Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Barrel Life With The WSM Calibers

Thought I would add a new topic. I'm waiting on a M70 SS/Syn 270WSM to come in that will be for my grandson. How many rounds can one expect to get out of a barrel before accuracy and velocity fall off? I have this rifle in a .300 WM and a .338 WM neither having 300 rounds down the tube, but I have heard that the WSM being overbore are more prong to erode the throats of barrels. What say you?
Tim

ummmmmm, yes?

More than you or your grandson will shoot in a lifetime..

...or your grandson's grandson.

800-900 rounds. The 300 wsm to 1500 rounds is the best choice of the short mags for overall hunting and barrel life.

8-900 rounds through a WSM is a mightly lot of shooting - if you plan to use it solely as a hunting gun.

I would say that the WSM's arent intended for heavy duty target work - unless you plan replacing the barrel on a regular basis.

But for hunting, they are mighty fine.

CK

That 800-900 rounds is what i've read elsewhere. I don't know how much my grandson will shot it, but it has supposedly been shot 80 times. I will probably shot it a 100 or so time working up a load for it, then we'll see.
Tim

Well, more prone than "what"?

A case of similar capacity shot at the same rate? I have not had the pleasure of shooting out a WSM....but I have shot out barrels chambered for other cartridges of similar capacity.I doubt a WSM is any more prone to this than any other cartridge of similar volume.

Hello all, I'm new to post, but a long time follower, great stuff here, thanks. I grew up with my dad's Ruger M77 22-250 heavy barrel and learned to appreciate some truly impressive long range shots at coyotes, other varmints, and the occasional unsuspecting northern goose sitting on the pond at a quarter.

Reason I'm posting is because I should be receiving my new Kimber Pro Varmint 22-250 tomorrow and have been gathering factory loads over the last week in prep to get the new rifle broken in and then sighted for it's favorite factory load.

I have 10 boxes of shells to try, normal suspects, Win, Rem, Hornady, & Federal, mostly in varmint loads ranging from 45gr-60gr. I've graphed all of the ballistics and it appears that (based on factory data) the Hornady Superformance V-Max in a 50gr appears to outperform all of the other factory loads on velocity/drop/and energy.

I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with the Hornady Superformance in 22-250 and if they've been able to substantiate the factory projections?

you need to click new post not reply to start a new thread!

Thanks, sorry about that. Still trying to get this figured out. My apologies.

Given that the 300 WSM has roughly the same capacity as the 300 H&H, think it's safe to say it would last about as long?

One of my 300WSM's is at right 2k rounds and is still fairly accurate.

Marty: I would think so.....

I have gotten more that 1200 out of a 270/7mm RUM. With a little care a 7WSM will last at least 1800. I expect to more than a thousand rounds out of my 6.5 WSM. Maybe it is because I shoot decent barrels, but my barrels usually last much longer than every ones estimates.

I've got about 500 thru mine. If it wears out I'll just stick another tube on it.

I've run multiple barrels (non WSM's) thru their life cycle, IME it would depend on how you ran it. Bottom line, I'd expect good accuracy from a good barrel for a minimum of 2K rounds if one got after it a bit.

Now if one shot them as most would (200 or so rounds a year) it's gonna last one heck of a long time, probably 3K rounds at least.

Dober

I would have to say that it would depend on many factors.
How many shots at a time you are going to take.
How hot you plan to try to load it.
Where you hunt and what type of accuracy you are looking for.

My guess would be that it would be a waste of time for you to try to work up a hotter then suggested load for that rifle because it is already loaded as hot as it needs to be.

The performance of the .270 WSM is probably only 150 fps faster then a regular 270 Winchester.
It's not really worth the powder and expense of having to buy special brass to load the .270 WSM when all the ammo off the shelf will already do what you intend it to do - at a fraction of the cost of reloading.

The case life is next to nothing - about 3 times and it will show signs of failure and cracks - so reloading would only be for vanity or to be able to use more expensive bullets at a cheaper price and not to improve accuracy or to get more performance out of it.

My suggestion is to leave it alone.
Buy factory loads and sight it in and use it as a hunting rifle and don't worry about how many rounds it takes to shoot out the barrel.

I would venture to say that my Browning has less then 3 boxes of shells shot through it and it has wore two different scopes.
As I have wrote in other posts, the gun is a one and you are done. You pull the trigger, the gun goes bang, the deer flops down and your day is done.

Shooting 5 or 10 boxes of shells through it isn't going to make it more accurate and it is going to wear the barrel.

I would venture to say that I expect a minimum of 1000 rounds out of my barrel before I even notice any degradation and by that time I will be dead and gone and it will belong to someone else.
If you keep it clean and remove the copper foul from time to time - you could probably get 2000 rounds out of a barrel with no problems.
The barrel isn't going to wear out - just the throat.
That comes from burning all the powder.
Increasing the amount of powder in the shell or using a hotter burning powder is just going to increase wear for little improvements in accuracy or velocity.

The only thing that I wonder is - if it was chambered with a stainless steel barrel - would it wear out faster or slower?

Only thing I wonder is why you haven't gotten thrown out of here on your 400 lb. couch hunting ass.

Because Rick's crane is broken at the moment...