I was able to pick up a .264 at a decent price. Barrel is in extremely good shape for being original 1967 model.

Anyone here had experience with the dreaded throat erosion supposed to be so prevalent with this caliber? Is it just older barrels or the older types of steel? Is this still aproblem or just an urban legend? Any cures?

Thanks for the input. swede

WS--

I've rebarrelled a bunch of .264s that were shot out. They still do, too. They're usually good to 800 to 1200 rounds, depending on how hot they get.

Is it due to repetitive shooting with the barrel hot...or just the quality of the steel. Is the older barrel better than the current variety? Thanks for the help. swede

Swede, shooting fast and often with a hot barrel will reduce the barrel life of ANY high-powered rifle. But, one which uses ten to 20 extra grains of powder just to achieve an extra 200 FPS (OR LESS) with the same bullets than other rifles of the same bore diameter will cut away the essential portions of the throat of your rifle a lot faster than the one with a smaller, more efficient cartridge case! I built one of the first .264 Winchesters in the woods around College Station Texas. This was in the fall of 1960, and it was built on a M98 Mauser with a 26" barrel. We had a helluva time finding 20 rounds of factory ammo, because no data was yet available. It happened to be the 140 grain load. We went out to shoot this thing for the first time just about dusk, but could still see the 100-yard targets O.K. I have NEVER seen a muzzle blast like that rifle produced, before or since!! It seemed to me that the fireball was about the size of a Volkswagen!! I remeber thinking "this thing is going to eat barrels pretty quick"!! And they still do. Steel has not improved enough since then to have any influence on rifles like these.