Remington 760 .308 barrel life?

I don't know what the designers ever figured for a useful lifespan of the barrel of a 760, but useful lifespan means different things to different people.

For some target shooters useful lifespan is really actually used up at 1,500 rounds, or even sooner. But a 760 isn't a benchrest gun or match rifle of any kind. You probably don't shoot 1/2 M.O.A. groups with it now, and won't be pulling your hair out on that day where it's too worn to be able to do so.

And you probably won't be putting many thousands (or even hundreds!) of rounds through it each year, to be eating up that lifespan in a hurry.

How long will the barrel be capable of putting .308 bullets into a 2-3" circle at 100 yds (if you're doing your part)? Probably for the rest of your life, and then some.

Run of the mill .223 Rem. barrels last for around 10,000 rounds or so.

And .233 Rem is much harder on barrels than .308 Win is ever going to be as the smaller bore and higher velocity kill the throat much faster.

By the time you shoot out that barrel you'll have run many times the replacement cost in ammo thru the rifle.

BSW

do a serious bench rest test on it to see what kind of grouping it does.

The numbers I've seen indicate that somewhere around 5000 rounds and accuracy may fall to the point that you'd not be competitive in benchrest competition. For hunting accuracy 2X-4X that many rounds.

10 round mags for a 760? Are they made for the 30-06 too? Who sells them?

You'll never live long enough to wear that barrel out, as long as you take care of it. Like your .308, my rifle is way more accurate that it's "supposed" to be.

I have a ten-round magazine for my 7600 (made by Eagle) in .30-06, but it makes the rifle too heavy to carry comfortably when hunting, so I stick with factory mags. One of them is stamped '.270 Win,' and feeds perfectly.

If you are concerned about barrel life, resist the temptation to do "mag dumps" from those ten round magazines. The more heat you generate from rapid fire, the sooner you will see your accuracy depart.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq1ft62A8qg

try this out...

Basically shoot as fast as you can fire the rifle, dump magazine, insert fresh one, and repeat..... extremely fun but quite useless in reality.

Your wallet and shoulder will wear out before the barrel does.

Sam1911 said:

How long will the barrel be capable of putting .308 bullets into a 2-3" circle at 100 yds (if you're doing your part)? Probably for the rest of your life, and then some.

Click to expand...

Yes, yes. 2"-3" if you're lucky. It's not a MOA gun.

Oh, wait...

Yes, they can be very, very accurate! Just like Marlin's lever guns. Far better than they "should" be for what they are. An inch at 100 yds. won't win any accuracy contests, but is very respectable for a hunting/field rifle.

If your plans are for a hunting/field use, the 760 will more than meet your accuracy needs for several generations, at least.

My FIL's 760 in .30-06 was an efficient deer-gitter, but with its best loads it was a 2 MOA proposition. In contrast, my .308 carbine is an honest sub MOA rifle with 150 grain Remington CoreLokts. Since it's a huting rig, I haven't bothered with any load development for it. What it does is plenty good enough.

And neither of us are worried about barrel life.

A competitive target shooter's .308 barrel might be good for 5000 rounds. Might, I saw one go to pot between 4600 and 4700, the owner said it was shooting well the previous week, but he could not keep them on the target that day.
An F class shooter has to try for half as big a ten ring. A friend who is pretty good at it changes barrels at 2700.

Now if you are hunting or in a modest accuracy event like 3 gun, you will see a lot longer service life.

You`ll get tired before it ......................fades!

Back a decade when 308 M14 pattern rifles ruled the "highpower" line, 4000 rounds of 308 Win was about the accurate life. Remember these rifles were fired in a pattern of 20 rounds in twenty minutes twice at the start and at the end of the day. There would be 2 sighters in 2 minutes with about a minute gap between the sighters and record string. Between the slowfire matches were two rapid fire matches. These would have two sighters in two minutes, a minute gap, then a string of rapid fire that was 10 rounds in either 60 or 70 seconds followed by a roughly 5 min scoring period (so no firing). The rapid fire strings would then be repeated so that for the day, you did 2-10 round strings in 60 seconds, and 2-10 round strings in 70 second. The entire day for the 88 rounds (including sighters) would be 6 to 12 hours (generally about 8 hours average). These are generally all full power loads with 150 to 175 grain bullets and 4895 speed powder. A Highpower competitor would consider the barrel played out when he can't hold the X ring at 600 yards. A newer shooter, or a rack grade gun, you might say, hold the 10 ring. The X ring is 1 minute of angle in diameter, the 10 ring is 2 minutes of angle in diameter.

Firing a given number of rounds in a shorter time will increase wear. Firing them over a longer time period will decrease wear. Higher temperatures will increase wear. What causes higher temps? Higher peak pressures, quicker burnrate powders, double base powders and higher nitroglycerine contents, heavier bullets/longer bearing surface bullets/harder bullet alloys (including jacket compositions).

Remember most "Cross the Course"/Match M14s had a heavier then standard barrel, and quiet a bit heavier than a Rem 760. This provides more metal to "heat sink" heat energy away from the bore and keep the bore cooler. Eventually, in long enough strings of fire this becomes a heat reservoir that keeps the barrel hotter and works against barrel life. But, over half the length was covered in wood handguards that cut down on barrel surface cooling.

It should be evident, barrel life is very much how you use the rifle. You're more likely to bugger the crown or damage the crown or throat cleaning in a non match situation where the rilfe sees a lot of handling and cleaning (like a hunter verses a competitor).