Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 22-6mm barrel life

BBerg -

Barrel life is a concern, but on a deer rifle, if you don't shoot it out during load workup, one barrel will last a lifetime and then some unless you're a game manager culling herds.

What I would suggest is be real picky about your components up front and do not fire any more shots than you have to, find something that is "good enough" rather than wearing out your barrel looking for another quarter inch more accuracy.

Pick the bullet you most want to use. Pick the powder that seems to be best for it. Note that Hornady's last manual has .22-6mm data so that may help. I would go 3 shots each by half grain increments. If 3 shots doesn't shoot good, 5 or 10 won't shoot any better. If the first powder doesn't work, try another. If the 3rd doesn't work, move to another bullet and repeat.

I get caught up in chasing best accuracy too often instead of finding "good enough" so I use up a lot of barrel life unnecessarily making holes in paper rather than in meat. With the high intensity cartridges you have to avoid that. That's one reason for going top drawer on your components and gunsmith .. stuff has to work quick, you can't afford a lot of trying this and trying that.

FWIW ... some folks are religiously pro, some religiously anti, and I don't want to start a religious war, but ... for real high intensity throat eaters, moly is your friend. I've had many-fold gains in throat life with mollied vs naked bullets. If you want to go with moly, you may want to change the throat shape because it does best with bullets seated into the rifling so you may want to consider that up front with your gunsmith rather than as an afterthought. Also, you'll have to change your cleaning practices to maximize the paybacks on moly.

Tom

I have been using Danzac/WS2 in my 22/6mm AI. Way too early to say it has made a difference.

In the near future, I am switching to HBN though.

Tom,

That is very sound advise...

I will concentrate in Sierra 65gr GK and TSX 62gr and not wear the barrel out with load development trying to squeeze of the last 1/4 moa.

What powder you think I should start with? I do not have access to US-made powders, only to Europeans like Norma and Vihtavuori, but I will use one in the same burning rate to the one you suggest.

BBerg

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I honestly don't know at the moment. I'm away from my load manuals. When I get back to them tonight, I'll be away from the internet for about 10 days. No overlap. Hopefully someone else can chime in. (It's in Hornady #26 I'm pretty sure.)

Tom

You're talking about 50+ gr. powder through a 22cal hole. Barrel life won't be great in terms of number/rounds. Since this will be a deer rifle, the barrel should last for years.

I am shooting a 22-243AI in a 26 inch Varmint weight Savage 112V.

I get 3900 fps with moly coated Hornady 60 gr spire point bullets using RL 19 or H4831.

A powder with similar burn rate should work well in your cartridge.

I have gotten 2200 rounds there abouts out of one of my 22-250 calibers before the groups started to widen up some. I don't worry about barrel life anymore, I take precautions NOT to get the barrel over heated, clean it every 40 rounds fired, when P-dog hunting, ever 10 when shooting targets at the range.
I do shoot moly bullets in my .204 Ruger and 22-250 cal.

What Tonk said. Especially the part about barrel heat. Never shoot the rifle fast enough that you can't pick it up by the barrel with your bare hand.
Other than that, don't worry about it. I certainly wouldn't leave a rifle in the safe cause I was worried about shooting out the barrel. Anyway, it ain't gonna suddenly go from a tack driver to a pray and spray piece of sewer pipe. The accuracy will fall off gradually but it'll still be a good deer rifle for quite a while.
I've only rebarrelled a couple of hunting rifles and those were because I didn't like their preformance on the bench. They were still doing the job in the field.