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Can you shoot out an air gun barrel?

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RangerPete

RangerPete

Member
Jul 4, 2023
181
218
Waikato, New Zealand.
Now there’s an interesting question!

Was having a discussion today about barrel lifespans and shooting out an air rifles barrel.

Super hot powder burners like the 220Swift are well know to burn out barrels prematurely with their 4000fps velocities, a barrel might only last 2000 or even only 1000 rounds.

More modest calibures around the 2500 to 3000fps can see a barrel lasting for 5 to 10000 rounds, and I’ve heard of rifles shooting almost 15000 rounds before they needed a new barrel.
But powder burners have a few things working against their barrels that air rifles don’t.
High velocitys, heat build up, and corrosive gasses. You can probably add hard projectiles (think monolithics) to that list as well.

Air rifles shoot comparatively slow projectiles, made of soft conforming lead, seem to have no heat build up (or none that I’ve ever heard of?), and no corrosive, high pressure gasses.

So I ask the question, can you shoot out an air rifles barrel?
Have you ever heard of a shot out air rifle barrel?
What are your thoughts?
 
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Here’s an interesting barrel life tidbit on a .308WIN powder burner, barrel life is actually approximately 2.8 seconds.
Here’s the specs as posted by a guy on calguns.com
He used 3,000 rounds as expected barrel life.

22" barrel @ 3103fps using 130gr Barnes TTSX.

Barrel time per round is 0.944ms

.944 x 3,000= 2,832ms
2,832ms= 2.832 seconds
 
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It’s a combination of bore size and heat and velocity that wear center fires out. Big bore’s usually last longer than small ones depending on the case size. 223s for example usually don’t wear out quickly because of the small amount of powder being burned.
A 308 even though it’s loaded with 41-48 grains of powder will last longer than a 22 cal shooting the same amount. I had a 308 barrel go over 3000 rounds before it was fire cracked and gone.
I have a 22 Creedmoor that I load with 41 something grains of powder and I’m expecting that barrel to not be competitive after 1000-1200 rounds, I’m at about 700 on that barrel now. I have a 6.5 Creedmoor last 2500 before it gave out. It’s mainly the area in front of the chamber that gets cracked and ugly. You can feel the “Roughness “ with a patch and jag. Also the lands are eroded so much that you can’t seat the bullets long enough to get close the the lands.
That’s been my experience anyway.
 
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My guess is that a good shooting airgun barrel can only be ruined by the owner through improper cleaning, too much polishing or some other physical damage.

I don't think any of the following things that wear our the throat in a PB Barrel, happen in an airgun barrel. Notice that the friction from the bullet is not mentioned in the list. The friction from a lead pellet or slug going under 1100 FPS would be far less than a gilding metal jacket going 3200 fps.

precisionrifleblog.com

Practical Tips to Extend Barrel Life

With the number of “overbore” rifle cartridges popular today, barrel erosion is becoming a hot topic...
precisionrifleblog.com precisionrifleblog.com

What Causes It?​

There are a number of factors that play into barrel erosion, and these have traditionally been broken down into three categories. However, these factors don’t function independently of each other, but are tightly coupled and act in concert together in an interdependent fashion.

  • Thermal – Include bore surface phase changes (i.e. transitioning between solid, liquid, gas phases), softening and melting, as well as cracking due to expansion and contraction associated with the barrel heating and cooling.
  • Chemical – Include carburizing or oxidizing reactions, which are chemical processes that occur at the bore surface under extreme heat. These cause the barrel to change at a molecular level.
  • Mechanical – Includes erosion caused by direct impingement of gas and solid particles traveling across the bore surface.
For a complete technical explanation of barrel erosion, see this white paper published by the Australian Department of Defense: Understanding and Predicting Gun Barrel Erosion by Ian Johnston.

----------------------------------------------

At least one exception to PB barrels wearing out would be 22 rimfire barrels. I have a Remington 550 semi auto .22 rimfire that is 80+ years old with less than 10% remaining finish on the outside, and it still has a pristine bore and throat. I don't think it had ever been cleaned by the previous owner(s) which is probably why it was in such good shape! The floating chamber was locked in place since it was rarely if every cleaned, but I finally got it broke loose with penetrating oil.

