Am I missing something, or wouldn't you expect steel or nickel jacketed solids to wear out a barrel in a hurry?

H. C.

Turkish 8mm Mauser ammo is steel jacket. But the steel is really soft, mild stuff. Probably not as nice as copper jacket, but it's not like shooting a drill rod through the bore.

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The steel in the jackets is said to be a soft ally, but I have no idea why people are still using solid bullet technology out of the dark ages. I'm sure there will be some bashing from Woodleigh and Hornady steel jacketed bullet lovers out there, but I could never and will never shoot one of these. The bullet is in fact a soft lead core, and they have to use a steel jacket to hold it all together. Too risky for the situations where a solid is really needed.
The Barnes solid is a true solid- no core, no jacket, no chance of bullet failure. Very similar is the ASquare solids.
Or the Speer AGS solid- A tungsten carbide core inside a brass bullet. Problem with this one is high cost and limited calibers.
A lead core solid that is good is the Trophy Bonded Sledgehammer solid. This has a very tough bronze jacket with a large flat point. However, when these were first brought out, they blew up like soft points. The current production is supposed to be very good.
Even with all the better alternatives, I guess some still like the steel jacketed bullets. I watch the Mark Sullivan videos and wonder how he can even think of shooting Woodleigh solids through the doubles he has. Oh well, it's his guns to ruin if he chooses.

I use them in an old 8x57 barrel to blow off rounds. The residue is hard to clean out, but is probably softer than barrel steel but probably not a good idea in a good rifle. Other better options are available. After all I can rebarrel to a 30.06 in my 98 when the barrel wears out. A good double rifle is a work of art and should be treated as such. It's one of the reasons I stopped hunting waterfowl in Texas, (required the use of steel shot) I know there is Tungston, and Bismuth. I just like plain old lead. Of course I changed the subject to scatterguns. Pardon me!

Ken,

The Woodleigh solids can make a lot of sense depending upon the cartridge. As I'm sure you know, the monolithic solids are necessarily longer and take up case capacity which is already at a premium in say a .458 Win Mag. Granted, I use the Barnes solid in my .416 Rem because I can still get 2400 fps but if I was running low on case capacity and velocity as I would be with a .458WM, the Woodleigh would be my choice. The vast majority of hunters are NEVER gonna wear out their big bores anyway . . . even with steel jacketed bullets.

JMHO,

JohnTheGreek

HenryC470, mild steel jackets don't seem to wear barrels as much as the heat of the powder gases erodes the barrel throat. Powder gas cutting is the main cause of barrels wearing out. That is why big, fat cases full of powder wear out barrels a lot faster than smaller, more efficient ones.

I cannot remember where but I definately read in a source that I pretty much trusted (enough to remember it at any rate) that some rifles had been pretty badly worn from relatively low numbers of these approx 500 I think.

In US Army tests, it was found, contrary to expectations, that M2 Ball ammo caused barrels to lose accuracy faster than 165-grain armor-piercing ammo. In fact, rifle accuracy INCREASED when AP ammo was used, up until about 5000 rounds, when accuracy began to deteriorate. It then fell off at about the same rate it had with M2 ball, but with M2, accuracy began deteriorating within the first 1000 rounds.