Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Shot Out 700 222?

I finally got serious about the barrel cleaning with some Montana Extreme. Boy, it may be straight ammonia but a soaking, brushing, and another soaking finally brought the bore back to a shine. A quick trip to the range and it put Remington PSP into about 3/4 in in a 10 mph wind. I expect to do better with handloads

Thanks for all the helpful advice!

Most certainly a barrel can be turned in and you'll get more life out of it, but when I burn out a barrel its usually, as you suspect, the lands in front of the chamber. I have never bothered to turn one in and rechamber as Im just guessing that the life of it wont be long. As our JB says, they make new barrels every day!

You can definitely shoot out a .222 barrel. I have the same rifle, a Rem 700, with a toasted factory barrel. I am hanging onto it to re barrel when I find a new blued factory take off, which are very rare to find.

Know approximately how many rounds?

Glad you got the rifle shooting again. I suggest you Dyna-bore coat the barrel, since it will keep it from fouling a lot longer than with out the coating.
I went through my rifles a while back and Dyna-bore coated almost all.

Shooting only one load thru any gun tells you nothing except maybe that rifle doesn’t like that load. Edk

Agreed, but pre-cleaning it shot the Remington PSP better that some others. Am off to developing a decent handload for it.

Following this thread and I can somehow relate to both sides of this conversation. It would be difficult to burn out a 222 barrel for most shooters, but a few days of shooting lots of rounds like a PD field where the barrel was kept pretty hot for a while would definitely contribute to washing out a barrel pretty fast. Heat is always the culprit and how you manage it makes a huge difference in how long a barrel lasts for a large majority of shooters.

Glad to see the OP got some results with a good cleaning. I would think some good reloads will bring this rifle in to what most of us would consider .222 quality groups....

Bob

Caplock: I am so happy your Remington 700 BDL Rifle perked up so well with the "serious" cleaning.
Good for you - and this keeps alive the reputation of Remington 700 BDL's in 222 Remington - I have never heard of an "inaccurate" one.
I have never seen, first hand, a 222 Remington Rifle that was "shot out" - can't say it's never happened I've just never seen one - and I have seen a LOT of 222's!
In my opinion it was the beginning of the end for "Big Green" (Remington Arms Corporation) the day the "bean counter" there decided to quit producing Rifles in caliber 222 Remington!
I still own and shoot a bunch of Rifles in caliber 222 Remington and ALL of them (Remington 700 BDL Varmints, 700 BDL's, 700 Classic's, 40-X's, 788's and Sako's) are VERY accurate indeed.
The 222 Remington is the epitome of the term "inherently accurate cartridge".
Long live the "Deuce".
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Glad to hear it is still alive and shooting.

222 is less prone to being toasted than 223, for one thing, a nice long neck helps absorb some gas washing 223s have. But it's possible to smoke one in a hot dog town if you're not careful. I swap when I get barrel mirage.
I also set back and rechamber at least once per barrel. It's a good life extension, especially if you have a custom barrel in the first place. My Fireball is on it's third chambering and action, I went down the "horsepower curve" and I expect the Fireball will live longer than me.

Throat erosion has a lot to do with if a guy can stop shooting when it’s hot which can change that 3000 round number in either direction really fast.

Pdog hunters more than anyone else can run into situations where it’s just hard to stop shooting.

If you touch a barrel and your reaction is to yank your hand away the outside of the barrel is over 180 degrees, and you need to stop shooting…

If it got hot on a good dog town it sure could get shot out
May have been his only rifle for years