Barrel Wear

[MDCXD]

Although I'm fairly new to shooting, I've put a lot of rounds through my guns. I've just recently purchased a Remington 700 308. Police and was wondering if there was something I should do or some sort of coating or special ammunition I should be using to help with barrel wear and accuracy. I plan on shooting approx. 30-40 rounds per weekend. I'm not sure if that's a large number or not for a rifle, and any information would be very helpful. Thank you.

 

[3rdRcn]

Although I'm fairly new to shooting, I've put a lot of rounds through my guns. I've just recently purchased a Remington 700 308. Police and was wondering if there was something I should do or some sort of coating or special ammunition I should be using to help with barrel wear and accuracy. I plan on shooting approx. 30-40 rounds per weekend. I'm not sure if that's a large number or not for a rifle, and any information would be very helpful. Thank you.

Nothing to do but shoot your gun, clean it well before shooting and I would recommend buying some good match grade ammo if you want your rifle to shoot it's best. I would recommend Federal Gold Medal Match (FGMM) for a remington, I've never seen one that didn't like FGMM.

Shooting 30-40 rounds per week will take a very long time to wear the barrel out. You will know when it is worn out by how it's starts to shoot compared to how it has been shooting. Your groups will expand greatly and or you will start key holeing rounds at shorter distances, this will indicate the rifling in the barrel is worn down to far to spin the bullet correctly. This is a very abbreviated and simplistic explanation and I'm sure one of the rifle guru's can go into a very detailed explanation for you. Hope this helps.

 

[hole punch]

i dunno. I'm just posting because I have 666 posts and it's the Lord's observed birthday and it kinda freaked me out..

 

[MDCXD]

That funny Hole punch.

 

[novus collectus]

I don't know how credible this is, but I have read moly coated bullets helps reduce barrel wear.

 

[E.Shell]

As said above, it will take a VERY long time to see meaningful wear in your .308 due to shooting.

Get a good quality cleaning rod (Dewey or Bore-Tech), a good rod guide (Mike Lucas) and use Wipe-Out to eliminate brushing and substantially reduce the number of rod passes, and you will help reduce the biggest wear factor you'll ever encounter: cleaning.

It will not hurt a .308 to fire several hundred rounds between cleanings if it is not subjected to moisture. To clean it after a 30-40 round range session is going to be a LOT of extra work (and wear) with no measurable gain.

Let the rifle "tell you" how it needs to be cleaned. Factory rifles like the 700P may shoot better after being fouled, or may shoot better with a perfectly clean bore (less likely). If you compare your initial groups fired right after a thorough cleaning to your groups at the end of a prolonged shooting session, you may see a difference. This experimentation will let you know what to do. My .308 LTR and VS both shot much better after a box of ammo down the bore, and I only clean the LTR every couple hundred rounds. The VS has been rebarreled and I have not shot it enough to see where it wants to be.

Moly is said to provides several advantages; reducing pressures, reducing the need to clean, reducing wear. The only "benefit" that is fully proved is the reduced pressures, but with reduced pressures come reduced velocities and we just add more powder to get back up where we were with uncoated bullets. The truth is that, without about a million rounds through a hundred "identical" barrels under tightly controlled conditions, we just don't know. As with many things , if we just "think" it helps, it probably does. I prefer the reduced effort and mess of casting the chicken bones and chanting.

For every "story" of reduced wear, there is a corresponding "story" of how moisture can be trapped under the moly and prematurely corrode and pit the bore.

Another problem with moly is that once cleaned, the rifle will need several rounds fired to "re-season" the bore. I tried moly in several rifles, and found that is just provided one more bore contaminant to be removed when excessive build-up occurs, with no visible advantage. With my 6.5-284, it took 5 rounds to settle in to it's normal zero, with the 6.5-300 Wby, it took about 7. During the time these first rounds settle in, the bullets "walk", from being as much as 1 MOA out, toward the final point of impact. Shooting uncoated bullets, my rifles put the first round in the same spot as the dirty group - a HUGE luxury.

How these wasted rounds figure into bore wear is easy math, based on how often one cleans. Another problem with this "settling in" is that some matches I attend have very demanding cold bore shots, and unless one if very much on top of their game, it is easy to forget to hold off for the first few shots. My last Allegheny Sniper Challenge began with a cold bore shot at a 1" square at 100 yards, immediately followed by a ten round group. The effort required to plot the changing error and compensate those first 5 rounds to keep them in a 1/2" group would be insane under match conditions.

We can add the cost of moly coating and the extra powder and the wasted fouling rounds and count that against the purported barrel life savings and where do we go?

IMHO, it was a fad and for awhile, "everyone" used moly, but most folks have gotten away from it and we see in retrospect that almost everyone who ever touted the benefits of moly coating bullets was either in the first wave of infatuation or somehow involved in the marketing thereof.

 

[boule]

Well, there is always something to the story of one type of coating against another type against uncoated. Afaik there has been one proven case of ammo treatment that really helped: The grease ring on the swiss GP11 and the cartige is a pretty good match for the .308
Honestly. The swiss tried to make the GP11 a match-quality round and also tried to make the barrels of their issued rifles last longer. The result of their research can be found on the original ammo as a small grease ring on the bullet that, when fired, spreads and lubes.

In hindsight I would say go with no extra lubing for standard rounds, if you feel you have to have something go with some wax or other lube and those weird coatings only if you believe in them.

 

[MDCXD]

Thank you all for your input. I will try and find some wipeout. I often wondered if I was hurting the barrel by using the stiff brush that comes in the cleaning kits. I was also worried about over-cleaning. As for the Federal Gold Match, I am having a hard time finding it locally. However, I'll keep searching. Thanks again.

 

[novus collectus]

Well, there is always something to the story of one type of coating against another type against uncoated. Afaik there has been one proven case of ammo treatment that really helped: The grease ring on the swiss GP11 and the cartige is a pretty good match for the .308
Honestly. The swiss tried to make the GP11 a match-quality round and also tried to make the barrels of their issued rifles last longer. The result of their research can be found on the original ammo as a small grease ring on the bullet that, when fired, spreads and lubes.

In hindsight I would say go with no extra lubing for standard rounds, if you feel you have to have something go with some wax or other lube and those weird coatings only if you believe in them.

The ring on the GP11 is generally beeswax and not all years of ammo manufacture have it.

 

[boule]

The ring on the GP11 is generally beeswax and not all years of ammo manufacture have it.

You are right in these regards. The original GP11 that was manufactured for repeating rifles without this grease ring. When the stg57 and other fa capable weapons were introduced, the grease was added to reduce barrel wear, improve the smooth working of the action and also assist centering the cartige.
When the stg90 was introduced, the production of GP11 rounds was significantly decreased and destignated mg-GP11 for machine guns.
After ceasing production for the Swiss government, Thun ammunition works (sm) continued to produce an amount of 7,5x55 for the civilian makret. This saw a number of changes, especially the reduction of steps necessary for the production, changes of jacket material, boxer ignition and they left out the grease ring... probably all in the name of profit maximization.

Source:
die repetiergewehre der schweiz
das system vetterli und schmidt-rubin
von ch. reinhard, kurt. sallaz und michael am rhyn
verlag: stocker-schmid

and

Michael am Rhyn - Donnés sur le culot de la douille des Cartouches Suisse

Whatever it is, they are not really using pure beeswax as a lube. It has a different smell and consistency and can sometimes be found in swiss shops but I guess beeswax is a major component of it.