I think I have to take issue with this explanation of the difference between wear in a handgun barrel versus the wear in a rifle barrel. Although it is true that the tube of a rifle is longer, the bullet only contacts each part of the barrel for a brief period of time. Although the total barrel metal eroded from each shot in a rifle would be more than for each shot in a handgun (due to the longer length), each inch, say, of the rifle barrel would receive the same amount of wear as each inch in the handgun barrel, all else equal.

As this poster points out, however, not all else is equal. I think the real culprit for faster barrel erosion in rifle barrels is higher pressures plus, I believe, higher temperatures. Armchair physics would suggest that higher temperatures accompanying higher pressures would heat the barrel metal to a point where more would erode, per inch of barrel. This is just my guess, however. I believe that this is the reason that rounds like 220 Swift and 22-250 Rem wear barrels faster than, say, a 223 or 308. I also believe that I learned somewhere that smaller diameter bores eroded more quickly than larger diameter bores.

For all that, I stick to lead for handguns made prior to jacketing handgun ammo, which my very uneducated guess would be sometime in the 1970's. For me, the reason isn't wear but a nostalgia factor. I like to shoot loads that would have been shot in the guns around their times of manufacture. In fact, for this reason, I've recently turned back to swaged lead as opposed to hard cast lead bullets.

On any and all of this, I stand to be corrected, as I'm just hear to learn! In particular, I'm very uncertain as to my guesses as to the advent of jacketed or hard cast bullets.

Best,
Donald