AR-15 owner in need of some advice.

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Somewhat oversimplified wiseacre remark:

A non-chrome lined barrel will start off more accurate and then degrade as the throat and other parts of the rifling wear out over the course of thousands of rounds. A chrome lined barrel short-circuits this process by degrading accuracy from day one.
 
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ATLDave said:
Somewhat oversimplified wiseacre remark:

A non-chrome lines barrel will start off more accurate and then degrade as the throat and other parts of the rifling wear out over the course of thousands of rounds. A chrome lined barrel short-circuits this process by degrading accuracy from day one.
Click to expand...

Stealing this! I laughed way too hard!!! :rofl::rofl: Thanks for kickstarting my “weekend brain,” at 10am on Friday!!

1835A290-5D0F-4A02-AA9F-F48794FDDDF5.gif
 
The chrome lined barrel might hold its second tier accuracy for longer than your barrel, but it probably cost a lot more than a replacement for yours will run. In fact you can probably just buy a few more cheap barrels and never run into the cost of ONE chrome lined job, and always have better accuracy. I just have several rifles so I don't wear them out. The guns are cheaper than the ammo by a long shot...
 
My turn? Ok! Let me beat this dead horse too! With nitride (my choice over chrome), if you shoot exclusively steel case ammo (very hard on the barrel) your barrel life will be a little less than 10,000 rounds before you see poor groupings. With brass case, copper jacketed ammo, you'll likely replace a few things before the barrel.

Chrome and nitride both make the inside of the barrel off the scale hard and wear and corrosion resistant. Chrome changes the dimensions more than nitride from the way they were cut or forged.

Even without either coating the barrel will last many many thousands of rounds with copper jacketed non corrosive ammo.
 
EvansAx10:
I don't know, but many people claim that chrome prolongs bores. Whether equal, high temperatures are a factor in plain steel vs. chrome-lines, would prove interesting.

On a side note, you might find this interesting, but I don't know whether any of the ARs had chrome lines vs. non-chrome lined bores:

>> "Brass Vs. Steel-cased Ammo, An Epic Torture Test" <<. Sorry but my attempts at "links" have been futile.
Multiple graphs and charts are included in this long evaluation. It is quite extensive, and gas port pressures are part of the test and included in the colored charts.

** My only search was for bore wear caused by the newer Russian bimetal coated steel bullets vs. copper over lead.**
From what I remember in the "...Epic Torture Test", , about 10,000 rds. of copper/lead bullets in the AR seemed to roughly equal the Bore wear caused by 6,000 rds. of bimetal/steel in the Other AR.

I traded my AR for a Hungarian AMD-65 AK (by TGI) in December 2016, therefore have no agenda regarding the tests.
 
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I have a naked stainless (not chromed or nitrided) barrel that I have been using for 3 gun since 2012.

It has around 8,000 rounds through it. Many of them in fast succession, with the barrel hot and getting hotter.

Under a bore scope, the barrel looks like a dry lake bed. Cracked, rough and nasty.

It still shoots about 2 MOA with cheap factory 55gr ammo.


The guy who told you your barrel was going to wear out fast is a tactical timmy range commando. Ignore him.

Yes, chrome lining is very durable. That doesn't mean you won't still get excellent service life from your barrel.

Rapid fire and heat is what kills barrels. You might get 3k from that barrel. You might get 20k from that barrel.
 
Anyone that tells you that barrels will wear out in some immediate future probably need to hang around Enfield shooters, where those guys are shooting rifles a century old, with tens of thousands of rounds through them, and those barel were "in the white" and shot with corrosive ammo.
Or the guys still shooting 7mm Mausers with bores corroded black (but decent L & G).

We are far too used to toasters and the like made with just functional enough materials, that break and can only be replaced. You simply cannot build a firearm to those sorts of minimalist standards (arfcom opinions of Jimenez, Jennings, et al notwithstanding).
 
That guys comment is quite similar to the whole "My truck is better then your brand truck"....

And bear in mind, a TON of hunting barrels have been produced for decades without chrome lining.

Give your barrel decent care, and it will last a long time.
 
My guess is that accuracy is more dependent on chamber (556 vs 223 vs Wylde), ammo selected, twist rate, barrel length and muzzle device ... Since there were no early chromed barrels in 223 (tight chambers) that I know about, it is probably hard to do an historic A-B comparison. Now days there are barrels in all sorts of materials (chrome, nitride, bare chrome-moly, SS) and with various chambers. So more options and configurations. I'd hate to try to assemble the test spreadsheet for all the option possibilities ...

What chamber does your rifle have?

Have you found the ammo it prefers (bullet weight, length...)?

There is so much to final accuracy that the difference between chrome and nitride is almost irrelevant. I like Nitride, but SS is fun too.

My most accurate rifle, so far, is a nitrided Rock River A4 upper in 20" with a Wylde chamber HBAR barrel. It is a 1 MOA barrel all day, any day, the operator is awake and careful about his hold. With the Mil-Spec hand guards, you can throw it off easily by resting it differently ....

It will last longer than I will live at 250 rounds a year. Likely yours will too. Until you've done at least a few thousand rounds, it aint an issue. :D
 
792mauser said:
I'm reminded of my old Dpms. It is a reliable little thing. Light and quick handling. Gobbling up cheap Russian steel case ammo. It only stumbled when I shot brass after many magazines of steel before aka a filthy chamber. Old enough that she still has a A1 upper.

I quite literally beat that little carbine over the almost 2 decades of use. Had to replace the hand guards after a 308 ricochet smashed em and gouged the barrel, fired 1k of tracer through her, shot till the barrel was red, left on the bed of the truck and forgot about her and then proceeded to drag her about 1 mile by the sling caught on the ball hitch before I realized. Thousands of inert grenade and golf ball/soda can launches.

Stock/extension replaced after the sling broke and it tumbled into a wash breaking the release mechanism and most of the bottom of the stock (have a colt 6920 that did almost the exact same thing about 5 years ago, it just bounced and then javelin-ed into a dirt mound and filled the barrel about 6" with dirt and broke the toe off the stock. The aim point pro stayed on and still works but the lenses are scratched to hell. )

3-4 inch carbine then and still a 4 inch carbine now, just with a lot of wear and tear on her.
Click to expand...
 
Your gonna have to REALLY try to just about wear any AR-15 out.

The ammo cost alone is gonna be several times the cost of the rifle
 
792mauser said:
Your gonna have to REALLY try to just about wear any AR-15 out.

The ammo cost alone is gonna be several times the cost of the rifle
Click to expand...


And at that point, only the barrel and bolt will be worn out. Maybe the muzzle device depending on what you are using. I have a muzzle brake that is probably going to be junk at about the same time that the barrel is. The impact of superheated gasses is eating it away.

Aside from a few springs and a pin or two, you can rebarrel that worn out AR with a barrel costing from $95 to $950 dollars, add a new toolcraft bolt for $50, and have a basically new rifle again.
 
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