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

It seems the 6.5 Creedmore is the perfect cartridge in all but one catagory: barrel life. It shoots like a laser, has excellent range and accuracy, relatively slow compared to many cartridges and is probably more efficient than most. However, what causes it to have limited barrel life? My recollection is that certain very high pressure cartridges like 220 Swift wear out barrels quickly whereas the old .308 or 7.62 X 51 mm or 5.56 have long barrel lives. The .243 has a reputation for less than stellar barrel life. I recall Mule Deer indicating something about shoulder angle directing gases being a contributing factor.

Not that I give a rat's patootie about Creedmoors, but where do you get the "short barrel life" from?

I can tell you after competing many years in Highpower rifle competition and NRA Long range there's a finite number of accurate rounds to be fired in any caliber, be it 308,223, 300 win mag or 6.5x284... Bet dollars to donuts in a comp gun the 6.5 CM would give at least 2000 accurate rds down range, which is more than I could say for the 243 or the 6.5x284...In a hunting rifle what would you consider an appropriate round count? For me, 2K is great, 4K better and if 5K is reached I would say I had gotten my moneys worth....

I expect very good barrel life out of my 6.5 Creedmoor.

Watching my 26 Nosler thru the Hawkeye, I'm guessing 1,000 to 1,200 for that one.

The 6.5 CM should double or even triple that number with care and not letting it get too hot.

DF

My Google first hand experience says 3K rounds. That 26 nosler sounds like it has a similar life as the .257 bee. I just had a new barrel put on mine. I would shoot that thing HOT! That won't happen with my new .257 barrel though. That's one reason I bought a creedmoor.

It'a a CREEDMOOR for Heaven's sake, the barrel will last forever and become more and more accurate as it ages.

Borchardt,

I almost posted something about the spelling, but apparently 6.5 Creedmoor critics (who have generally never even fired one) will also never learn to spell.

Have also seen Creedmoore, and even Creadmore.

After the way I performed with mine at the latest Metallic Silhouette match, I think Cried More might be appropriate. GD

I prefer Criedmore, but I'm just a bitter .260 Remington Lover.

How about Crede Moire? Kinda Frenchy-looking, for the folks in Quebec. I wanted to try German, but my keyboard lacks umlauts.

If subjects like popular cartridges ruin your day, maybe something like "Imapussmoor" is more appropriate.

Creedmoor is the Chuck Norris of cartridges, it grows new rifling as needed.

Gosh, sorry about the spelling. Guess I was wrong about it and the internet fiction about 6.5 Creedmoor's barrel life.

On barrel life - I get the impression that it's just popular to talk about barrel life these days, and a lot of the comments come from people who'll never shoot a barrel out. If you aren't someone who'll shoot a couple thousand rounds a year from that one rifle, it's probably not worth worrying about.

on your next barrel, consider the 6.5x47 Lapua as they fit better in magazine length, which translates to your being able to chase the lands!

My question may be simply academic since most people rarely shoot a hunting rifle to the point where accuracy falls off due to throat erosion, etc. However, some rifles are different such as AR's and so on that are used for multigun, classes and so on. My AR is approaching 10,000 rounds but my M70 .243 has close to 700 but used exclusively for hunting and practice for hunting.

Your 243 will eat a barrel faster than a 6.5 Creedmoor.

Rebarreling costs are insignificant to the costs of the bullets, powder, primers , casings in quantities sufficient to wear the barrel out for it to need replacement.. I'd lay odds most barrels that are replaced have nothing to do with being worn out. MB

Magnum Bob,

Which is exactly why every rifle manufacturer I've contacted won't rebarrel their rifles to anything other than the original chambering. They don't charge near as much as even a very "affordable" gunsmith for the service--but they also know that if they did offer rebarreling to another cartridge, rifle loonies would be sending in rifles every time they got bored!