hot rifle barrel - damage when shooting?

[AdamARM]

Hi,

I have found in numerous sites the idea that shooting a rifle barrel when it is hot could

[1] lead to poor groups while barrel is hot and

[2] cause  damage to the barrel. 

My question focuses on this second part: causing damage to the barrel when shooting a hot barrel, specifically from a 357 lever.

My gut tells me that shooting fast and high power/pressure rounds from a hot rifle could damage the barrel, but a 357 is not powerful/fast enough to cause damage when shooting from a hot barrel.  Certainly each round fired will add minor wear and tear, but it seems that a 357 lever gun is intended to be shot fast without too much concern about the temperature of the barrel (is this assumption correct)?  I am assuming here normal 357 loads.

-Adam

[awp101]

The warnings about barrel heat are usually directed more towards overbore calibers and speed demons like .22-250 that can and will heat a barrel up fast enough to do damage. I've heard many stories of bolt action barrels being over heated and damaged in a target rich environment like a prairie dog town and semi-autos are even more susceptible.

Unless you're doing the lever action equivalent of a mag dump multiple times and/or using some super fast burning powder a .357 lever is probably not going to be able to be fired and reloaded fast enough to have major concern but personally I wouldn't make it a habit.

[coldtriggerfinger]

Overbore cartridges really eat up a rifles throat and the erosion eats its way toward the muzzle. When shooting a cartridge like a 7mm RUM ect. Other high pressure carts also cause throat erosion .
Rounds like the 6.5 Creedmoor are generally good to 2500 rounds with pinpoint accuracy. Where as the 308 Winchester will run 4,000 for the same amount of erosion. Sometimes more. These # are from match shooting where sometimes the carts are producing absolutely Max working pressure . 60,000 psi and usually much higher. And where shooters find a certain wind or mirage condition that is favorable and dump as many rounds as they can in those conditions.
Some wear depends on the quality and type of steel in the barrel.
With a lever action 357 mag . you will probably experience more wear on the action parts than you'll get throat erosion and barrel wear.
A friend used to shoot HUNDREDS of 125 gr bullet handloads @ around 2200 fps out of his Marlin 357. His handloads. And he would get the barrel pretty hot.
He hasn't mentioned any loss of accuracy yet.
I would say you were good to go for quite some years to come.
In sure there's others will be along shortly to report on theirs. I know TAFFIN has encyclopedic knowledge of Marlin lever guns.

[bigbrowndog]

We shoot anywhere from 30 to 70 rounds in less than a minute to minute and half, routinely in 3 gun and multi gun competitions with both .223 and .308 semi auto rifles, we continue to do it for 3 to upwards of 8 hours a day. Sometimes with as much as an hour between stages sometimes with as little 15-20 minutes, I still have my first rifle used in 3 gun, it has upwards of 50k rounds on its barrel, and it shoots Mona groups at 100 with irons sights, as that is what it is set up for. I have a 308 that also has 30-40k on its barrel and it will hold Moa groups out to 800. Both rifles have been used and abused in competition, and others I have as well all shoot quite well considering the rounds through the barrels.
In a manually operated rifle and one with low magazine capacity I do not think you could heat one up enough to cause any significant damage, it could get plenty hot to hold, but significant damage I do not think so.

Trapr

[coldtriggerfinger]

Thanks Trapr
That gives me hope for our ARs.
I hate most all things .308 !
Except the actual 308 Win. 7 62x51N.
The only reason I like it is LOONNNGGG barrel life. And its fairly useful.

[bigbrowndog]

On an AR (10 or 15) the thing I’ve had the most issues with is extractors, they tend to go without warning so carry a spare if you can. Looking at my records I’ve replaced 4 on the AR10 w/30-40k on it, and only 3 on the AR15 w/50k+, none on the other AR15’s that have less than 15k on them. No other parts have needed replacement due to wear, ...........loss or misplacement but not wear.

