Barrel Life of a .204

CWeeks

CWeeks

New member
I just got to thinking today that they are a small bullet going pretty dang fast, and wondered if that would significantly cut the barel life of the rifle.

And would it even be advantagious to get a sporter barrel for heat and or the previously mentioned reasons?
 
Any chambering under 38 cal with a Muzzel velocity over 2000 FPS is overbore. That maens that yes you may get shortened useful barrel life out of it. It has been my experiance that with proper mantainace and care that is not really an issue. The Military gets 5000-8000 rounds out of the M4's and Saws from what I understand before rebarreling. Any modern sporting rifle even AR's should do at least that if not double. But keep in mind that most of the new chamberings that have come out in the last fifty to sixty years have been acused of being barrel burners. That includes the 220 Swift 22-250 .223 .243 all the WSSMs and the SUM's I am sure there are many more as well. But like i said if you do not go with mad moments, clean the rifl;e at regular intervals the barrel will last a long time most likely longer than you will.
 
I read an article in the Varminter a few months ago that addressed this. The author went into his experiment expecting severe barrel wear, but if I remember correctly he found less than in some other popular varmint calibers.

After about 30,000 rounds the rifle that used to shoot 3/8" groups may now be up to 3/4" or something like that....I'll see if that issue is still laying around and get the exact info if possible.

If I remember, he actually figured after about 60,000 rounds you might need a new barrel, about the same as with a .223.
Don't let the barrel get too hot or for too long and life will be great.
 
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When Ruger and Hornedy designed this round it was with an eye on barrel wear. This cartridge was designed for relative long barrel life for a cartridge with this velocity.

At least that was the hype from Ruger and Hornedy. So far I haven't seen folks complaining about barrel life that are shooting them. I know that I'm sure happy with the accuracy and killing power from mine for varmints.

It's been out for a while now and lots of folks are shooting it. From the way mine performs the only thing I can say is it seems to be one of the best new cartridges introduced for a long while.
 
Carl, I don't know about barrel life, but here's another fact......Will shot almost 300 rounds from his Ruger in one day, and didn't clean the rifle. We cleaned it that night, and shot 200 or more the next day without cleaning. Accuracy never fell off noticably. Probably not a good practice, but that's what we did nonetheless.
 
Holy cow!! Shooting 30,000 rounds would take me most of a lifetime if I only owned one caliber/rifle. Nothing to worry about there I'd say.
 
I'm glad to hear that it will last a while,because I just got one and have been scared to take it to the range to much for fear of burnin the barrel out. Also my Dad(who until yesterday was not shooter)was shooting it yesterday at the range and fell in love with the sport,and all I could think about was every time he pulled the trigger that was one less trigger pull for me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. I'm gonna start shooting it more now.

Chupa
 
I am not as die hard as some of you fellas YET. I have yet to be on a trip where I have shot more than 110-120 rounds per day. But hopefully one day in the future I will have enough time and money to load up 1000 rounds and just go shoot things for 2-3 days straight.
 
Just shoot them. The happiest day of your relationship with that rifle will be the day you get it back from the smith with a new barrel. LOL
 
I could be way off here but i believe that the 30,000 and 60,000 round numbers mentioned above just may have one too many zeros. I do believe I remember a post from a Varmit website where someone asked this question and there was a reply from someone who had replaced his barrel after 3800 rounds which seems low but there are a lot of variables to barrel life. I cannot see a .20 caliber traveling over 4000fps getting 60,000 rounds but I could be wrong.
 
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I could be way off here but i believe that the 30,000 and 60,000 round numbers mentioned above just may have one too many zeros. I do believe I remember a post from a Varmit website where someone asked this question and there was a reply from someone who had replaced his barrel after 3800 rounds which seems low but there are a lot of variables to barrel life. I cannot see a .20 caliber traveling over 4000fps getting 60,000 rounds but I could be wrong.



I agree with you I am thinking 6000 rounds would still make me happy in the life of the barrel. 3000 is still a lot of rounds but I do not load hot so I would hope for more than 3000 rounds in the end. I am still going to get the .204, just wanted to know.
 
I have two, take them out doggin many times a year and the one thing I never think about is barrel life. I already have enough real things to worry about. Both of my .204s have between 3000-3500 rds thru them. If they make it to 5000 I'll be happy and I see no reason why they won't.
 
I have heard 4000-6000 shouldnt be a problem at all. Im not sure, I guess I might have to find out myself. Also, I have noticed the accuracy falls off after about 100rds. I just run my snake through it and it is back. I am also talking pretty minor group changes, but I notice them.
 
I remember reading an article in Precision Reloading, I think it was, concerning the effects, if any of cryotreating barrels in terms of extending barrel life. The fellow was using a .308 Win. and shooting a lot of matches with it. I believe he went through 4 or 5 barrels, possibly more (but my memory of the details of it is sketchy) in doing the test.

He found that the barrels lost enough accuracy by about 3500 rounds to need replacing. So, with the larger, and considerably more overbore, .22, .243 and .25 cal. center fires, I would expect anything over that is probably wishful thinking.
 
CDR I believe you are right. I would be pleasently happy with 3000 rounds before replacing the barrel; considering that is a lot of time spent in he field to reach that large number there must have been a lot of good times with those 3000 rounds and and that point it would be worth the new barrel.
 
Barrel life should be as good, or better, than the .223 (which is quite good). I posted a link to a research study on this topic here on PM sometime back, which shows exactly that, but couldn't find it with my limited 'search' skills.
 
I've always heard that it's not so much the velocity of the bullet, but the size of the powder charge to attain that velocity. An example is the .204 can reach 3800 fps with a 40 grain bullet using about 28.5 grains of powder. Whereas the 220 swift needs about 39 grains of powder to reach the same 3800 fps with a 50 grain bullet. That's over a third more powder to reach the same fps. All that extra hot gas has a nasty habit of eating up all the little do-dads in the throat of the chamber that contribute to good accuracy. Also, shooting almost any gun rapid fire for long strings without letting the barrel cool is bad, bad, bad!! I think that the .204's should easily reach 4000 or more rounds with very little noticable difference in accuracy. Maybe an 1/8" or so, but I wouldn't be concerned about that.
 
Im guessin that throat erosion is what you guys are talkin about?

In my humble uneducated opinion there is no "magic cartridge". From trigger pull one the barrel is on its way out the door. Its up to you to decide when enough is enough. As far as wear of a 223? Nope, its not going to last that long. The pressure is higher and powder charges are larger. Is it going to be a lot worse? Doubt it. Like as above stated, shoot the darn thing. If and when it becomes neccesary to thread on a new one, its not like the gun is going to be any worse for it. And if you are lucky enough to have a savage, its going to be cheaper to boot.
 
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