Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Barrel Life and the 6.5 Creedmore

Interesting topic for sure. I am slowly working on burning out the barrel on one of my 6.5 creedmoor rifles. The other one, I save for hunting (Tikka T3x Superlite). The rifle that I have been shooting more has been my savage 12fv cabela's exclusive. I really don't care if I toast the barrel on that rifle, as the whole rifle can be bought, at certain times of the year, for $319.00...When I first started loading for the rifle (back in august of last year, I made a note of the OAL for the 140 grain Hornady ELD match bullet. It measured 2.840" OAL to the lands. I loaded them at .020" off the lands and have shot that same OAL for the last 8 months. Here's one of the first targets I shot with said rifle with both factory ammo and my first handloads, where I was working up a load:

This gives you a little comparison of how 1 type of factory ammo does compared to a non fine tuned handload. Both loads use the same 140gr ELD match bullet. The charge wt the rifle dotes on is 41.5 grains of H4350, and that is what I've stuck with for the last 8 months.

Here's how the rifle shot with a fairly new barrel (after 150 rounds downrange) that was starting to break in:

The throat was still very fresh, with no signs of errosion.

Now, when I measure OAL, the lands are at 2.865". So, in 1000 rounds down the tube, the throat errosion is .025". To me, that is not much at all. The other night, I loaded some ammo to 2.845" just to check accuracy. I may even have to re-adjust for optimum powder charge as well. I plan on shooting those loads this weekend to make a comparison. But as of right now, at 1,040 rounds down the barrel of my 6.5 creedmoor, I don't see any loss of accuracy. Here's one of the last groups I shot with said rifle when it was right at the 1,000 round mark:


I'll continue to keep track of how this rifle does and make note of when accuracy finally starts dropping off. Could be interesting...