Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Howa 1500 .223 varmit freebore issue

So a friend wants me to load for his newly acquired, but used, Howa .223 varmit rifle.

It’s a 1:12 twist, so I throw some of my 52 hpbt loads in it and it shows some promise.
I bring it home and go to measure the chamber length. I use my Hornady oal gague in it and slide it forward until the bullet hits the lands, then slide the gague out. The bullet stayed in the rifle, so I use a cleaning rod to push it out, no big deal. I look at the gague and the push rod portion is at the end of the case. I check it again and again..... the free bore is the entire length of the 52 hpbt projectile, which is roughly .31xx. Without a bore scope, is this barrel shot out?

No way, you damn near cannot shoot out a 223. Lol (yes I know it's possible)

Guessing either someone throated it for a different bullet or it just has a long throat.

I sure as heck wore one out, a Howa .223 that I took PDoggin' several times. Nice rifle, absolutely LOVED 50gr. Sierra Blitzkings and Benchmark. I shot the heck outa that gun, and laid waste to a lot of PDs with it. It's favorite load, before I shot it half to death, was H322 and 50gr. SPSX bullets. After I shot it a couple of years, I switched to the BlitzKing load, and shot it awhile longer. I finally swapped it for a Howa .270 that had also been shot hard and put up dirty. The .270 still shot well enough to knock down a few deer, though.

Yes, it is possible to shoot them out, maybe not soo much in Ohio but in the west it is pretty easy to wear one out shooting PD's and ground squirrels. Even if care is taken to not run them hot the throat goes eventually. I have one that when new the 40 Noslers seated even with the case/neck juncture now with the bullet barely seated I can't reach the lands with Nosler 50 gr bullets.
I shot worn out numerous 223 barrels over the year, but it is not unusral for me to shoot 2000 rounds or more throughout the spring/summer. About 5000 rounds and accuracy begins to degrade and by 6000 - 7000 rounds flyers become quite common and the rifle is no longer "minute of ground squirrel".
I consider barrels just another consumable, like and bullets.

drover

I keep hearing about 10k round 223s. Guess that's a myth like the 5000 round 243

Ive got one! (223)

I'll admit I pretty much babied it, Hart Barrel, and for the most part I tried NOT to shoot it too hot and too dirty....

In the beginning it shot virtually anything you put in it...now it seems to prefer really good and somewhat heavy ( 60 grain) bullets....the first sign that its starting to slip....

Burned a few 223 barrels shooting them hot and dirty and they usually go at about 8000-9000 rounds when you abuse them.

Might just be a lot of freebore from the factory. Some of the heavier bullets, or 75 gr hornady are pretty long.

Most of the Howas are 1-12" twist, and won't handle those bullets. They did make some with 1-9" twist, but those were Police models, with matte finished wood and metal.

Mine was certainly the 1-12" barrel, it didn't really like the 55s, even. The shorter bullet, the better. I also had a couple Savage .223s (1-9" twist barrels) which I switched out to keep from getting them blistering hot, but that didn't work all the time, it takes awhile to cool them off when it's 115 degrees on the South Dakota prairies.