What barrel ?

[aliascraig]

Is there any major diffrence in between the major barrel makers ,lilja,hart ,krieger, and sheilen.is one supeior to the next, what about twist rate and a "tight" barrel. Any help would be apprecited.I want to build a hunter
sb rifle and have very limted knowledge
Thank you for your time

Everyone will have a preference. I prefer the Lilja tight bore myself for smallbore and my Krieger HP is good, but I plan on trying a Lilja there also when this one is shot out.

Bob259,

I thought that you could never shoot out a 22 rim fire barrel? or at least that is what I was told if you look after it well, use standard velocity, lubed unplated bullets or have I been feed incorrect information? If so how many shots would you recommend that people normally get out of a barrel?

Regards,

Craig.

[Innocent]

Craig, try 65,000+ in my Winchester 52 Jap remake. It still functions with cheap ammo, but the grouping has also gone to hell. Now the older US made 52's I know I have one that I have shot over a case (5000 rounds) through a year for 14+ years, and I bought it used...still shoots a tight group with any ammo. I will add that it was built in 1949. Annies, I have seen the barrel shot out in them, but again they were being used by shooters that were supported with free ammo, and other means of support.

Mary

[Bob259]

Bob259,

I thought that you could never shoot out a 22 rim fire barrel? or at least that is what I was told if you look after it well, use standard velocity, lubed unplated bullets or have I been feed incorrect information? If so how many shots would you recommend that people normally get out of a barrel?

Regards,

Craig.

Craig, It was my HP barrel that I said I'd replace.

[BCloninger]

For most, barrels are damaged from mishap or rough cleaning before they're actually shot out. Otherwise, life span has more to do with steel quality and preparation. A personal observation is that hand lapped barrels hold groups longer than standard factory barrels, and of course stainless outlasts carbon steel. A personal belief is that gently cleaned barrels are better off.

[jneihouse]

BobC, you well know that most rimfire barrels are damaged by Remington in the 504 plant

Kitty

[Innocent]

Commander Kitty, can't leave out the airlines and when they throw the case hard...

Innocent

[jneihouse]

Yep,

we got the pics to prove that.

Kitty

[Evelio Mc Donald]

I was a firmed believer that under the proper care, it was impossible to wear a 22lr barrel where it was detrimental to accuracy. Well since about January, I started shooting benchrest competition, and have learned a lot more than I really wanted. It looks like the best Ely and Lapua ammo. being manufacture now, leaves a glass bead powdery looking stuff inside of the barrel, that will wear out a barrel in about 10,000 rounds, making them useless for the accuracy required for benchrest competition. Some of the top shooters are changing barrels after about 8,000 rounds, and most are cleaning them after about 30-40 shots, normally with pull thru devices. Also it is my understanding that the grooves on the new barrels are not as deep as the older barrels.
Now the accuracy required for silhouette is nowhere close to the requirements of USBR or ARA but the fact is, that the new manufacture ammo. will affect the accuracy of new barrels a hell of a lot faster than it use to, and as much as I hate to admit it, if you want to preserve the accuracy longer, the barrels will need to be clean quite often.
Evelio.

[ter]

I read/heard that the SiO2+carbon was typical of all 22 ammo, and wear was notable above 75,000 rounds. Certainly that is a lifetime to many shooters, and as noted, that may not show up in silhouette accuracy.
I am a material engineer, and it would be cool to examine the deposits from the new products. I may have spare time in the fall to examine the residue. I can't do a literal hardness test of the debris, but I can perform xray chemical analysis and look at the debris particles in a field emission microscope. I heard that the priming compound is the source of the abrasive residue. Personally, it would be cool to work on the wear issue. Great to get paid in tax free midas+.

[BCloninger]

First I had heard of this residue! Hey, an excuse for a new barrel!

Now Kitty, you know good and well that Remington was just behaving as a responsible corporation and recycling old tomato stakes into 504 barrels! Unfortunately, they took so much harassment they had to stop it and start buying barrels from Shilen.

[steve b.]

