How many rounds can I expect out of my 22-250?

BOBTAILS

BOBTAILS

Active member
I have a savage model 12 stainless steel 26" fluted barrel. I shoot 52 grain hp's with 35.7 grains of varget ( max load ) going 3700 fps, and clean it every 40-50 rounds. How amny rounds can I expect to get out of the barrel roughly before I start losing acuracy /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif?
 
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It depends on how hot your loads are. Ive yet to see a barrel shot out in 40 yrs of shooting. I have a Savage FP10 with over 10,000 rounds through the tube and I still shoot under an inch at 100 yds. I owned a Ruger M77V in .220 Swift and put more than 9k rounds through it over 30 yrs and like my .223 it still grouped under an inch at 100 yds when I sold it. I kept those at 3600 fps.

A stainless steel bbl is longer lasting than a standard blued moly bbl also. Id say throat erosion will happen before your bbl is shot out.
There is a write up in a gun mag just out that covers this also that was interesting.
 
3000 is the most common number given.. but it depends on many things.
How hot you get it, how hot the powder you use is, and cleaning also wears
things. Throats can go in as little as 500 rounds in some barrels from big
cases and hot powders and then there are the guys like 5spd that have great barrel life. I just had a 22-250 set back 5/8 of an inch to bring my throat
back to new. Cheap insurance as it is a great barrel and still very tight. Any
way if you burn out a barrel the cost of replacing it won't bother you in the
overall cost of shooting that much.
 
Mine in my Remington 700 factory barrel lasted 1900 before it went way bad, started keyholing about every fifth shot. I was loading at about 3640fps with IMR4895 and 52 grain Hornady BTHPs. Mainly used for coyotes so barrel only got hot occasionally. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Accuracy is the last thing to go as barrels burn out. Fast twist barrels start blowing up bullets and slow twist barrels take many fouling shots to shoot well after cleaning.
I have burnt out 4 22-250 barrels and the most rounds I ever got from even a slow twist barrel was 1300. Fast twist barrels almost never make it to 1000 rounds.

When talking barrel life there are 2 things to keep in mind:

1. Very few people keep accurate records of rounds shot. Most people think they have shot many more rounds than they actually have shot.

2. Barrel life is very subjective. Some people will put up with a lot more problems than others.

Jack
 
Several yeays ago I had a Remington Stainless VSSF in 22-250
that began to loose its abilty to group consistantly at 1700 rounds.
It is my belief that the better a rifle groups the sooner
you begin to notice a loss of accuracy. I have a sporter
22-250 that was rough cleaned (when I was young and dumb),
shot dirty and generaly abused for 30 years. That rifle
still seems to shoot like it always did, 1.5 inch groups.
I have no idea how many rounds went down the tube......I
got the rifle used in the 70's and shot everything from
tree rats and crows to deer with it.
Is it less accurate now, maybe but it is still a very
usable rifle and seems just as accurate as most newer
sporters I have owned.
Just my 2 cents your milage may vary.......
 
Barrel life in a rifle is at the bottom of a short list of things I worry about in the gun world.
Say the number (no matter how subjective) is 1500. thats 75 boxes of 20 rds. each. Replacing a barrel is not the end of the world and in fact costs about the same as replacing a set of tires on your truck. When you buy a truck do you ask the salesmen how long the tires will last ? The typical aftermarket barrel tends to be every bit as good and very often much better than the original.
Unless you are being attacked by coyotes from every direction continously...I'd call BS on burning up a barrel shooting them.
FYI you can spin a new barrel on that Savage in like ten minutes, at home, minimal tools and no experience.
 
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