Barrel Heat

[Dennis]

I am getting ready to break in a new Bull Barrel.

I have a laser thermometer and can check the heat basically anywhere on the rifle when shooting.

Question: What would you consider the temperature limit before you would stop shooting and let the barrel cool off?

Thanks for your help,

Dennis

[missed]

I'm curious myself. I broke my 22-250 in when it was 110 degrees out, didn't take long to get hot. I bet I took an hour to get 10 rounds down it.

[jonbearman]

It is OK to take the outside temp of your bull barrel but it wont read the core temp.If you get a bull barrel hot,you are shooting too fast and of course you probably dont anyway and it depends what the air temp and humidity is to judge how fast it heats up. If you cant comfortably put your hand on it,it is already too hot to continue shooting.

[sharpshooter]

140 degrees F. That's the temperature you can no longer hold it for long. Most people don't have a clue how hot some things are, for instance: bath water is usually around 102-104 degrees. Comfortable heat range for sipping coffee, 120-125 degrees. On a side note, McDonalds brews their coffee @ 190. By the time it gets in your hands it is still over 180 degrees...just beware.

[Jetpig]

Go for the glow my friend!

[ss750]

Just a question here... But after not being here for very long, I was assuming that you are high up in the McGowen food chain. Shouldn't we be asking you this question? Lol.

[earl39]

Dennis i don't know how hot they get but my (and i assume others) F-Class barrels average 1 shot per minute and sometimes we are shooting faster than that without any noticeable lose of accuracy. Thats 20+ shots. How hot do they get? Well hot enough in the summer that you don't want to grab them. During breakin and load workup i didn't shoot them that fast so maybe an average of 1 shot every 3 minutes. I would shoot 5 and go check the target 300 yards down range. That gave the barrel time to cool and me time to finish cussing.