Define "smokeless loads". Mild (light, as in powderpuff) smokeless loads and cast/swaged lead bullets will allow for an infinitely long barrel life in soft steel barrels. You will do more damage with sloppy cleaning methods. It was the actions of some of the guns themselves made before the intro of .22 hi vel ammo that were suspect, not the barrels. A soft steel .22 barrel will last a lifetime too with HV ammo, no big deal. I'll bet a heckuva lot of low pressure cf barrels of the teens-20's were wrecked from chlorate primers and sloppy cleaning more so than jacketed bullets, although they would certainly hasten things along.
Shooting mostly cast bullets in antique Savage lever guns will stop the steady wear of barrels that Savage simply ain't making anymore. Also, it's not necessarily the jacketed bullets that kill a barrel, it's more so the hot powder gases eroding the throats. Tone your loads down, way down, in the old ones fellas. Traditional light cast bullet loads obviate that factor also. ( So you see, they aren't just for fun and games. They're instrumental in saving the old girls if, like me, you like shooting them a lot.)
