Worn barrels: resell or recycle?

[CBH Australia]

If all things line up as far as profile, bore and length then it might be worth it.

A 26" might finish at 24" if you/gunsmith think it's worth it.

A second hand comp barrel might have plenty of life for a recreational shooter.

My gunsmith gave me a barrel as. I agree to pay the $200 fitting. That one worked out.

 

[Muddyboots]

Sometimes a used barrel might be just the means to try something out that is non standard so you don't break bank on "long shot".

 

[Coyote Shadow Tracker]

If anyone has a rifle and re barreled it, and don't know what to do with the barrel send it to us. We are recycling barrels. I am going to train other shooters-people that may want to take up gunsmithing in the future, to chamber rifles, and could use some used barrels to have them practice on. we will be doing this as a free service to select - enthusiastic people to carry on the work. This will give them an idea if they want to pursue the career or work part or fulltime in Gunsmithing.
Gunsmithing is a diminishing work of act in our lifetime.
PM us if you have used barrels and want to know how to send to us.
Thanks
Len & Jill

 

[bamban]

I took a 6.5x47 26 inch long bolt gun barrel, salvaged a good section in the middle and made myself an AR15 6.5 Grendel.

With no load work, here are the first rounds from the barrel after bore sighting. Just grabbed some known loads from the errornet.

The load is actually 31.4, my buddy who did the app work had inputted 31.9

 

[338 dude]

New to the forum. Asking from the buyer's point of view: If a barrel was too worn out for long-range competition or long-range hunting, could you & would you put them on a rifle for shorter distances?

In other words, once the barrel starts to lose accuracy, how quickly does performance fade? Does anyone here buy used barrels knowing their performance is declining?

(And no, I'm not looking to buy or sell. Ha!)

I've sold three of my old takeoff barrels

 

[Bang4theBuck]

I am honestly surprised by how many guys just get discard their high mileage barrels. I happen to think that once I find a bullet that the barrel likes, there is significant time and component cost saved by not having to experiment with finding what the barrel likes. Here is one recent example of what I did. Full disclosure....I am a pretty decent albeit recreational shooter, and don't compete often, or seriously. I took a shilen Select match savage thread pattern barrel chambered in 243 win with 1700+ rds on it, and had it shortened on the chamber end by about .900" , rethreaded, and chambered in a 6mm Dasher. I screwed that barrel with barrel nut into a Big Horn TL3, and she is a sub 3/8 shooter. I already knew that the barrel.liled the 105 bergers, and so does a dasher typically. So, It was a 50-60 rd load development. I'm $250 total into taking a 'shot out' 243 barrel and making it a 6mm Dasher, plus a couple hundred for the new brass, a d I'm having a ball with it.

 

[Bob Wright]

Some folks keep them for fire forming brass when they have a need. Either an old rifle complete to do that work or just before switching to the new barrel. I've never done it but have seen it here on LRH mentioned a couple of times.

 

[bamban]

Some folks keep them for fire forming brass when they have a need. Either an old rifle complete to do that work or just before switching to the new barrel. I've never done it but have seen it here on LRH mentioned a couple of times.

When I wanted to re-barrel my 35 yo Howa to 280AI, I sourced (free) a take off Remington 700 barrel in 7-08, threaded it for the Howa and chambered it to 280AI fireforming barrel. Finally unscrewed after fireforming 4 boxes of new RWS 270 brass, and torqued the new 26 inch barrel.

Since I did the work on both barrels with the same reamer, case headspace is not an issue.

 

[Varmint Hunter]

I "was" going to scrap my custom barrel in 22-243AI because it had launched well over 1,000 rounds and accuracy dropped off noticeably. But ... I decided to have my smith chop 2" off the chamber end and rechamber in 22-243 (plain). The rifle is shooting sub .5moa again and was actually easier to tune.

Ya just never know.

 

[Bang4theBuck]

The other value proposition here is that many of the smith's are losing business due to the profits, and remage set ups. That is just a fact of life, and an advancement in industry. However, assessing and rechambering a used barrel is where a good Smith can show-off their skills, and make some money doing so.

 

[bamban]

For my friends I've done a few AR15 carbine barrels of varying finished profiles, the contours that suit their wishes. These barrels were salvaged from their shot out 20 inch service rifle national match barrels.

Shot out barrels in our service rifle competition world means losing X count at 600 yards launching single loading only 80 grain class bullets. These rounds are not your mag length type, mostly loaded with boat tail junction above the shoulder.

The barrels will still shoot the 69-77 class mag length ammo we shoot standing at 200 yards and rapid fire events at 2 and 3.

I do not worry about about timing the old gas port, I just drill, tap, and plug it with 8-32 set screw. The tapped hole is just enough to sink a 3/32 long ser screw. The old gas port just becomes a blind hole from the bore. Not an issue.

For chambering I use a carbide reamer for this purpose. The NM barrels having 12 inches of 1 inch diameter makes it convenient, just lop off whatever gets you you past the firecracking and cut a new chamber. Sometimes we even keep the old chamber just turn down the heavy section to mostly 0.850, and cut down the length for MK12 SPR 18 inch with rifle gas system. I've done all kinds of combo.

Sometimes I don't do the cutting, I will set up the older lathe and turn the barrel owner loose with my guidance.

 

[79m1a-texas]

I re-purpose several of my old barrels into table legs for the reloading bench.

 

[del2les]

It depends.......on several factors. I have taken a few varmint barrels in 222, 223 and reamed them to 223AI and 22-250 &AI, a 243Win barrel reamed to 6RAI, and 308 to 30-06 and all those cleaned up and did very well. One of the best shooting 223AI's I ever had was reamed from a used 222 BR barrel.

As for buying used and/or pull-offs barrels, I have bought a few, but only after inspection, at a good price (near free) and with specific reasons in mind.

However for the most part and especially for different threaded actions, it is not something I recommend the average person pay a smith for.

 

[Terry Balding]

I have a number of 6mm 1:8 twist used barrels. I'm going to set them back for our local shooters who don't have big budgets. I'll fit them to their action and chamber for less than the cost of a new barrel.