Thread: Hornady Podcast Barrel life data

Originally Posted by Tahr

Abuse is the deadly sin. Especially of chrome molly barrels. I had a 22.250 that burnt out. Less than diligent cleaning (I was told to clean it manually, I thought they said annually ), dampness and full house loads killed it. I thought at the time it had fired a lot of shots but looking back it would have been less than 1,500.

I was expecting something else as soon as I read "I was told to clean it manually" - not safe for public forum though haha. Mistaking it for "annually" is far more publicly acceptable and understandable - I forgot to clean one after a particularly wet excursion once and found it after a break of a few months. Couldn't see down the barrel when I grabbed it and checked before heading out (lucky on that as well, would not have liked to see the outcome if I'd shot it without checking!). WTF? That's not right...

Shoved a bore brush through (manually and forcefully) and was bloody shocked when there was a large puff of red out the end of the thing as the brush flew out. I mean large, about a m2 on the wall facing the muzzle. World ending event, "well that's f**ked" was the first thing I thought. Proceeded to clean it, couldn't see any difference in shine or any visible changes in the barrel by anything I tried on it and it still looked like a pretty ugly factory barrel so I guess I got lucky. Still shoots the same so I dunno, but it was a good wakeup call.

I have experienced one barrel that was destroyed by not cleaning it - ended up with a bulge half way down it. .243 - and a .243 with a 12" barrel is f-all use to man or beast to be fair. Shot a two shot group touching, the next 16" away in a random direction followed by minute of barn (only if you were inside the barn mind).

I've never shot a barrel out (yet).

Interesting post though, thanks!