Now we are getting closer to the Truth of the "barrel-burner" Urban Lore and thus closer to
good advice for the typical hunter/shooter.
That Truth is it is absolutely wrong to label this or that caliber a "barrel-burner.
The blame for barrel burn-out belongs
squarely on the shooter and nowhere else - the shooters who load at/above max loads, and/or don't give adequete care to their barrels, and/or shoot their rifle until the barrel burns their skin just to touch it, and/or shoot 1000 shots a month.
Yes, several calibers (eg. the pointless WSSMs) - will bring the above mistakes back to haunt their owners in the form of throat erosion etc. quicker than others. But let's don't blame the caliber/cartridge because what has really happened is we have simply given the idiot a more effective way to wreck his/her rifle.
And for all the times I've read that X caliber is a "barrel-burner" I have yet to see such an expert mention (in real numbers) how much the accuracy is affected.
Just my personal suspicion but I think many who toss that condemnation around so carelessly are simply parroting something they read somewhere - and the others have forgotten to mention that they are long-range target shooters and think their barrels are "burned out" when their rifle changes from 1/2" groups at 100 yds. to 1.25" groups at 100 yds. Of course they are probably correct in terms of
their competitive needs.
But their competitive needs have utterly no relevance to the hunter/casual target shooter - so when they run the "this/that caliber is a barrel-burner" trivia on some newbie dude asking about rifles for hunting, they are, to put it very politely, doing the newbie a very real disservice.
And it's good to remember that for every serious long-range target shooting competitor there are probably at least a thousand hunters/shooters who probably won't fire their centerfire rifle 2000 times
in their entire life.
By the way, Auburn... the Remington VLS in .243 should be absolutely top-notch.