I remember hearing about the "Winchester Ring" phenomenon where erosion would happen just forward of the chamber in 22 LR match rifles that saw hundreds of thousands of rounds of Winchester match ammo fired through them. There was a gun shop in Ft Worth back in the 70s that had literally hundreds of vintage Winchester model 52 match rifles that the owner had purchased from high schools across the country who were dropping their rifle teams, and almost all of them had the Winchester Ring in them. They still shot extremely well according to the owner. A google search brought up nothing. This was different than a "carbon ring" which is a surface deposit, whereas the Winchester Ring was caused by erosion and apparently only happened with certain types of mainly Winchester target ammo. I don't think any modern 22 rimfire ammo causes the Winchester Ring to happen but the Carbon Ring does.
 
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RangerPete said:
Now there’s an interesting question!

Was having a discussion today about barrel lifespans and shooting out an air rifles barrel.

Super hot powder burners like the 220Swift are well know to burn out barrels prematurely with their 4000fps velocities, a barrel might only last 2000 or even only 1000 rounds.

More modest calibures around the 2500 to 3000fps can see a barrel lasting for 5 to 10000 rounds, and I’ve heard of rifles shooting almost 15000 rounds before they needed a new barrel.
But powder burners have a few things working against their barrels that air rifles don’t.
High velocitys, heat build up, and corrosive gasses. You can probably add hard projectiles (think monolithics) to that list as well.

Air rifles shoot comparatively slow projectiles, made of soft conforming lead, seem to have no heat build up (or none that I’ve ever heard of?), and no corrosive, high pressure gasses.

So I ask the question, can you shoot out an air rifles barrel?
Have you ever heard of a shot out air rifle barrel?
What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

My 1975, 760 has a Brazillion BB's and pellets through it and still looks/shoots good for what it is.
 
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You forgot to mention the #1 current competitor of bore-eaters/barrel burners, the 6.8mmx51 - .277 Fury. I reckon the US military is going to start issuing SIG Spears with barrel chamberings in 7.62x51mm NATO/ .308 or otherwise .300 BLK or even 6.8mm SPC soon enough :rolleyes:
I assumed the DOD thought this one through and throughout... Clearly more than a dozen experts argue that the military lost its mind by going .277 with a service rifle - and rightfully so, because as it turned out, the M16/M4 are here to stay, at least for a while longer.

One more thing; I've got some 10+ years old Magtech AR 600 springer break-barrel, that has been refurbished a couple of times (seals and springs replaced), but when I look down the barrel now, or even slightly so, at the "chamber" area of the bore, I can tell that the bore has been slighty so polished down, because I used to look down the barrel of that gun a lot when I was an early teen, because I loved the sight of spiral/twist so much, that I can now clearly remember how it looked like... And in regards to that, I also think I know what caused that to happen - I only have a slight clue about it, but it's worth mentioning, because the twist certainly looked a little more rough back in the day. I used to shoot a lot of RWS Supermags some 6-7 years ago and those pellets were HARD and I really mean that, they could've pierced the skin on my fingers, were I to try and squeeze them hard enough. And it could as well be, that those pellets polished the bore down a bit, because they were so stiff. I should also mention at this point that I replaced the mainspring with a more powerful than the original back then and that's probably why the gun liked those pellets, that's why these Supermag pellets flew so true out of the gun. But all good things must come to an end someday, right? Due to the sheer power of that gun, the piston seal went rather quickly, therefore reducing the power level back down to 12ft/lbs at the time. I still have that gun, but now it's only got some 9ft/lbs of muzzle energy left in it, with 8.44gr JSB exacts.
 
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A air gun doesn't see the pressure of what a pb does or heat throat erosion is what the problem is in a pb you can slow it down if the barrel is longer using slower burning powder and can milk it out by chasing the lands or having the barrel set back the air gun doesn't see that kind of pressure or heat so leading would be the main cause of accuracy falling off in a air gun I don't think it's possible to shoot out a air rifle barrel
 
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The question isn't "can you wear-out an airgun barrel through prudent usage" but just simply "can you wear out an airgun barrel". The answer is yes. How? Neglect the barrel. Let a little rust build-up inside between shootings. Say, if you live on a beach and you keep your gun exposed to ocean air -- the barrel gets a little bit of beach sand and ocean water in it, between every shooting. You drop your gun in the ocean every once and a while while hunting rockfish with it, or something silly like that.

If you keep your barrel clean and dry, and properly maintain it, it's almost impossible to wear one out in a human lifespan.
 
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