Barrel Life

What kind of barrel life should I expect from a Savage 110 7mm RM. I have only shot factory loads with it, mainly Winchester PowerPoints and Federal with Nosler partitions, and just recently cup&core reloads that should be about 2800-3000fps per book.
Are we talking 1k shots? 5k? just to have an idea. The gun remains shooting well, so its nothing urgent, but I know some of the custom barrel makers have a long wait time for them, so if I just shoot out this current barrel I'd like to get a new one in time... any recommendation on barrels too?
Thanks!

Barrel life is conditional on number of shots, how fast fired making the barrel hot and erroding the throat area. The throat is what goes looooooong before any rifling wear. Many times, improper over zelous cleaning ruins more bores than rounds fired. Just a rough estimate, expect at least 1500 to 2000 rounds before the barrel accuracy falls off. On a hunting rifle, that's a number of years for minute of deer accuracy. From a long range bench gun, could be toast in a year if it will no longer hold tight groups, so you see accuracy is subjective. Good barrels can be had from Sharp Shooter Supply, Northlander and Sinarms, all site sponsors here.

I believe it was Jack O'Connor that pointed out ( I've updated the $$) that it would cost you +or- $2000 in ammo to shoot a barrel out using factory ammo while a new barrel will cost you a few hundred $$. Fire away just take your finger off the trigger long enough to let the barrel cool off every now and then.

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Originally Posted by powderburn

I believe it was Jack O'Connor that pointed out ( I've updated the $$) that it would cost you +or- $2000 in ammo to shoot a barrel out using factory ammo while a new barrel will cost you a few hundred $$. Fire away just take your finger off the trigger long enough to let the barrel cool off every now and then.

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that would give you roughly 400 to 8000 rounds depending on caliber. don't remember where i heard it but barrel life if measured in time instead of rounds shot would only be a few, as in 4 or 5 seconds. that is adding all the milliseconds the bullets are actually in the barrel.

Gary

I did that math on here a long time ago. As stated above though, barrel life is a very realtive and fluid term. Over 1/4" and it is garbage for a bench rest shooter. For a hunter that is crazy accurate and will remain plenty good for a long time. It is aso affected by how the barrel is treated, heated up a lot, and how it is cleaned. If you are casually shooting and hunting then it should be a while before you need to replace one, if ever. No one says you have to wait until your current barrel is toast to order a new one though.........

If you are happy with a factory barrel become a paid member and check the classifieds you will probably be able to pick up a used or factory takeoff very reasonable Fred

I have read barrel life is 13# of powder. That came from SSS I think.

Definitely less IMO as you go up in overbores and magnums especially if you shoot fast loads hot, but I have never found any rules of thumb like, this and that reduces your barrel life some %.

Probably more life for weaker cartridges.

If the 13# rule is correct for the 7mm RM then 1500 rounds figuring 60 gr per load.

Here is a formula that will give an est on barrel life, just plug in the variables:

http://accurateshooter.net/Blog/barrellifeupdate.xls

First of all I think you would get more sound advice if everyone knew the intent of this gun. As previously mentioned hunting accuracy is far different than Benchrest accuracy.

I would encourage you to buy a replacement barrel now and keep shooting the one that you have. Additionally I would encourage you to keep an open mind with respects to the barrel life. I have a 260 barrel that after 8000+ rounds will still shoot half MOA groups. I had previously been informed that I should only get 3500 rounds out of it.

Also mentioned by GaCop is the cleaning issue and how it can ruin a good barrel. I realize that there are hundreds of opinions on barrel break in and barrel cleaning and I am not advocating what I have done works for everyone. Since I am not a Benchrest shooter and I simply shoot long range for enjoyment, I only clean my barrel when the gun shows some sort of symptom that says clean me.... Such as my groups starting to open up. For my 260 barrel, that occurs roughly after 800 rounds have been sent down the tube.

Order a new barrel by calling Sharp Shooter Supply, stick it in the closet until the other barrel heads south...

That's just my humble opinion