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Posted: 5/24/2005 6:48:03 AM EDT
you will be hard pressed to damage this rifle shooting semi auto. Full auto Beta-C (100 round) mag dumps will tear it up. the hand guards will get hot and you won't be able to hold the gun long before you have to worry about damage to it. |
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It was designed as a machine-gun, with reasonably sustained rates of fire. You'd have to work pretty hard to get it hot enough to hurt anything. That said, you'll hear pretty regularly the life expectancy for a barrel quoted at 8000 rounds or so. I assume that low number comes from worst case use. What you DO need to watch out for is a "cook-off". After your magazine of fun, drop the mag and open the chamber while you go for a beer. You don't want a live round heating up in the chamber. It's rare but it DOES happen. disclaimer for the anal: All jokes about drinking and shooting are for entertainment purposes only. I'm the only one here professional enough to shoot and drink 
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On my bushmaster w/ 14.5-in 1:7 chrome-lined barrel, I have yet to cause any damage that I'm aware of. The most torturous heat-up I've put it through would be 3x 30 round mags one after the other. Within each mag the average shot timing was probably around 1 second a peice (some faster, some slower), and probably about 20-40 seconds between mags to swap em out, wipe the sweat off my brow, re-acquire the target, and start up again. I can't imagine I'll ever feel like putting 90 rounds through it any faster than that on a semi-auto gun (of course, I say that now, but I bet once I learn to bumpfire I'll be abusing it worse). I was under shade, and the barrel did not appear to be glowing, and the handguards weren't getting soft or smoking either. It was beginning to feel uncomfortably hot to hold the handguards sometime during the 3rd mag, but not so much that I actually took my hands off of them. I let it sit and cool off in the open air for about 15-20 minutes before I bagged it up, for fear of burning/melting the rifle bag with the hot barrel. Next trip out a week later it was still shooting the same groups it did before. |
That's a pretty low number. There are barrels with tens of thousands of rounds through them and still running. It all depends on the abuse it takes. A casual semi-auto shooter should be getting somewhere between 15k and 20k before wear becomes an issue, especially on a chrome lined barrel. And anyway, the rifle itself doesn't have that life expectancy, just the barrel does. A barrel swap is possible. |
Where did you find a 30 round clip? All I have been able to find are 10 round clips. I wouldn't worry about damaging your barrel with only 180rds now and then. Watch where you place the barrel afterwards, such as leaning against a plastic car bumper or setting in back in a cloth or foam lined case (especially nylon!). After you've burned your legs or fingers a couple times, you'll learn to watch out PDQ. I wear cheapie Nomex flight gloves when shooting. |
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You should read this: www.galleryofguns.com/shootingTimes/Articles/DisplayArticles.asp?ID=1205 Mike |
So, if you put 10k rounds through your barrel in two days, cleaning every 1k, your barrel will start to show signs of being shot out.   The only question I have and I didn't find on my quick read of the article, is - Was the barrel chrome lined or not? It occurred when the Colt HBAR barrels could have NOT been chrome lined. |
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When I was in the Corps... I had some ratty ass M16's issued to me, the armorer would comment on its "life" if asked... One had close to 100K rounds through it and it still qual'd me expert 3 times at the range! As far as heat goes that same rifle was torture tested to the point of being able to light a cigarette off the barrel!!! I shit you not. ... and was still damn accurate! |
| olds442tyguy was onto something I think needs emphasis. You can fire your rifle fast enough to make it hot enough to seriously burn you. The barrel CAN get hot enough to BADLY injure you. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER touch the barrel after a prolonged firing session! Did I emphasize that enough? Yes, the barrel gets that hot. But it WILL NOT get hot enough to damage it from semiauto firing. When it's too hot to hold the hangurards, as olds442tyguy says, it's time for a break! |
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What you have are magazines. A clip is a stripper clip like what the M1 Garand had. You attach bullets to a "clip" and push them through the weapon or internal magazine. It's a common misconception so don't worry about it to much. If it's a box that detatches from the firearm, it's a magazine.
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Some of the best reading I'd suggest on the net would be the Starbuck's Oracle . Whoops! Make that the AMMO ORACLE . Definitely need to check that out if you are learning about AR's. |
M1 Garand does not use stripper clips. It uses a enbloc clip ( a pic http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-293759.html) The M14 and M16 (just to name 2) can have there magizines recharge via a stripper clip |
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barrel life depends on what you are looking for when it comes to accuracy. The AMU changes barrels on their competition rifles every 2,500 rounds. They are looking for X ring accuracy at 600 yards, and need to win. A civilian High Master or Master level shooter may see a drop off in accuracy on the 600 yard line around 5-6,000 rounds. While the rifle will still shoot knots at 200 and 300 yards, the X count will fall off at 600 yards. If you're bump firing Wolf from the hip in a gravel pit, accuracy and rifling are relatively unimportant. As long as it goes bang and something comes out you smile and laugh. Heat though is the enemy of long barrel life. 5,000 rounds in a few hours is going to dramatically effect a barrel more than 5,000 rounds over a few years. Why full auto is so hard on barrels. Once you exceed the draw temperature of the barrel, nasty things happen. |
How hot is too hot?? When you can no longer hold it by the barrel with your hands. At least that is what I tell my oldest son so his allotment of ammo for the weekend lasts more than 60 seconds...... I think he just tries to see if he can "duplicate full auto."
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FROM THE STARBUCKS ORACLE
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