My .308 has a 24” Rock 5R barrel (1:10) & I shoot FGMM 175s though it. W/ a can I’m showing 2703 MV & it shoots really well w/ no complaints. I’d say shoot it & don’t look back. As they say, barrels are tires. I’d take
@Duckford advice; shoot til your barrel til it’s toast & post a thread w/ results.
As true as barrel changing being part of high power rifle shooting is, I'll be devil's advocate in a way. Barrel life can be very important in some ways to some people, in example:
- people on budgets of time and money who can't shoot much. Some folks can't justify the time and/or money to do more than 500 rounds of accurate high power rifle per yer, let's say. Johnny Shootsum has a mortgage and a wife who wants him to spend more time with her, kids got new braces what ever other expenses come up. If he can crawl out to the range and do his half a thousand per year with the time and money he has, a 8,000 round barre life will last him a long time. By the time he wears through his first barrel, the mortgage is paid, the kids have gone off to school, and now he has the cash and time to burn through a second much faster.
In this vein, for hunters and others who only shoot, say, 100-200 rounds per year, an 8,000 round rifle barrel is a lifetime barrel. A super overbore super magnum high pressure barrel burner can sometimes be the kind of barrel that even some part time, less serious shooters might find the round count and time to burn through. In some cases, a 308 with service ammunition might be a multi generational barrel for some hunting families, whereas some of the worst cartridges might be going goofball by the time the original owner goes.
- people on a budget in general, especially cheapos like me. I can push to keep cheap, but decent, handload 308 service pressure match rounds to 50 cents a piece. Thick wall NATO brass and lower powder charges of more moderate loads may not always yield the best long range velocity/trajectory, but they save a lot of money, and they give the barrel as much life as possible. $4,000 and I'll try my damndest to get 8,000 rounds downrange, and just reaching the point of replacing an expensive barrel; someone buying hot factory rounds for overbore cartridges might be replacing a barrel in the same amount of cash, but at half or less of the rounds down range.
For me, 16,000 rounds could mean two barrel changes and a fresh new one, and closer to $8,000 in components. For some of the worst overbore, 16,000 rounds might mean four barrel changes, all cost money, and what kind of cost in ammunition? For the cheapo shooter, a man might get many more rounds down range for the same exact budget. This shouldn't determine what you shoot, but it ain't exactly nothing, either.
- for a far flung hypothetical fun argument, "The Big One", wither it be Mad Max, WW 3, Bugaloo, ect. If you expect your rifle for militia duty, the essence of the 2nd Amendment, where might you be in an emergency? If you have a 3-4k round barrel burner, and you shoot a lot, could you theoretically end up with your DMR or sniper rifle sitting with an almost burned out barrel when the Chinese paratroopers land the next town over? 4k rounds on a high use rifle with a very long barrel life means you still have a lot of life left, while short barrel lives means the highly active shooter is always running a barrel close to that rebarelling. A rather ridiculous argument, but I'd figure I'd just throw it out there for the hell of it.
Serious, high round count shooters who put the money and effort in don't mind "changing the tires". The more serious, the more they treat them like how racers treat tires, run them hard and swap them out. For those without the means or the passion, those hard road tires have some appeal.
