Nitride 22 LR Barrel Life

It's not uncommon to hear people claim a plain old carbon steel rimfire barrel will maintain reasonable accuracy for 100,000 rounds or more as long as its not ruined by over-zealous cleaning or pitted from neglect. It's not to hard for me to believe with the soft bullets and minimal powder charges used.

Nitrided 22 lr barrels are used in (at least) the CMMG and RTB conversion barrels, to the best of my knowledge the first wide-scale use of nitriding for rimfire barrels.

It will be interesting to see what kind of barrel life people report, given the surface hardness and corrosion resistance that is claimed for the treatment.

Andy

Guessing 3 or 4 generations.

Most likely it is a non-issue.

Since I put my two AR22s together, we’ve done about 40k rounds through them, according to my ammo orders. About 2/3 of that was through mine and the remainder through my dads.

I’ve only cleaned each twice. I don’t believe in cleaning too often. Not AR platforms anyway. Other than broken firing pins, i’m seeing no other signs of wear.

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Originally Posted by TonyAngel

Since I put my two AR22s together, we’ve done about 40k rounds through them, according to my ammo orders. About 2/3 of that was through mine and the remainder through my dads.

I’ve only cleaned each twice. I don’t believe in cleaning too often. Not AR platforms anyway. Other than broken firing pins, i’m seeing no other signs of wear.

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Please tell me that you at least wipe the bolt down... especially on a semiauto...

A nitridided 22 barrel seems to be an answer in search of a problem...

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Originally Posted by AndyLate

It's not uncommon to hear people claim a plain old carbon steel rimfire barrel will maintain reasonable accuracy for 100,000 rounds or more as long as its not ruined by over-zealous cleaning or pitted from neglect. It's not to hard for me to believe with the soft bullets and minimal powder charges used.

Nitrided 22 lr barrels are used in (at least) the CMMG and RTB conversion barrels, to the best of my knowledge the first wide-scale use of nitriding for rimfire barrels.

It will be interesting to see what kind of barrel life people report, given the surface hardness and corrosion resistance that is claimed for the treatment.

Andy

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Anschütz has been nitriding rimfire barrels for some time now. I want to say that I first saw mention of nitrided barrels on their biathlon rifles in the early 2000s. I’ve heard Biathletes say they shoot around a thousand rounds a week, so it’s probably quite helpful in preserving accuracy over the duration of the barrel’s life.

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Originally Posted by FromMyColdDeadHand

Please tell me that you at least wipe the bolt down... especially on a semiauto...

A nitridided 22 barrel seems to be an answer in search of a problem...

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Oh, yeah. I mean, with a .22 you kind of have too. The crud just builds up to a point where it's just caked everywhere.

As for the nitrided barrel, it'll probably last forever. I just had to replace the extractor on a rifle that I haven't shot in a couple of years. It's a bolt action Glenfield that my dad bought used for $7 back in 1972 when I was 7. I can't tell you how many rounds that thing has seen and the bore still looks brand new.

Got into a disagreement elsewhere about shooting the barrel out of a .38 revolver; the other guy maintained that the rifling was totally gone after 10k rounds.
It's possible to shoot out a rifle barrel, but mighty hard with handguns or .22s.
Interesting about bi-athletes; had no idea their round count was that high.
Moon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndyLate

It's not uncommon to hear people claim a plain old carbon steel rimfire barrel will maintain reasonable accuracy for 100,000 rounds or more as long as its not ruined by over-zealous cleaning or pitted from neglect. It's not to hard for me to believe with the soft bullets and minimal powder charges used.

Nitrided 22 lr barrels are used in (at least) the CMMG and RTB conversion barrels, to the best of my knowledge the first wide-scale use of nitriding for rimfire barrels.

It will be interesting to see what kind of barrel life people report, given the surface hardness and corrosion resistance that is claimed for the treatment.

Andy

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Yeah, probably your whole life, even if you shoot a lot of rimfire.