life time of a M1A barrel

[Daimler1989]

Hi all,

maybe one of the Springfield M1A owners out here could answer my questiomn: How long will the barrel of a M1A last? How many rounds can I expect it to digest before accurcay will decrease?

I ask this because I live in Germany, and M1A are not only very expensive over here, but nearly impossible to obtain (every 5 years or so, some dealers are able to offer a few specimen). And when you have to have it repaired, there is nearly no competent gunsmith to do some work, because those fine rifles are so scarce...

I own a M1A now for about five years, but I am very reluctant to shoot it, because I have heard, the barrels might be worn out after 5000 rounds. Is this true or urban lagend?

best regards from Germany
Ulrich

 

[rwsmith]

I can't say the round count......

But repeated fast shooting generates heat which increases barrel erosion. If you shoot like me at about 1 round/minute it should last a long, long time. If shooting rapid fire, don't shoot through so many mags it gets heated up. Let it cool down before firing it again.

They do make coated bullets suitable for .308 if you want to reload, but I read that the grouping is much looser than with jacketed ammo

 

[jaymoore]

I dunno, depends on the barrel! I have a chrome lined TRW barreled M1a which I've been shooting for over 20 years and it's still a 2-2 1/2 MOA rifle out to 600 yards.

A non chrome lined barrel will last the least amount of time, stainless more, Tenifered or other nitride bores generally longer.

If you are looking at match grade accuracy, then somewhere between 2500 and 5000 rounds is a reasonable expectation. Which, in a conventional wooden stock, also means several rebeddings! Skim beds anyway.

It all depends on your expectations.

I reckon a well treated chrome bored M1A should give service grade (roughly 4-5MOA) accuracy somewhere between 5000-10000 rounds. Hard to predict closer than that.

 

[Fishinfool]

I have about 2000 to 2500 rounds out of my M1a, and it is just as accurate as when new. Hard to say when accuracy will fall off, but the usual tips apply - Avoid steel jacketed ammo and rapid fire (friction and heat), and if you reload, find a mild load that is accurate and will reliably function the gun for reduced throat erosion.

Larry

 

[growr]

As an NRA Service Rifle competitor since 1987, I have worn out 4 barrels and am on my 5th......usually accuracy was still OK at 200 yards, but at 300 and 600 yards it was all over the place.
The number of rounds fired before noticing the drop off in accuracy was around 5000. This was using M852, M118 and a handload that replicated M852.
Hope that helps......
Randy

 

[LoboGunLeather]

There are several factors which can affect the serviceable life of a rifle barrel. Among those are the type of ammunition, rate of fire, and user maintenance.

Ammunition types to be avoided include corrosive primed (generally pre-1960 or so) and steel-jacketed bullets (quite a bit of this from Soviet-bloc producers in years past).

High rates of fire can cause accelerated wear due to heat build up.

User maintenance is critical to maximizing service life. Poor maintenance methods are fairly common, often due to lack of training in proper methods, sometimes due to the use of poor quality tools (rods, brushes, etc).

My M1A is a National Match rifle (NM barrel, trigger group, sights). It is now about 13 years old and has been fired about 2,000 rounds. I find no signs of wear in the bore, throat or muzzle erosion, so I expect that it will continue to do well for quite a few years.

Germany must have a number of well qualified gunsmiths. Maintenance manuals for the M14-series rifles are pretty common, and there are several technical manuals and videos available, so a talented and experienced gunsmith should be able to take on a re-barrel job with reasonable competency. Top quality barrels are reasonably available from SA and custom makers, so having one on hand might be helpful for future needs. While you are looking into that you may want to consider other parts critical to proper function and accuracy (gas cylinder, operating rod, other critical parts subject to wear with age and use). I am not aware of what import restrictions you may face when ordering firearms parts shipped to Germany.

 

[rwsmith]

Oh, as for reloading...

I think it's worthwhile to think about because you can make loads that are less hot, but still operate the action.

Good old IMR 4895 is great for that caliber range. Heck, it's good on anything between .22 ammo and big game cartridges.

It's also a really good hobby that you can get into lightly to just produce some ammo or take it all the way with bench shooting techniques. I'm somewhere in the middle.

For military-type rifles I load rounds for Garand, Japanese Arisaka (I make my own cases from 30-06 cartridges) and 5.56 NATO.

 

[RoninPhx]

Ulrich
i think around 5000rounds subject to the type of ammo fired. I was thinking of you the other day.

 

[RoninPhx]

from the 1945-1952 time period

ulrich has helped me in the past, heck of a good guy.
wurttembert-hohenzollern was a political entity from 1 945-1952. I think this excellent german cleaning kit was issued for the walther PPK.

