So just because the persnickety benchrest crowd does something automatically means it has meaning and must be beneficial? Oooooooooooook!

Reality Check: The reason benchrest shooters typically clean after every relay is they also usually shoot several sighters in each relay and in most barrels (from my own experience and that of others) the accuracy will typically start to taper off after somewhere between 20 and 30 rounds. For them, the N'th degree of accuracy is the name of the game so if there's a snowballs chance in hell that doing something might help them cut 1/1000th of an inch off their group size they'll do it and swear by it like it's the gospel.

As for whomever informed you that you'd be lucky to get 1,000 rounds from your 22-250 barrel, they obviously didn't have a clue what they were talking about. Even a fast twist 22-250 Ackley Improved barrel will surpass 2,000 rounds with ease. I have close to 1k through mine now and last we bore-scoped it it still wasn't showing the first sign of any real wear in the throat - and that's pushing 80gr Noslers at 3300fps.