hk51pdx,
Please don't let my comments discourage you. The reduced barrel life is part of the nature of the beast. While I don't own a .300 WSM, I do have a .300 Win Mag and used to own a 7mm Rem Mag. I would imagine the WSM would act just like the other mag cartridges. I have seen rifles in the various magnums exhibit major throat erosion, but still shoot to most acceptable accuracy standards.
If you have a burning desire to own the WSM, try handloading it down to a lower pressure level for most of the shooting. Record your scope dope in your data book and just make the adjustments to compensate for the different loads.
I think one of the keys to shooting the more powerful cartridges is to run the rounds over a chronograph at set times. I run my .308 over the chrono about every 300-400 rounds. In my experience this will show the wear on the barrel well before the accuracy begins to drop off.
Remember, the test I mentioned in my first post was performed by the AMU. They probably have much higher standards than the majority of us.
I have seen a lot of .308 rifles come through the sniper classes my agency puts on. Even though a lot of the rifles have high round counts (and pretty low velocities) they still perform to the level needed for the course. I think the .308 is one of the more forgiving rounds in this regard.
Hope this helps.
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