Barrel Life

[Jayhawker]

Hello:
Does anyone have an idea about how many rounds the average factory .223 barrel will last before it becomes shot out enough to be inaccurate?

Thanks.

Pete

 

[NMshooter]

I think 5000 rounds for a 1-7" twist barrel in the M-16A2, but it might be more than that. More in a slower twist barrel, particularly with .223 Rem spec ammo, as opposed to 5.56mm NATO spec ammo. No more than 10,000 rounds at best.

Pretty good compared to .220 Swift or .300 Win Mag.

The rifle will still be shootable at that point (no keyholing with proper ammo), just not very accurate.

Sorry for a lack of hard data.

 

[wanderinwalker]

A chrome-lined AR-15 should be serviceable for over 10k rounds. Granted, it won't be match-accurate at 10k, but it is likely it wasn't in the first 1k either. I should hope a chrome-moly sporter using <69gr ammo would go for at least 5-8k, but it depends. A stainless match barrel in a faster twist (1:6.5-1:8) could be good for anywhere from 3000 to 6000+, depending on the ammo and barrel.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I think it all depends on what criteria you are using to consider a rifle "inaccurate". You can downright abuse AR barrels and still have them shoot 3-4MOA. Whether or not that qualifies as accurate for you, depends on what you need to do.

 

[Jayhawker]

I should have supplied more information. This is a CZ 527 which is new. It has a 1-12 or 13 rate of twist. My preliminary reloads are at 1/2 or less minute of angle at 100 meters and I am hoping through more load development to better that if I can shoot it well enough.

Pete

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I should have supplied more information. This is a CZ 527 which is new. It has a 1-12 or 13 rate of twist. My preliminary reloads are at 1/2 or less minute of angle at 100 meters and I am hoping through more load development to better that if I can shoot it well enough.

Pete

If you take proper care of this rifle -- don't overheat the barrel, clean it thoroughly, but not abusively -- it should gradually improve in accuracy for the first 5,000 rounds or so, then slowly decline. Somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 rounds it will be back to the same accuracy level where it started, and beyond that, accuracy will degrade.

 

[Swamprabbit]

I just replaced my 1:8 match AR barrel after just over 3,600 rounds. This was only due to the fact that the throat had lost about .020". Since I load my 80 grain SMKs out to within .015 of the lands, and the chamber was a 5.56 length chamber to begin with, to continue doing so would leave me almost no room in the case neck to seat the bullet. It was still shooting good with the 69 grain SMKs though.