Kooshball, I am no expert either on barrel life but I do own a 22-250 that is getting close to a thousand rounds through it. I can see no difference in it yet. As with any caliber a little care and common sense go a long way, I load well below max and take several rifles when shooting p-dogs. I'll open a can of worms here, I believe in moly-coating both the bullets and the barrel, seems to have worked so far. The 223 should have a longer barrel life due to the smaller case capacity, the 223wssm on the other hand is said to be a bit of a barrel burner( I would like to hear from someone who owns one). I hope the 204 is down there with the 223 on barrel life. Just my 2 cents worth.

Kooshball & Jbhewitt: Barrel life is of the utmost concern to me as I have had to re-barrel a couple of Varminters in my time!
I am of the mind that hot barrels should NEVER be shot! Period.
That is why I often take several Rifles (up to 14) on high volumne Colony Varmint shoots. I prefer to Hunt away from the VarmintMobile so that means I take two Rifles at a time into the field and ammo for them. This is difficult but necessary in my opinion. I then simply switch Rifles when one warms up. Often, both, in good shooting situations will be to warm to shoot, and I spend the cool down time spotting for the biggest Varmints in my range of fire. I let them cool with the action open to the wind and the muzzle elevated as much as possible. I lean them on my day pack and/or my tri-pod and let the chimney effect help move the air and cool them.
My close friend shot out his Remington 40XB-KS 220 Swift in 1,300 rounds! He would just not let it cool when in Prairie Dog country! The re-barrel (by Remington) was $400.00! Lesson learned. By the way THAT barrel had no Rifling for 2" in front of the chamber! It went from shooting 1/2" groups at 200 yards to 1" groups at 200 yards. My friend could not live with that so he re-barreled. The new barrel shot just barely better than the one he thought was shot out.
Which brings me to this point. Just because the leades of the Rifling are worn or gone does not mean you will get poor accuracy! I have seen this several times and one case in point was a pre-64 Winchester Model 70 Varmint Model in 243 Winchester I bought some years ago. The finish of the Rifle was amazingly good but its stainless barrel (yes some 243 old Model 70's had stainless barrels!) was seriously worn in front of the chamber! I bought the Rifle for a song and planned to re-barrel it immediately. On a lark I shot the Rifle with ammo I had on hand for another 243. It shot so well that I have been shooting Varmints with it for at least 10 years now! I defy you to find Rifling in the first 2"+ of the barrel! I just keep mowing down Varmints with that classic, classy old Rifle! The previous owner had used the Rifle for not only Varminting but for weekly trips to the range for personal fun shooting BR style. After his demise his family sold me the Rifle along with his range notes and load testing data. He fired that Rifle a lot! But like I say it still shoots fine in my opinion.
Like Jbhewitt, I hope the 204 Ruger has a long barrel life but just in case both my 204's are now dialed in with very accurate loadings and they will not be shot at the range except for sightin verification and then in the fields at Varmints. And when used on Varmints, special care will be taken not to heat these barrels up.
So many people I trust have decried shooting warmish+ barrels that I try and avoid it at all costs. They tell me hot barrels wear faster and I believe it.
My regimen from now on (to avoid the expensive re-barrel situations) is to shoot slowly and avoid heat, in my reloading I try not to get every last FPS out of my loads and I even shoot some Moly-coated bullets in some of my high intensity Varmint Rifles. Along with these cautions I will also shoot my present barrels until they quit shooting accurately! Whether they show lots of wear or not.
It takes an EXCEPTIONAL Varminter to lay aside his warm+ Varminter and let it cool in the midst of hundreds of chirping Varmints - like someone above said its just next to impossible not to keep shooting while the Varmints are out! More than one gun is the answer there.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I shoot Hornady 50 grain SPSX's out of my 22-250 at 3800+ feet per second. The rifling in front of my chamber looks like new. This is a Ruger 77V that was bought new in the early 80's. It has over 6000 rounds of this load through it. I load by the hundred and buy my primers by the 1000 so it has been real easy to keep track of how many shots for this gun. This rifle has always been and still is a surgical instrument. It has never been a matter of hitting them. For us it has always been bullet placement for maximum effect. By our rules you have to call the effect of the shot or it doesn't count.

For my seating depth I just seat a bullet shallow and close them up in the gun and then seat my seater screw 1/4 turn down from there. I have my dies marked and it always ends up right back where it was.

Anyway the key to keeping a barrel alive is to not ever shoot it when it gets hot and don't clean it too much. Mine only see ther Shooters choice and the Dewey rod 2 or 3 times a year.

"Anyway the key to keeping a barrel alive is to not ever shoot it when it gets hot and don't clean it too much. Mine only see ther Shooters choice and the Dewey rod 2 or 3 times a year."

Can you please elaborate on why cleaning too much is a bad thing?

Thank you.

David

I agree with most of whats been said here right up until we get to the part about cleaning. Sure don't care to start a disagreement but if you look at the military and any number of shooting disciplines such as bench rest shooting and you'll find they all keep their weapons clean.
Cleaning needs to be done carefully and can certainly be over done without proper technique and equipment, but in my view it's definitely a necessary evil.
Various forms of fouling be it carbon or copper are not helpful to accuracy, in fact they exacerbate the process of wear. I've got a rifle or two that like to be fouled before they shoot the best, but I also have a number of em that shoot meassurably better clean.
With the exception of big game season when I leave my rifles fouled till the end of season I clean after every firing.
Definitely a topic that brings up strong opinions, perhaps a guy could get 10 or 15 back copies of "Precision Shooter" and see what the compitition boys say, lots of disparity on how to do it, but they'll all say "Keep em clean"!

