[GunLvrNLearner]

What is the estimated firing life of a barrel,i assume it depends on the make and how well taken care of...but a decent gun and good maintenance,how many rounds?

15 thousand?

[EShell]

By what definition of "life"?

Benchrest guns often lose their edge at 1,000 rounds or less.
My (extremely overbore) 6.5-300 Weatherby needed to be set back at 750 rounds.
A match grade .300 WinMag or 6.5-284 often starts to open groups at 1,200 to 1,500 rounds. My 6.5-284 delivered sub-minute accuracy to about 1,700 rounds, which was working for my tactical match, but wouldn't be in the top 20 at a 1k BR match. At 2,100 rounds, it was tossing fliers to 1-1/2 moa and I had it rebarreled.
A 260 or 7-08 will go another 1,000 and deliver 2,500 or more accurate rounds.
A .223 or .308 will often got beyond 3,500 rounds without substantial loss of accuracy.

A 2 moa rifle might go 10,000 rounds before one can detect an accuracy degradation.

There will be exceptions to these numbers both ways.

Rate of fire (barrel temperature) is a big influence and the single biggest parameter is what sort of accuracy is expected. The lower the accuracy standard, the more rounds a barrel will deliver.

[VHinch]

I'm assuming you're asking about handgun barrels since that's where you posted, and generally speaking they will outlast the average shooter. I have 2 Beretta 92 Elites that I used to shoot IDPA with that are both now well north of 25k, and I have several 1911's that are over 10k. The average shooter will likely never shoot out a handgun barrel. I shoot 12k rounds a year, and I'm not overly concerned about it. If by some chance you do, you've gotten your money's worth out of that gun anyway.

[EShell]

Sorry guys, I see now this is the handgun forum. I picked the thread up under "New Posts" and didn't notice the forum heading. LOL, didn't occur to me that handguns even had a limit to their barrel life.

[jjohnson]

Let's put it this way.

High quality firearms - and I mean well made designs, not target pistols designed for peak accuracy - will hold up longer than you can stand to shoot them. I've owned and shot many military handguns over the years, and have replaced barrels on things like GI .45s only because their fit was sloppy. You may go well over 10k rounds before you notice any degradation of accuracy. That's a lot of ammo.

Most shooters don't even shoot a thousand rounds a year in their favorite handguns unless they're .22s. My Ruger MKI and .22/45s have well over 20k rounds through them, and they're way more accurate than I am so far. My .357s have over 10k on them, same deal. If you're a "power shooter" and shoot matches every week, you may one day need to replace a barrel, but they will go a loooooooong time before you get there. And before you get there, you'll be replacing springs, extractors, and other things.

Yes, the "tuned" match guns may degrade accuracy a little faster, but those are getting heavy use by guys who can really shoot and can see the difference in just a little bit of wear. If you're buying a Glock today (good modern steels) I'd expect you'd go through over 20k rounds before you ever needed to give it a thought.

Rifles can wear out barrels much faster, particularly as noted, the hot calibers in the centerfire category. Barrels in .220 Swift were known for not doing much better than 1k rounds before noticable wear, but that's way hotter than handgun ammo and those weren't the same steels used today.
Even a WWII relic .45 will take 10k rounds before getting sloppy.

[GunLvrNLearner]

Thanks everyone

[CWL]

I read a gun test where a Sig P220 had 10K rounds Black Hills 230gr bullets thru it. Barrel was cleaned every 1K rounds.

After 10K rounds, the gun was more accurate than when it was NIB.

Honestly, people don't need to worry so much about their guns.

[loop]

Barrel life of a handgun"

How long do you plan on living? Two to six decades past that.