Trapr

[bradshaw]

Jul 22, 2019 13:07:16 GMT -5 AdamARM said:

Hi,

I have found in numerous sites the idea that shooting a rifle barrel when it is hot could

[1] lead to poor groups while barrel is hot and

[2] cause  damage to the barrel. 

My question focuses on this second part: causing damage to the barrel when shooting a hot barrel, specifically from a 357 lever.

My gut tells me that shooting fast and high power/pressure rounds from a hot rifle could damage the barrel, but a 357 is not powerful/fast enough to cause damage when shooting from a hot barrel.  Certainly each round fired will add minor wear and tear, but it seems that a 357 lever gun is intended to be shot fast without too much concern about the temperature of the barrel (is this assumption correct)?  I am assuming here normal 357 loads.

-Adam

Adam.... barrel makers, even those with a lot of shooting experience, are reluctant to put a number on barrel life. “Barrel life” sounds like a specific question; in practice it is not. Ray Chapman, the first World Pistol Champion, told me he shot out an early Super Blackhawk barrel in 2,000 rounds. If so, I said, the barrel must have been awfully soft. Chapman agreed, saying that was his assessment. He replaced it with a Model 29. Even if he only burned out the forcing cone, 2,000 rounds of .44 Magnum would be doing it very fast. I’ve lived with various Super Blackhawks, from the so-ccalled “old model” to the New Model, and none come close to the erosion Ray Chapman mentioned.

While the .357 Maximum was condemned for top strap cutting, even though we had that caper figured out before most gun writers ever heard of the cartridge, it can be quite erosive of the BARREL FACE (i.e, forcing cone), particularly with certain powders in high volume, and lighter weight bullets. The .357 Magnum is proportionately more erosive than the larger bore .44 Mag. Bob Baker of Freedom Arms says that Hodgdon Lil Gun aggressively erodes the forcing cone and into the bore. Jack Huntington has told me of actual bore erosion in revolvers. It requires PRESSURE, HEAT, AND TIME to effect such erosion. John Linebaugh has an expression, “Pressure times time applied.” To visualize the effect, picture an oxygen-acetylene cutting torch on a thick sheet of steel. The torch pre-heats the steel to the melting point before the oxygen trigger is pulled.

We shot volumes of ammo through Ruger Maximums in freezing weather and summer heat. The guns never got as hot in cold weather as in hot weather. What’s more, a gun exposed to the hot sun resists cooling; the sun keeps it hot even when you stop shooting. We never got the Maximum as hot as a full auto Mini 14 fed magazine after magazine. You can’t fire and reload a lever action .357 Mag fast enough to worry about it. Point of impact may wander, groups go to hell; both are products of poor bedding or stress factors in the barrel. Double base powders with a high content of nitroglycerine may speed erosion in the carbine under a blazing Arizona sun. Your rifle has no barrel/cylinder gap to catch blast, so this is not a concern.

Bottleneck cartridges are another world, where gas (read cutting torch) volume is large in proportion to the area heated. Thus, heat is more concentrated. The rifle barrel in a top accuracy discipline has a shorter life than for a game with AREA TARGETS----example: benchrest vs silhouette. For the silhouetter, a slight falloff in accuracy may still print inside his or her skill. The falloff is noticed immediately in benchrest. Given the same barrel, a bench rester may retire it at 2,500 rounds, while a silhouetter keeps it on the line 6.000 rounds. While jacketed bullets induce water faster than lead, the cumulative effect of HEAT outweighs FRICTION at high pressure. As witnessed by this shooter, cowboy action represents the bottom of the accuracy barrel; you can get away with a gun hopeless for shooting steel.

A stainless steel barrel heats more slowly than a chromoly barrel, something I noticed while shooting the machine guns. Stainless also cools down more slowly. Bill Ruger, Jr., and foundry foreman Eric Unger both told me that stainless is cast at slightly higher temperature than chrome moly. But I think any stainless vs chromoly difference is irrelevant to your .357 Mag carbine. Perhaps the best way to get a specific answer is to start shooting and count your rounds.
David Bradshaw

[hombre]

I wouldn't worry about it, shoot and enjoy!