Browning A-Bolt 30-06 barrel life

[bustico]

I have a Browning A-Bolt 30-06 I shoot Winchester 180 grain supreme from. What kind of barrel life may I expect before I start to see a drop in accuracy?

 

[zammyman]

It really all depends on how often you clean it, too, that wears a lot on any barrel, if cleaned too often.

 

[Art Eatman]

Unless you go to rapid fire and all-day range sessions to try and over-heat a barrel, figure on somewhere past 4,000 shots, anyway. My pet '06 is somewhere in that vicinity, and it's still capable of five shots inside one MOA.

 

[Horsemany]

It all depends on barrel heat. You could destroy a barrel in 300 rounds if you rapid fired it as fast as possible. Once the throat gets hot each shot wears the throat out several times more than a regular cool barrel would. If you are reasonable and cool between shots and groups you could get somewhere between 3,000 to 5,000 rounds out a 30-06. If you hand load use reasonable amounts of cool burning powder. Full power hunting loads like the Supremes wouldn't be my first choice if I were concerned with barrel life.

If you are shooting factory ammo. By the time you spend enough on ammo to burn that barrel up you could have bought several more Browning A-Bolts.

If you want to shoot high volume I'd suggest something a little smaller like a .223.