Grendel barrel life??

[gophernuts]

What kind of barrel longevity can I expect from a 16 in AA barrel?

[ss355]

I used to worry about this subject. However, it dawned on me that if I could afford to put enough ammo through the barrel to wear it out, I could certainly afford to buy a new barrel. I know that doesn't directly answer your question, but I hope it offers a slightly different perspective on the subject to lessen any concern you might have.

Some of the competitive shooters here can probably give you a ballpark figure based on the type of shooting you do (spray-n-pray, slow and methodical, or somewhere in between), but personally I've never worn out a barrel. (Though there was one year at a machine gun shoot that my party put a few thousand, maybe 3K-4K, full-auto rounds through a 8mm 1919 barrel and rendered it mostly smoothbore by the end of the weekend! I don't imagine your Grendel will see that type of firing schedule.)

[longdayjake]

The pressures and velocities used to operate a grendel are way below anything that would eat up a barrel. You should be able to get as many and even more rounds down a grendel tube than you would with 5.56.

[noone]

Longdayjake makes a very good point. Heat and pressure are what wears out barrels. If the 5.56 operates at 60,000 psi, and the Grendel operates at around 42,000 psi, it stands to reason that the Grendel should last much longer.

I think far too many people make the mistake of trying to hot load the Grendel and run into all sorts of problems like broken bolts, premature barrel wear, poor performance and so on. The Grendel works best as an "intermediate" cartridge, somewhere between the 5.56, and 7.63x51. If you run the Grendel at the pressures and velocities it was designed for, I think you will spend a great deal of money on ammo before you wear out a barrel.

If I were to guess on how many rounds a good barrel will give, if you don't shoot it really hot, I'm guessing 5-10 thousand rounds. I'm sure Mr. Alexander has data on this. You might give Alexander Arms a call and ask what kind of life they get out of good barrels.

[bwaites]

I had 5000+ rounds on my GDMR before groups began to open up. Even at that, if I was selective about bullets I could still get it to group under 1 inch. I would expect 5-6000 rounds from a stainless barrel and a lot more from a chromed barrel.