Should You Worry About 6.5 Creedmoor Barrel Life?

YouTuber IMPACT SHOOTING posted a poll on his X account asking if his followers have ever “shot out” a rifle barrel. Eighty-three percent of pollees responded that they had never shot out a rifle barrel, which led to the question-- should you avoid a cartridge like the 6.5 Creedmoor because of a shorter barrel life? Pieter seeks to answer that in this awesome video!

Pieter shows some calculations for reloading and shooting 6.5 Creedmoor ammunition and identifies that you would need to shoot about $7,500 dollars in factory-loaded 6.5 Creedmoor ammo to “shoot out’ most barrels. Comparing the price of factory versus reloaded ammunition, Pieter says the price of shooting out a rifle barrel with his reloads is around $3,000. With this data in mind, the host thinks it is worth a shooter’s time and money to invest in reloading equipment and reload instead of purchasing factory ammo if they shoot often.

Pieter does a fantastic job breaking down the costs associated with actually burning out a barrel.

Barrel replacement costs are then expounded upon, and Pieter says that if someone can afford to shoot a rifle enough to shoot out its barrel, the cost of a replacement barrel should be negligible to them. This discussion was sparked in response to a few YouTube commenters who stated that people shouldn’t worry about barrel replacements due to their price.

During the video, Pieter shows off one of his newest long-range precision rifle builds. This build features a 6.5 Creedmoor carbon fiber Howa action and barrel mounted in an MDT XRS Chassis and a Vanward 3D printed titanium silencer. The rifle has an amazing Cerakote job!

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