Stainless Steel Barrel Life

Avoid standard 416 stainless steel barrels.

Stainless steel barrel life.

Barrel life guidelines by caliber and cartridge type as a very rough rule of thumb i would say that with cartridges of 222 remington size you could expect an accurate barrel life of 3000 4000 rounds. 410 and 416r stainless steels both have a lower sulfur content making them less prone to developing sulphide stringers which may. It is a high carbon content steel which makes it resilient to high heat scenarios and with its abrasion resistance the barrels wear slower over time. Continuous mag dumps and barrel overheating will fuck things up quickly.

416 r stainless steel is stainless steel formulated specifically for gun barrels. The thicker walls of a medium heavy or bull profile barrel will strengthen the barrel and make up for the shortcomings of 400 series stainless steels as a barrel steel. I have several ss barrels with more than 10k rounds through them that still have excellent accuracy and no observable throat erosion. The barrel configurations were identical.

So stainless steel fouls less and is. I recently compared two sets each of nitrided and untreated stainless steel barrels. This is due to the ability of stainless steel to resist heat erosion better than the chrome moly steel. 416 r is stainless in name only as it is still susceptible to corrosion but at a reduced pace.

Ss is a bit less tolerant to abuse and throat erosion than carbon steel.