I fully agree with all of your post Montdoug,

To further explain, I never put one away dirty for any length of time but during the season I just don't feel the need to clean it more than every couple hundred rounds. My 22-250 cleans up real easy and it does shoot better clean but it still shoots �� after 500 rounds, so for me there is not much sense in putting the bore through all the thrashing of a cleaning rod. I believe a rod does more damage than shooting does. I also only use plastic brushes now. My big game rifles always shoot to point of aim from a fresh clean bore so that's how I keep them. Same deal. They only see the rod 2 times a year but they only get fired 5-20 shots a year. (7 Mag or 300 WBY) Now my dual purpose 25-06AI gets cleaned the most of all my guns. I do this one the most because it�s stainless and I like to keep the action lubed up good on that one. I guess that's the main thing to me is not to store one dirty. I also like to keep the action itself real clean with fresh grease on the bolt lugs because I never full length size any more. It�s been at least 10 years since I have full length sized a rifle case.

I don�t buy into the slow speed equals best accuracy thing. If you look at most manuals the most accurate load tested is always a load right near the top of the velocity scale. When I used to fire form brass for my Ackley I did stumble into a load that only went 2600 feet per second but that speed was totally useless for exploding varmints at extreme range. I found another load with 75 grain V-Max�s going 3950 that is .3�s at worst. Now that lights things up. That barrel is at 750 rounds right now and the throat looks like new. It�s 3 years old and since break in has only seen the rod 6 times. I like it fresh for deer season so I clean it before changing over to partitions or when switching back.

Remember these are hunting rifles. If I were competing I would push the carbon out real carefully on a regular basis. Just solvents and patches; I wouldn't get rough with it at the range though. Now if my life depended on my firearm like the military or my LEO buddies do they would be kept sterile and properly lubed for the season I was in. My concealed rig gets shot out once a month and then field stripped and cleaned with spray cleaners, blown out with compressed air and carefully lubed. It sees a brush for a few strokes and then patched clean. So yes that gun gets cleaned and fresh ammo every 7 shots.

My 22-250 is still like new after over 20 years and 6000 rounds. Seems like the guys who are cleaning the heck out of them are only getting 1000-3000 rounds before their barrels are going south. I�m going to stick to what works for me. I clean them, just not every day.

All I can tell you if you want to maximize barrel life between the three cartridges go with a 223.

if you want explosive performance, go with the 22/250.

if you want to be cool and trendy, go with the 204.

cheers
seafire

I've always thought the key to long barrel life is to find the speed at which you get your best accuracy and don't exceed it. For example, my .22-250Rem. shoots 52gr. bullets beautifully at 3600fps., accuracy is fantastic. Now I can drive bullets several hundred fps faster if I choose. but there is simply no point in it. Why burn out the barrel? I had to replace two stainless heavy barrels in one season some years ago. Friend, they don't come cheap. Hart, Shilen et al have enough money already, although their products are well worth it. When you're at the range reach around and grab your barrel a couple inches in front of the chamber. If it's too hot to leave your hand there comfortably, it's too hot to shoot! Go for a whiz, drink a coke, smoke a cigarette, anything but let that barrel cool. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

Cal, I have to agree with you one hundred percent, I have a load for my 22-250 using Barnes 50gr bullets that is just below 3500 fps. This load is a keeper for the simple fact that ,not only is it barrel and shooter friendly, but it is deadly accurate. I have had some moving at over 4000 fps according to the Barnes data that just missed a whole lot quicker. They also would have reduced barrel life by quite a bit and no , I am not looking forward to rebarreling any time soon.

I to have to agree with Cal my 22-250 spits out 55gr at about 3600fps if I do my part 1/2 inch groups. When I opened up another 100fps accuracy dropped to almost 1 inch. i did not even bother with a faster load went back to 3600 and been happy ever since.

David, you already have some very good responses here. I have just read each of them twice and find nothing to disagree with.

I have shot out several 22-250 barrels over the years and for whatever reason they all seem to go south at around 4000 rounds. No matter if they were made by Remington or Hart or who. The interesting thing about Hart barrels though is that I have seen a couple that just shot great right up to the point that they died. One day they were shooting great the next they were trashed.

I thought my .223 Remington would last longer but I am beginning to doubt it. It has about 4500 rounds down the tube and the lands at the throat are washing out. I readily admit that most all those shells were shooting 40 grain V-Max's at around 3600 fps, but I thought it would last longer. I have switched to 50 grain bullets and seated them out and the accuracy has returned for now.

The 204 Ruger is so new that I doubt anyone knows how the barrel life will be. It SHOULD be very good for the performance it offers, we will just have to wait and see.

I bought a Winchester Model 70 in 223 WSSM and it did not matter what the barrel life might have been, it would not shoot for beans when it was brand new. Got rid of that sucker quick like. The guy who bought it sent it back to Winchester and he is on his third rifle so far, none of them shot well at all.

So, just do not overheat the barrel and any of the calibers you mention will serve you well. And like Varmintguy said, just because the throat is worn does not mean a gun will not shoot. I have a Hart barrel on a 22-250 AI that has about 4500 rounds down it. The bullets have to jump over an inch to reach the lands, but it still shoots under an inch and I am still giving the coyotes heck with it.

Lets face it if you get to shoot enough to burn out a barrel you are having a good time, go for it.

R F

As Cal said, find a velocity that your rifle is happy with and stick to it. Every so often (I'd usually do it after I came back from a P dog shoot), I'd adjust the seating depth of my bullet to compensate for throat erosion. I'd use the very scientific method of smoking a bullet, seating it long, and then smoke and adjust until I no longer got rifling marks on the bullet. Then I'd shoot the round(s) acrost a Chrony and add a pinch or so of powder to bring it back up to velocity. Since I only shoot my varmint rifles single fire, I didn't have to worry about magazine length.