Barrel Life of a Colt 6920

[wedgemo]

Hi I was wondering,what is the Barrel life of a Colt 6920? That would be only shooting semi-auto. How many rounds before barrel replacement?

[m4fun]

Real M4 - I believe advertised for 10,000 rounds but SOCOM found that it only lasts for 6,000(I am sure under diverse and FA conditions).

Might be a life-time depending on how you use it.

[they]

well... around 400 rds dumping full auto... tens of thousands slow fire... anywhere in between for in between. When you notice your groups open up... replace barrel...

That said... there is a school of thought to replace the entire upper (including b/bc/etc) every 10k rds or so... if you just replace the bbl you can have problems with other components... kindof takes the guesswork out of it.

Besides, 10k rounds is around 4-5k... an upper is a drop in the bucket

[CAVDOC]

for general civilian use with reasonable accuracy a lot more than people think. I have non chromed barrels that still gave 2-3 moa accuracy after 20k+ rounds. and these were middle of the road barrels not anything fancy or expensive.
certainly if you want the best possible accuracy you MAY see groups open up after a few thousand, but unless you are shooting 600 yards at camp perry you probably won't notice enough difference to matter.

[markm]

Really depends on how hard you run it. I have barrels with WAY more than 10k through them. They still headspace fine and shoot very good groups.

[Skyyr]

Originally Posted by they

That said... there is a school of thought to replace the entire upper (including b/bc/etc) every 10k rds or so... if you just replace the bbl you can have problems with other components... kindof takes the guesswork out of it.

Every 10k rounds? Ummm... most quality barrels will go 15,000-20,000+ rounds before their groups truly "open up," and that's only bullet stabilization. There's no need whatsoever to replace your entire upper every 10k rounds. I'd love to hear the reasoning behind throwing out the bolt carrier, upper receiver, and railed handguards simply for the purpose of preemptive maintenance.

Also, 10k rounds is $3,000-4,000, not $5,000. With a quality, free-floated stainless upper (BCM, Noveske, Larue) potentially costing ~$1,000 or MORE, that's not a "drop in the bucket" - that's 25% of the cost of the ammo you shot.

To the OP:
There are many threads on this subject and it's a question I once asked myself. Under "normal" use (60 rounds every 15 minutes or so) and good cleaning, a QUALITY barrel should last you ~15,000 rounds, give or take. If you fire at a slower rate than that, then the barrel life increases even more, potentially 20,000-25,000+. Some barrels have lasted 30,000 (BCM, Noveske) to 50,000 (Larue) round counts. Conversely, you can destroy a barrel in 6 magazines (180 rounds) or less doing quick mag dumps (shooting an entire magazine, reloading, and repeating as quickly as possible). It's ALL about the rate of fire, how long it has to cool down before being used again, and how well it's cleaned.