Scooter wrote:Gday Fellas
I know there are a significant amount of variables in this question such as muzzle velocity, quality of barrel etc, however anyone care to take a bit of a stab and estimate a ball park figure for one or both calibres, or is this a "how long is a piece of string" question?
Muzzle velocity is under 3000fps for both.
I have seen a barrel life calculator somewhere, though I think it was specifically aimed at F-Class rifles.
The life of any barrel is primarily going to come down to how accurate is no longer accurate enough for _your_ needs.
A target competition barrel might not even make 1000rds before it gets dumped as worn out, despite still being perfectly adequate to go onto a hunting rifle.
Some milsurps have probably seen tens of thousands of rounds and still shoot well enough to be enjoyable.
I'm not even aware of any reliable indicator of a worn out bore, some rifles with a heavily eroded throat and/or shot out muzzle rifling still shoot just fine. How much heat and pressure you subject the barrel to is probably going to be the biggest decider of barrel life.
I don't see any sense in shooting full-power loads all the time, unless that's what you need for competition purposes. I don't use a full-power load to shoot a fox 50m away for example. It's unnecessarily hard on the barrel, the brass, the rifle, the shooter, the fox, and the neighbours. I carry low-velocity loads in the mag when moving as any quick shots are likely to be close-range. Once I'm in a position that offers longer shots then I'll chamber a high-velocity load. I don't see any need to shoot jacketed bullets in my milsurps all the time either. I'm primarily shooting them for enjoyment so I use cast bullets at reduced velocities rather than work the rifle harder than it needs to be.