barrel, maintenance, failure, replacement, symptomsI have heard many opinions on this, but what are the first common signs of a gun barrel failure and replacement required? What part of the barrel starts to fail first? Do you start to notice a loss in accuracy in the early stages?
I’m presuming you don’t mean actual failure of or damage to the barrel and just want an indicator of when it’s time to replace it under normal wear and tear. For a personal firearm, I don’t believe there are hard and fast rules. Some ugly barrels have shot beautifully and some beautiful barrels have shot garbage. When accuracy is starting to drop off to a personally unacceptable level, and you’ve eliminated the shooter, the sights and the ammo (and cleaned the weapon and double checked that you haven’t damaged something that might be repairable like the crown) it’s probably time to start looking for a new barrel. In general, your lands and grooves in the rifling should be crisp, but again, even some fairly worn looking barrels still shot straight and consistent.
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