Can revolver barrels wear out?

A friend replaced a PPC gun (.38 wadcutter) barrel after only 150,000 rounds. But that was because a squib bulged it; it was still shooting ok with 1/3 to 1/2 of its length showing erosion.

An old article described a .44 Magnum as being pretty worn after a mere 20,000 but that only at the forcing cone; setting the barrel back a couple of turns fixed that.

Yes, I believe handgun barrels last far longer for all the reasons you listed. Next up on the scale of short bbl life would be large bore magnums operating at high pressures and burning large charges of propellant. Some, like the .454 Casull are operating at rifle-type pressures.

Yes, handgun barrels can absolutely be worn out by shooting. I suspect that most people don't shoot enough to do it, and I suspect that most people wouldn't notice until the issue is pretty severe.

In my experience, the absolute gilt edge of accuracy can be worn away with as little as 5000 rounds of hot jacketed bullets. Ten to fifteen thousand of those rounds normally will show significant wear in the bore as well as on the target - as an example, a four MOA gun will often become a six-to-eight MOA gun by the 10,000 round mark. My highest round count, with jacketed Magnums, was in a 4" .357 which, when new, would hold about six MOA. At 35,000 rounds with jacketed bullets and H110, AA#9, and 2400, the gun was no longer capable of keeping rounds reliably on a B-27 silhouette target, which is roughly 2'x4', at 100 yards.

Lead/cast bullets are a different story, but still can wear a bore. My primary competition revolver for many years was based on an S&W 686. Many hundreds of thousands of rounds went through it, but very lightly loaded with nearly pure lead bullets. It started out as about a four MOA gun and now is about a twelve MOA gun. The first inch or so of rifling is very noticeably worn (and it rattles like a G.I. 1911) but rapid fire at seven or fifteen yards it still hits about as well as the average out-of-the-box duty piece - which goes to my theory that most people don't notice wear in a handgun bore.

Both yes and no!
High friction, high flame temps and high round count will wear out any barrel!
So, a 38Spl shooting 148 grain "wadcutter" at 705 fps will surely last almost indefinitely.
That same gun shooting 125 grain FMJ at 950 fps will surely show signs of excessive wear sometime way before the 148 grain "wad cutter" ammo!

Your targets will tell you all about the barrel wear!

Smiles,

Most of my handguns, large caliber Single Actions, have in excess of 15,000 rounds fired through them, a Ruger Blackhawk in .45 Colt stands at just over 20,000 rounds.

As near as I can tell, the bores of all my sixguns look to be in excellent shape. Most guns have been fired with heavy charges of slow burning powder and heavy cast lead bullets, with maybe 75% lead and 25% jacketed. Most show some erosion at the barrel stub/forcing cone area. It appears to me that this erosion is most prevalent in .357 Magnum guns, most of which have maybe 90% magnum performance ammunition.

Not, too, that I often use a stainless steel bore brush, which in my observation has done nothing to enhance barrel wear. This lubricated with Hoppe's No. 9. Hoppe's No.9 and my 50/50 mix of motor oil and machine oil are the only two chemicals/lubricants/solvents used in my guns.

This for whatever its worth department.

Bob Wright

Revolver barrels can wear out.

The M29 44mag barrel face can be eaten away. The forcing cone gets bigger & bigger. S&W set my barrel back & recut the forcing cone.
Had a Ruger Mk1 pistol & a Mossberg 22lr training rifle, where the lands were almost gone. Had the Ruger from new. The Mossberg came that way, from the lend lease program.

I have read- Revolvers-
The rear-most portion of the chamfered area should not be over .020" larger
than the diameter of the bullet of the cartridge that is being used. In other
words, in a .38 Special revolver, which utilizes a bullet that is normally .356"
to .358" in diameter, the maximum diameter of the chamfer should be
.376" to .378".

For best accuracy.

Like the others said, any barrel can wear out. It's unavoidable. Some of our lower pressure cartridges might take 200,000 before the average shooter would notice, and our higher pressure magnums wear faster.
IMHO lead and copper residue are a bigger threat to accuracy than barrel wear.
I've seen 22lr barrels that were supposedly shot out because the lands were nearly gone. Nope, just half full of lead.

I am not a competition shooter. I have never fired a revolver enough to make the rifling look worn.

I've bought some used ones that had obviously been shot a lot, but the rifling looks okay in all of them...

Except one. This S&W M&P in 38 special was made in 1916 or so. The rifling is worn until it's pretty shallow. It still has fair accuracy at close range and locks up pretty tight.

Assuming the metallurgy of rifle and handgun barrels are the same or close, I would think the ammo (more likely to be cast bullets in handguns) and lower pressures would make pistol barrels last a LONG time before wear became apparent. (Strictly a guess by an aging English Lit. major.)

I recall problems with top strap and forcing cone erosion for revolvers in 357 Maximum because folks were hot loading jacketed bullets trying to get extra knock down power. I wonder if there was rifling erosion as well. But that would be a special situation, unusual for most handguns with typical ammo.

Jeff

Can revolver barrels wear out?

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Yes.

Seems this topic has been covered - in the old American Rifleman articles from the 60s and 70s. Maybe even in the old NRA Handloading book. I’ll try to scan some of my old library for articles.

barnfrog said:

I've seen plenty of comments written in other forums about rifle barrels losing accuracy after a certain number of rounds, but I've never seen any similar assertions in relation to revolvers. Is it the generally lower velocities, the shorter barrel lengths, the lower accuracy expectations to begin with? A lot of people put a lot more ammo through their handguns than they do through their rifles. How come nobody ever says their six gun is "shot out?"

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I have no doubt that firing jacketed bullets will wear a pistol barrel out. Firstly I asked the Army Marksman Unit shooter next to me, how many rounds of 45 ACP he shoots, and he said about 5 to 7000 per month!. And it takes about three years to shoot a 1911 barrel out. I assume that meant not enough rifling.

And, I know a ten times PPC National Champion. He only shoots lead bullets through his Shilen barreled K frame 38 Special revolver. I suspect the vast majority were 148 LSWC's with 2.7 grs Bullseye. There is a plus or minus on the charge, those guys like the bullet to be going about 740 fps.

Anyway this guys said he had 600,000 rounds through the barrel and it still shot 2 inch groups at 50 yards. Keep the loads light, and the bullets lead, and you will blow the National Budget before you shoot out a barrel.

I do know from Eddie, now deceased, that old, like 50's-60's vintage 22 lr Eley ammunition created rings in front of the chamber. Eddie called them "Eley rings". The primer compound had a lot of glass in it. Primer mixture needs a "frictionator". That Eley ammo ate a ring within 500 rounds on a rifle he sold me.

I have been told the lead free primer compounds will wash out a barrel throat. Glad I have plenty of the older primers.

Gunship told me that barrels will last longer shooting lead bullets vs. copper jacketed bullets. Would think that it is a long time for a barrel to wear out even with copper.

An old NRA article described the practice of setting .22 target rifles back and rechambering to eliminate the erosion ring. Sometimes it improved accuracy, sometimes not.

Gunsmith Bob Day said that an accurized 1911 shot with cast bullets would wear out of fit rather than shooting out the bore. And he could refit it rather than just slap in a new barrel as is usual now.

Especially if you use foreign made ammo. Their primers will erode a barrel.