 

[RoninPhx]

i copied this off the criterion barrel website. Criterion is the barrel manufacturer being used on the build garands sold through cmp. Barrels are most graded one through five. each 1000rounds adds one to the number. thus a "2" would be 2000 rounds. typically people look at five or five thousand rounds. just because a barrel is at five doesn't mean it can't shoot however. I would think the m1A is pretty similar. One item of concern particularly in germany/bavaria is the use of cuper nickel coated 7.62x51 projectiles. I have seen german ammo sold here with that cuper nickel. there is a huge amount of things on the internet about these and build up of nickel in the barrel. I have a large quanity of cupernickel projectiles that were pulled from french ammo. I have not shot them ant .308 velocities or 30.06. I HAVE though of loading them to 30.40 kraig velocities, where they are suppose to be okay.
M1 Garand (chambered in .30-06 Springfield): A typical rule of thumb that floats around the forums with these rifles pertains to the throat erosion (TE) gauges that collectors use to determine the amount of wear to the throat of each chamber. While a larger TE number is indicative of greater wear to the barrel, it does not necessarily mean the barrel isn’t a shooter. On average throat erosion will gauge a digit higher after each 1,000 rounds of normal use. Most shooters will replace these barrels when they gauge a 5 or greater. This leads one to assume the average barrel life for an M1 Garand chambered in .30-06 is approximately 5,000-6,000 rounds. Chrome lined barrels will typically last much longer.

 

[apollo99]

I would say about 5000 rounds in a M1A1 is about right, a little more if you clean it right, let it cool a little between shots, and use milder loads. A lot less with bad cleaning practices, hot loads and rapid fire. Also as said steel coated bullets are pretty tough on the rifling also. Also if you reload seating the bullets out a little further later on in the life of the barrel will help with some of the throat erosion issues (within reason).

 

[BigBill]

First bore and throat wear depends on how hot your ammo is loaded.
I feel the amount of rounds fire has nothing to do with it.

My norinco m14S has a chrome lined chamber and bore. The bore appears still new. I prefer the chrome lined bores and chambers in all my guns when I have a choice. My Russian izmash Saiga in 308wim/16” barrel with the industrial hard chromelined chamber and bore holds 1 1/2” groups @ 100 yds no scope and using South African surplus ammo.

Example. I have a bought in 1972 mossberg bolt action 30-06 that has 750+ rounds through it of my hot reloads and to this day she still shoots nickel sized groups.

 

[RoninPhx]

M1garand

by chance and article in the volume 32, winter edition of the garand collectors association concerning a individual buying from the navy is garand he used in competition. It was match conditioned and fitted with a .308 barrel. per the article it has fired by record 6950rounds and has a TE of just over 4 and aMW of just under2. His comment was these rifles liked the M118 round,e M852 match ammo, and the navy's m80 ball the latter as good as the M118 at 200yards. You should expect to fire about 6000 rounds before a noticeable decrease in accuracy at 600yards. A garand is not a M1A but i suspect it would be similar.

 

[RoninPhx]

I should add anyone interested in these rifles should be a member of the Garand collectors assoication for a very reasonable yearly fee which gets the magazine to you which is priceless.

 

[mikeruns]

I used to build double & single lug match M-14's for the USMC rifle team as a team armorer @ Wpns Training Bn, Quantico and we would see accuracy drop off around 5000 rounds...some would actually go as high as 8500, but not many. 5-6K and I would change bbls because the shooter would usually come to me with concern that it was not grouping well, so I would group it from our test shed rest at 300 yards and they would usually show a larger 5 shot group. Our specs were 5 shots into a 3" spotter @ 300 yards and if it didn't shoot, we would trouble shoot many variables, re-test and re-bbl if needed. So, I see many folks mentioned the 5000 round mark, and I too saw that mark as a clear indicator of a re-bbl in the near future. We used many different stainless brands and a lot of carbon Barnett bbls (Gene Barnett's Barrel Barn) from Tennessee and they all fared about the same as far as round count. None of our match bbls were chrome lined. Chro-moly, yes, but not chrome lined chambers and bore.
Cheers-Mike

 

[JH1951]

My experience is primarily with the M1 Garand and I would offer the following:
For a "service rifle" useful "military accuracy" ..... +-10,000 rounds.
For a "match rifle", around +-5,000 rounds, you'll start getting a few off the mark at 500 yards.
My M1A has had 3000 rounds thru a ss barrel with no loss of accuracy and looks as if it may go another 3000 or so.

The above assumes non-abusive rates of fire and proper cleaning techniques are applied. Rapid sustained firing, and/or buggering up the crown, and all bets for accuracy are off.