They say that the 22-250 will burn out it's barrell faster than the 223 just how many rounds would you have to fire through the barrell to burn it out

This really depends on how you shoot a rifle. Pushing rounds one after another thru a barrel til it turns red makes for short barrel life reguadless of the caliber and speed of the bullet.

Most of the folks that shoot a 22-250 expect around 3000 rounds before throat erosion begins to effect accuracy. The 223 will probably to half again that given decent care to the barrel.

If you plan on shooting the big squirrel fields take two guns and alternate them.

my experience with half a dozen 22-250's and three 223's, (all bolt guns) is both start dropping accuracy at around 4000 rounds. Having a gunsmith set the barrel back 3/4 inch and rechamber to get past the throat erosion gets you back to good accuracy.

This really depends on how you shoot a rifle. Pushing rounds one after another thru a barrel til it turns red makes for short barrel life reguadless of the caliber and speed of the bullet.

Most of the folks that shoot a 22-250 expect around 3000 rounds before throat erosion begins to effect accuracy. The 223 will probably to half again that given decent care to the barrel.

If you plan on shooting the big squirrel fields take two guns and alternate them.

my experience with half a dozen 22-250's and three 223's, (all bolt guns) is both start dropping accuracy at around 4000 rounds. Having a gunsmith set the barrel back 3/4 inch and rechamber to get past the throat erosion gets you back to good accuracy.
Recycle your barrel, great advice!!

fauce - I load a lot of my 55 gr .22-250 loads down to 3550fps (26" barrel). How much more throat friendly will these rounds be than max 3700 to 3800 FPS loads?

Should be more friendly as your shooting pretty much what you can attain with the 223, but you can burn a 223 barrel out just as easy as the 22-250 by running rounds thru it as fast as you can til the barrel get to hot to touch.

I've always ran near max loads. The simple reason was I bought the 22-250 to gain the performance it offered over such rounds as the 223. I always try to be careful and not get the barrel to hot and if I'm out shooting squirrels I take along the 22 rimfire to shoot while the barrel cools or I'll take along at least two guns.

I do a lot of coyote hunting and your not really shooting a lot of rounds downrange doing that. Bottom line is I want as flat as shooting gun as I can get and I'm going to shoot it to that performance envelope. Come a few thousand rounds down the road I'll rebarrel and count that the cost of following my sport.

I shoot a 243 and a 204 Ruger now for coyotes and squirrels. The 243 gets a steady diet of 55 grain Noslers at just under 4000 fps. The 204 goes between 3900 and 4200 fps depending on if I'm using 32 or 40 grain bullets. Someday those barrels are going to need replacement, but I'll treat them well and clean them right and get the maximum out of them til they need replaced. At that time I'll put a premium barrel on and start them all over.

Bottom line is eventually all barrels will wear out. If your careful you can shoot to the cartridges potential and get lots of rounds out of them before replacement. If you want to shoot at velocities well below the gun/cartridge's potential you'll get longer barrel life, but I would simply buy a rifle that shot at those lower velocities.

fauce - I load a lot of my 55 gr .22-250 loads down to 3550fps (26" barrel). How much more throat friendly will these rounds be than max 3700 to 3800 FPS loads?


4000 seems like too few rounds...but think about that.

40 boxes of bullets
4 cartons of primers
20 pounds of powder (@ 35gr. per round)