so im building a 6.5 SAUM because I have become a 6.5 nut. My intention here is not to discredit any claims about the 6.5 SAUM. My 338 Edge and 300 Ultra mag are hammers on animals , and for long range Elk I will continue using them , However , for everything else (except Brownies) I have never felt under gunned with 6.5 anything. I shot my 6.5x284 today and it brought my total round count on this barrel to 1,410 rounds and it is still shooting like the pictures below indicate. I started with h-1000 because I had a lot of it for the edge and the 300rum. I didnt get the results I wanted and after talking to a friend went to retumbo. My cleaning regiment has been patches with Butches Bore Shine and 1 pass toward the muzzle with a bronze brush to knock out the carbon ring a bit. The point of my rambling is although I dont know the pressure on my load , the brass is warm ,not hot to the touch after firing. The load is 57.3 gr Retumbo, Lapua brass, rem 9 1/2 primers oal 3.175, ave. velocity 2965. I never get the barrel hot. I wonder how long this barrel will keep this up (Rock 8 twst. 26") , and if anyone else was getting similar results.?

6 rounds at 100M the bottom group at 300m (little wind I didnt correct , might have done better but it was 9 degrees )

I don't that your ? can be answered ,but hopefully for a good while as it's a hammer, as long as you let it cool a little between shots it will add to the life!

What bullet you shooting?

Looks great to me! Keep putting rounds downrange and keep track of them. When accuracy falls off, redevelop the load by increasing the charge and/or OAL.

If that fails, you'll know your barrel is worn out. Until then who cares. You have a frigging laser

140 VLD hunting , still building a 6.5 SAUM, because its even better, but gotta wonder if the burnt up barrel in 800 rounds thing doesn't come from the benchrest world , dumping rounds out as fast as you can to beat wind conditions? Anyways , just wondered if anyone else was seeing this kind of life out of theirs. I think the 6.5x284 has developed a bad rep. for some and for some reasons that may not altogether necessarily be true.

You will probably not get more than 1800-2000 rounds and continue that accuracy. That has been my experience. In 10 round shot competition, 1500 is the norm for competitive accuracy. For general use, it's much greater.

My 300 WBY went about 2800 rounds then bam, accuracy went south. I thought that was pretty good.

Photo link was interesting to say the least for the group sizes....

how so?

"You will probably not get more than 1800-2000 rounds and continue that accuracy."

I agree , surprised I got this many from what Ive been told.

As others have mentioned the short barrel life stories for the 6.5-284 are from folks shooting 60 round f class matches with it as fast as they can pull the trigger. Clean it good and have someone borescope the throat if you want to know how much good is left, when it goes south you can still set it back and only lose an inch or so probably.

From experience and reading some what, it seems much of extending barrel life revolves around lowering working pressures and barrel temp. Keeping your barrel cool/er during range sessions, no doubt, has a positive effect on extending your barrel life. When George Gardner, GAP rifles, won last years Snipers Hide cup with his 6.5 SAUM, he had, IIRC, somewhat over 4 or 5k rounds down his barrel. His 6.5 SAUM load just doesn't need that much pressure to achieve the velocity he seeks.

Alan

3k rounds and one setback, IIRC

Alan, he told me he didn't know what pressure he was running the 6.5 SAUM, if I was betting I would say a lot closer to 63K than 53K.