Picked up a Howa Mini Grendel Kryptek

[nuthead]

From what i understand most barrels peak in velocity at around 2-400rds then begin a very slow decline in velocity as the throat wears

[kmon]

LR, You could be correct about the Hammer forged barrels. I mostly have experience with Button and cut rifle barrels.

On my cut Obermeyer barrel same lot of Hornady factory ammo is now running an average of 130fps faster than it was for the first 2 boxes. I was getting 2430 from it with the new barrel now with about 250 rounds with about half factory Hornady and the others reloads using CFE223 I am getting 2560fps with the same lot of factory ammo


In the next few weeks I will try shooting some across the chrono before and after cleaning and see what it does. Hopefully mix in some range time with turkey hunting.

On a 17 Remington factory Remington 700 accuracy would stop dropping off after 20 or so rounds and from the new barrel I was getting 4250 from factory loads so copper fouling was an issue. I am not at Hodgdon max listed loads and running 25gr bullets at 4250 now with over 60 shots down the pipe with CFE223 without accuracy degradation. I am out of the factory loads for that one but don't like to clean copper out of that small tube that often.

A friends 6.5 Creedmoor picked up almost 200fps after about 250 rounds, but he never cleans the barrel until accuracy drops off. He is a guy that shoots enough to wear out barrels in less than a year with the 260 or 6.5 Creedmoor.

[F224]

Those of use who shoot Blaser made barrels (hammer forged of high vanadium steel) have seen the same phenomenon. They speed up after about 200-300 shots. So do the barrels from Mauser, Sauer, and Rigby that are supplied by Blaser. Others have noted the same thing from other hammer forged barrel makers, such as Ruger after it started making its own barrels in house. They also tend to have less group shift as they heat up in my experience.

[LRRPF52]

I shot it this weekend down at North Springs as we were finishing up our rifle shooting work with the Troop.

Let some other adult leaders shoot it on the 100yd hostage taker targets with swinging plate over the shoulder.

Pretty boring to swing that plate a few times.

I was shooting 31.5gr of CFE under 123gr AMAX in Lapua brass. I still haven't chronographed that load in this rifle.

[pinzgauer]

Since these are hammer-forged and a mandrel has to be removed,

The mandrel is only a few inches long and moves through the bore. Or more accurately the barrel moves over the mandrel

So there is not a taper required as I understand it