to me they must have been shooting mighty fast and not allowing proper cooling...
A .22-250 barrel should not go to pot that soon.

I agree that the test would seem to have had to have been an extreme torture test.  Those are the conditions which should favor a chrome-lined barrel most within a marketing context.  If they showed that a std barrel 'burned out' in 7,500 rounds, and theirs lasted 15,000 rounds, that might work, but the super-short life version should sell better. 

[fox fire]

 Thanx ya'll,  new I could depend on you.        Aint got any prarie dogs in Tenn. so probably not gonna have to worry about shootin that many rounds in a weekend but it sounds like fun,    so as long as I shoot about 5/6 rounds and let it rest maybe 10 minutes or so, even with any of the faster rounds the barrel should be alrite considerin the way barrels and ammo are manufactured these day's, rite?

[MZ5]

I have a .264 WSM (a wildcat .264 made by necking down 270 WSM or 300 WSM cases), and I can tell you that the barrel, a #3 (heavy sporter) contour, would be just about fire hot if I shot 6 rounds back to back.  10 minutes wouldn't cool it off, either.  Now, my light .223 with Win 748 or similar spherical powder, that'd be completely doable.

The point here is just that it depends upon the specific cartridge you're shooting.  My own personal rule of thumb is to not let the barrel heat beyond noticeably uncomfortable to the touch.  I'm sure others would say that's abuse, and yet others would say that's way too conservative.

[mjbgalt]

i use the inside of my arm or wrist. if its too hot to comfortably leave the skin on the barrel, i stop and remove the bolt and put it in the rack and let the air circulate.

[Wyo. Coyote Hunter]

  I have been told that hot barrels are like similar to metal that is being cut with a torch... Once it gets hot, it cuts easily. I am not a torch man, but that is what was said.  Also Bob Hagel once told me he ruined a barrel in his 6mm when he shot about 100 rds. in around and hour in 110 degree heat. He got into a patch of groudns squirrels and got carried away....    But the barrel had seen quite a bit of use as I remember the story up until the ground squirrel episode.....

[Keith L]

Flame cutting steel requires heat enough so the metal glows.  I haven't looked inside to see if a barrel gets that hot, but I would doubt that it does.  It may expand, shrinking the hole and causing more friction.  Someone smarter than me will have to decide this.

[JustaShooter]

I don't know about how hot the inside of the barrel gets, but I do know that the inside diameter actually increases as the barrel heats up (as does the outside diameter, thickness, and length).  See http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00741.htm

Just a Shooter

[fox fire]

  I'm referin to the typical huntin rifle, nothin in a wildcat round, .223,   .243,   .22-250,   I cant afford a custom gun and aint got the money to support that kinda habit anyway.

[gunnut69]

heating a barrel will cause the corners of the lands to begin eroding. The tempurature of the flame as the powder burns can exceed the temp of a oxy/acetilene torch,,for just a bit. Eventuall the rifling will be roughened and as the bore gets rougher more friction is generated and more fouling accumulates faster.. Bore wear is accellerated if the barel is heated because there is less difference betrween the flame temp and the tempurature of the steel of the barrel..
--By the way a cutting torch cuts steel by heating the steel to a very high tempurature and applying pure oxygen. The result is the steel actually burns or oxidizes much as does wood in the campfire but at a much higher temp..