How do you know your at the end of your barrel life.

[Ashtar]

Hello Everyone,

First time post here. My name is Dave, I've just started to get into shooting. A few months back I bought a used Rem 700 30-06. What I would like to do with rifle is, give me a hobby that I can relax with. And maybe in the future enter in some F - O tournaments. And someday do some hunting with it. So, after putting a few hundred rounds down range with it. I started to get into reloading my own ammo, in order to save a little bit on the cost. But, most importantly was to be able to get closer to that 1 MOA. I also did a small upgrade on the scope as well. But rather get into whats on the rifle, what I would like to talk about is whats going on within the rifle. As I stated, I've gotten into doing my own reloading. I have not found the right load for the rounds/barrel just yet. But what I was going to do next was find out where the Lands is at. So I got a OAL gauge, and found out that the rounds that I have been using have a bit of a jump on my ammo at this time. In fact, if I seat the bullet so that its just at the lands, all that is left on the bullet is right about .308.

To me, there should be a bit more "Lands" there for me to work with... Has my barrel been shot out? (ie used to its limit? Time to get a new one if I'm looking to get any closer to that 1 (or less) MOA?) This is assuming that I know how to find my bullet depth, and so on. Regardless of what case I'm using, regardless of what bullet I'm using. (hornady case, hornady 168 gr. Match) Case length is good. I still should have some wiggle room with the 168 gr? I still should be able to jam into the lands about .015 right?

TEACH ME!

Regards,
Dave.

 

[roggom]

If you are worried about throat erosion you can have a smith take a look, or get a very bright LED light and take a look for yourself.

Before you start jamming the lands though, I would try a bullet with a more forgiving ogive, i/e Hornady Amax, Sierra Match King or Lapua Scenar. Try an OCW at book listed OAL and see what happens. The OCW should get you close to a good charge, then you can fine tune by adjusting seating depth.

Jamming lands is fine if you plan on single feeding your rifle. For me I like my ammo to fit in the magazine.

Also which barrel contour do you have? If you have a sporter barrel contour, you may just have some heat shift.

 

[jakelly]

Remington 700s are usually long throated. .308-.015=.293 so you are fine there, but like roggom said, that might not be where you want to be. Buy some books and read them, welcome to the hide. Understanding modern firearm ballistics helped me when I first started.

P.S. Frank started a stupid marksmanship questions subforum.

 

[leadbullet]

you'll know when your barrel is shot out, erratic accuracy and nothing on call.
cheers.

 

[Sniper260]

^^^^^ when you first get a new barrel and work up a load you will find your seating depth... as your shoot and wear out the throat your seating depth with become longer and longer to keep the bullet seated right in the lands... once its been shot out you will find you have to seat the bullet way out and it wont be accurate at all.. shots will go all over the paper or even sometimes you will find the bullet is tumbling already and you have sideways holes in the target instead of the nice round bullet holes.

 

[Ashtar]

Also which barrel contour do you have? If you have a sporter barrel contour, you may just have some heat shift.

It is a Remington Standard. It's .650 at the end of the barrel. @26'

^^^^^ when you first get a new barrel and work up a load you will find your seating depth... as your shoot and wear out the throat your seating depth with become longer and longer to keep the bullet seated right in the lands... once its been shot out you will find you have to seat the bullet way out and it wont be accurate at all.. shots will go all over the paper or even sometimes you will find the bullet is tumbling already and you have sideways holes in the target instead of the nice round bullet holes.

I know that I am still new at shooting, and very new trying learn everything that there is about shooting. Right now I'm trying to get the basic's down of the load and the rifle. The bullets are not tumbling yet, but they do seem to be erratic over the paper. So I was trying to find the seating depth, in hopes of finding a better load for the barrel. After I found the seating depth, I was going to start with the powder charge, and go from there.



Thanks to everyone for their input. I've started browsing the newbie section, and I'll see what I can find there.