As for priming material to be causing barrel wear, I used to think that was the case, but I no longer do.

If you closely study the dynamics of how a bullet moves through a barrel and how it reacts with the priming residue in the barrel, the wear marks (errosion, haze, or pitting ) inside the barrel do not support the theory of friction based errosion.

I have spent many hours working with Shilen, Lilja, Hall, and a few others about this process, and at this time my best guess is that the pitting is a chemical reaction to the barrel steel. I am working on a project now for Precision Shooting with a barrel that has + 50K rounds through it, and it does not have any of the marks that I see in the br rifles.

Now, if the chemical reaction is being influenced by the by products of primer and power combustion, I can see that. We are working on some tests to replicate the errosion ( call it haze, or pitting), but at this time I'm still not sure what chemical reaction it is.

Looking at the general term of "wear" in a barrel, well that comes in many different forms and rates. It is nearly impossible to pin "wear" down to a single process, let alone a single barrel type (in terms of alloy, design, manufacturing technique).

This really is a opening to the black box of what ammunition and barrel makers understand and deal with on a daily basis. The complexities of manufacturing along with "environ" requirements confines the manufacturers to come up with new ways to improce accuracy and performance.

What we may come to find out (what I believe) is that barrels need to be considered disposable items, like tires on a car. They have a life, they wear out and need to be replaced with much more frequency that most think.

[Evelio Mc Donald]

TER
The particles found inside of the barrels were examing under a microscope, and determine to be glass beads, not by me, but by some of the BR top shooters, I don't know if it comes from the priming compound or the powder mixture, also most of the wear was observed in the first couples of inches, and most severe in the six o clock position after about 8,000 rounds.
Please do whatever you can do to identify this abrasive residue.
STEVE
I am glad to hear you are working on this subject. You stated that you are also seing some wear in the BR barrels but not in the one with over 50k rounds thru it, maybe I miss understood your comments, but I am really interested in your findings and comments.
I just want to clarify that I am not involved in any of this experiments, I am only passing on information given to me.
Very interesting.
Evelio.

[aliascraig]

Thanks for that. Good to see you can get 50-60K rounds through a target barrel without too many problems. It all sounds quite interesting and is very helpful. So by the sounds of it a stainless barrel would last a little longer, which makes sense as the steel is harder and more resistant to corrosion.

Evelio, can you blue the outside of a stainless barrel? Just wondering if I could replace some of my high power rifle barrels which were originally carbon steel and blue these to match the actions etc?

Kind Regards,

Craig.

[BCloninger]

What really matters is, when is it possible to rationalize a new barrel? As a practical matter (like anything in this is practical), it's hard to justify replacing a new Anschutz barrel on looks alone, but if it needs replaced...

[steve b.]

It is an interesting issue, no doubt. It's been looked at for a number of years, and I spoke with Bob Collins about it in great detail around 2003. Since then, I have looked at maybe 40 different match barrels, about 80 % of those barrels were 416R stainless. The other were a 4140 type of Chromoly. They Chomoly showed a much different pattern inside, much less "wear". For what it's worth, Anschutz uses 4140.

When I spoke with Dan Lilja during the writing of my first book, he stated he felt barrel life was at 10,000 rounds, back in 2003. 7 years later, I think that number is still valid - but, for multiple reasons. These custom lapped barrels, as we all know, have about half their life lapped out to achieve the desired internal finish and taper. It's a trade off.

Primer residue has silica in it. It's part of the required mix to make priming material work. Been in the priming compound for quiet a while, more than a decade.

But, guess what is new......

Cleaning solvent types. Think back about 15 years ago, how many options were out there..? Now compare that to todays's choices. Now, compare that to the radical change in barrel "wear". If you consider barrel steel at the microscopic level, the wide variety of "new and improved" cleaning solvents, throw in the fact the moisture is a byproduct of the combustion cycle in ammunition, and you'll start to see my view on this.

Final monkey wrench; my 4 R shilen barrel that get cleaned alot, but with mostly Kroil and a little bit of TM solution, with 7 K rounds down the pipe - it has no "wear."