Is my barrel shot out?

[supratt96]

I have a 40 year old Remington 700 VS in 25-06; unmodified except for a stock swap to a HS Precision about 16 years ago. Not sure of the round count, but it's at least 950 and possibly much higher (I'm not the original owner and have no history on the rifle before I bought it about 18 years ago).

I finally bought a 25-06 modified case to use with my Hornady OAL guage and I'm not sure what to make of the results. Using a 100gr Nosler BT, the measurement to where the ogive touched the lands was 3.609". The base of the bullet was actually slighly out of the case mouth. I loaded the rounds to an OAL of 3.196 (the manual said 3.155" was max length) which left a whopping .413" jump to the lands.

Based on this alone, I would think the throat was toast on this barrel. I decided to range test it one last time to confirm my suspicions, fully expecting to see very poor accuracy. Much to my surprise, the rifle shot extremely well. Of five, 5 shot groups at 100 yds, the worst measured .586" and the best was .313".

Is it possible for a "shot out" barrel to still be this accurate? Or, is a throat this long normal for this rifle? Considering it's a slow twist barrel, never intended to shoot long, heavy bullets, this wouldn't seem to make sense.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[buffybuster]

Re: Is my barrel shot out?


Typically factory chambers have long throats. If the rifle shoots good, don't worry about it, until the accuracy falls off. What you have discovered is there's no point trying to seat to the lands.

 

[Dans40X]

Re: Is my barrel shot out?

A couple minutes with a bore scope will eliminate all doubt!!

 

[sobrbiker883]

Re: Is my barrel shot out?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: buffybuster</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
If the rifle shoots good, don't worry about it, until the accuracy falls off. What you have discovered is there's no point trying to seat to the lands. </div></div>

I would tend to agree.

I'm not a big fan of trusting what you see through a borescope over what the rifle tells you on paper. If a rifle isn't shooting, and you look with a borescope to see an alligatored throat, that's one thing. If my rifle is shooting well, I really don't care what it looks like througha scope.

 

[Lefty06]

Re: Is my barrel shot out?

A friend of mine is having the same issues with his 25-06. I'm not sure if he has it figured out yet or not. But the last time I shot it I couldn't get it to group much better than a shotgun.

 

[Country]

Re: Is my barrel shot out?

Yes it is quite possible for a barrel to still shoot well with an eroded throat. If the ammo is a good concentric fireformed fit and the bullets are concentricly seated everything else being accurate it can still shoot well.
A good indication that your barrel is fully shot out is keyholing bullets. Bullets going sideways through the target.
In the early stages of this it can show up with boat tail bullets first but still shoot ok with flat base. I don't think a shot out barrel can produce a .313 group . It sounds ok to me even if the throat is a bit worn.

 

[supratt96]

Re: Is my barrel shot out?

Thanks for the feedback. I guess the old girls still has some life left in her. Just saved myself some cash on a re-barrel, at least for a while longer.