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Barrel life

OzzMan

OzzMan

Well-known member
I’ve been meaning to make a post on this for a good minute now, but has anybody done a study to determine the average barrel life of a Gewehr 98 or any other imperial weapon? I know most of us here have “shooters”, but if we are avidly shooting them, how long will they last?

I know the end result is likely futile as lothar walther makes replacement barrels, so it doesn’t really matter, but it could be important on rifles that don’t have that option.

Thanks,
Connor
 
And this may be discussed in a book somewhere that I have yet to get to or know of.
 
www.k98kforum.com

K98 barrel life .. shoot it or save it?

Hi Guys, I have a nice but Frankenmauser... Although I dont really enjoy shooting full power 8mm so much, it is fun to shoot with low power PPU ammo or hand loads. Now I am wondering ... am I wearing the gun out to the point of it being trash metal? After all, cant really replace those...
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Yeah, in short, these things last a long time if you are just shooting in ideal conditions and maintaining your rifle.

The biggest reason for rebarrels were damage from artillery strikes and use of rifle grenades (very harsh on the bore) The deplorable western front conditions didn't help either.

Wear and tear from honest use would take a looooong time to wear a barrel out.
 
From a previous email conversation with Jon Speed:

"another small item of Mauser material history was in mid 1930 tests with a SM (Standard Modell) with 10,000 rounds with only a very small accuracy reduction that was still in passing range for military rifles etc."
 
Fal Grunt said:
From a previous email conversation with Jon Speed:

"another small item of Mauser material history was in mid 1930 tests with a SM (Standard Modell) with 10,000 rounds with only a very small accuracy reduction that was still in passing range for military rifles etc."
Click to expand...
There was were part of my question is. The other part is, how many rounds until you start getting keyholes? I know the groups will start opening up but I mostly shoot at steel.
 
I have an Arsenal rebuilt SPANDAU 1915 with a perfect barrel. It is matching with a renumbered bolt (only on the bolt ball not the other bolt parts). I have shot 1000's of rounds through it the last few decades. It is reasonably accurate (3-2.5 MOA at 100 yards off a bench with my reloads (150 gr bullets)). Factory ammo is OK but not very accurate (Canadian military non-corrosive in the 44 round boxes is the exception). Eastern European ammo is very poor and seemingly is very hot. I have replaced the front sight with a Swed +3 to bring the sights into a 100 yard range. My observation is that your Gew 98 you shoot will outlast your lifetime and the next two owners.
 
OzzMan said:
There was were part of my question is. The other part is, how many rounds until you start getting keyholes? I know the groups will start opening up but I mostly shoot at steel.
Click to expand...
Are you trying to back into a number as an indicator of how many rounds rifles that key hole have fired?

My personal opinion of most military rifles is that a large portion of the wear is from cleaning, not from shooting. There are certainly examples, and I have a few, that are heavily worn from shooting. This is also a result of bullet material and powder burn rates and not necessarily high round counts.

The point is, shooters are cheap, shoot them. If you wear out a Gewehr 98 barrel, the cost of rebarreling is minor compared to the ammo that you shot. In fact, at that point, just buy another Gewehr 98.

My first Mauser was a Czech vz24 that friends and I shot literal cases of Turk 8mm through. We had a running bet on anyone shooting a full bandolier of 70 rounds and no one managed to make it a straight 70 rounds. That was back when you could buy a case of 1400 rounds for $80. Today you might get a good deal on a case for $400? More likely $700. The short of it is, your going to put $5+k worth of ammo through it before you notice a change in accuracy. Spending $1500 on another nice Gewehr 98 shouldn't be a problem.
 
See this for the K98k:

www.k98kforum.com

Datasheet/Datenblatt of K98k

Some of you may have already seen this. It is the data sheet of the K98k, an extract from the book "Datenblätter fur Heeres-Waffen, Fahrzeuge, Gerät". The book is a collection of official data sheet from the Reichsminister für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion from 1944. Some interesting facts: -...
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"Geschätzte Lebensdauer eines Laufes : fast unbegrenzt" : estimated life of a barrel : almost unlimited
 
Something else to keep in mind is that heat greatly exacerbates barrel wear. You see this in torture tests where someone blows through mag after mag on a full auto rifle to track wear patterns. Bunch of those done specifically with the AR15 if you google around.

Much less of a concern with a bolt action for the simple reason that even if youre shooting fast enough to burn yourself on the barrel you’re not subjecting it to anything like the stress a full auto gets cranking along at the full cyclic.

And that’s dumping stripper clips as fast as you can work the bolt. Me? I tend to shoot a few rounds, look at the target, adjust the sandbag, fire a few more, bullshit with the guy at the next bench, go grab a drink of water, etc. Even if I managed to put a few thousand rounds through a barrel over the years it’s about the gentlest retirement a rifle can have.
 
I read somewhere that if you could wait at least 35 seconds between each shot, you would extend your barrel life considerably. I just can't remember where I read it. o_O
 
I’ve been wondering about this very thing, but with a different rifle, my 10-22. I have 8,000-10,000 rounds through the original sport barrel so far. a bunch of those were blamblamblam, but many were singles. I already have a spare on hand…..😉
 
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