"The rifle is fitted with a chromemoly barrel from Truvelo in South Africa. As a 220 Swift, it has seen in excess of 2500 shots at 4400 fps. Rechambered to 22x64, it has now fired a further 400 plus shots ( 2700 fps.). As the day it was built, it will still shoot under an inch at 100 and, with careful loading, at a half inch."

Gerard
This question is primarly for you What do you attribute the long barrel life of your 22X64. Above is a quote from your web page, I would normaly expect a 800-1,000 shot life given the speed and powder volume of the 22X64.

Has anyone else had this kind of barrel life with a hot .223.


Thanks
DR B

DrB,
We have never shot the barrel cooking hot. Since it was rechambered to 22x64, we have shot it almost exclusively with HV bullets. The much lower engraving pressure reduces barrel temperature and gas blow by is almost completely eliminated. The difference in temperature build up between conventional bullets or grooved bullets and HV bullets is substantial.

When the rifle was still a 220 Swift, firing at 30 second intervals produced similar temperatures at the barrel receiver joint with HV bullets, after approximately 30 shots, as what was found with conventional bullets after 9 to 10 shots. This was done with jacketed lead 50gr bullets and 40gr HVs at 400fps faster.

I am interested to see when this barrel will stop grouping.

Low engraving pressure.

Barrel Wear

PS. There is a typo in your post. The 22x64 now runs 4700fps not 2700fps.

sorry for the typo.
I have a 223 wssm that get 4400fps with noslr BT with no high pressure signs I think I can get 4600fps wit the NBTs. The rifle shoots so well that I realy don't want to shoot out the barrel any time soon. I will be contacting you for some HVs
Thanks
DR B

We will be happy to help extend the life of the rifle. See the bottom section of this page for another experience with the 22x64 .

Gerard, are you going to lock down a US distributor one of these days?

Curious

Yeah, what he said!

As an aside, the one thing I liked about the Barnes blue coating was how cool the barrel stayed. You can shoot twice as much at the same velocity for the same amount of barrel heating. When you are defending your home against hordes of attacking ground squirrels, that gets to be important! JMO, Dutch.

Right at the bottom of the page.

What are the BC's and prices of youre bullets?

Whoops, guess I shoulda checked the link.

Geez Gerard, were you trying to keep that a State secret or something....?

Lord, the Greenback has dropped a bunch since I last bought! The stash I am sitting on is worth a FORTUNE now! I'm rich, rich I tell you! LOL!

So, who, what and where is custombrassandbullets.com? No physical address or phone number to be found, anywhere? FWIW, Dutch.

Dutch,
He is Neal Shirley who was instrumental in getting the 550 Magnum off the ground. He is in Phoenix AZ and his first order is shipping this week. It has only just happened and I added his details to our Dealers page on Friday past. He must still find his feet as far as stock levels are concerned and his website is very basic at this stage but the situation will improve.

On the topic of prices, we are probably the only company that has not had a product price increase since 2003. The price of copper went from $1700 / ton in 2003 to between $8500 - $9000 / ton this year but we have been increasing volume of production and efficiency and absorbing the increases as they happened.

Yeah, but look at the mark-up you are getting! You buy at $4/lb and sell at....... .

Just kidding. I've actually watched them turn bullets on CNC machines here in Arco, and it's a capital intensive, labor intensive process, to be sure. It's sloooooowwwwwwww.

The Greenback has dropped, what? 50% since 2002? Makes for a bit of sticker shock.....

Anyway, glad to have a stocking distributor again, and I wish you and Neal an uneventful startup. FWIW, Dutch.