Mirage/Bullet Jump/Barrel Life 

I keep watching and I keep learning.

To reduce barrel wear I keep my rifle in my closet. I don't want anyone to even look at it.

Thanks guys. I love that you can be both systematic and matter-of-fact in your approach.

Big thanks and CHEERS for detailing the correct way to extend barrel life. I've spent years trying to explain this to people I know, but now I can send them this link and you cover it all very thoroughly, in much more coherent language than I have the patience to give them repeatedly.

Thank you for these very insightful comments. The results Sam and you achieve are truly inspirational. I hope I can successfully only cover a fraction of the ground you two have walked. Please keep up your excellently documented work as it gives us all a goal to aim for!

Great info, thanks! I've listened to plenty of other videos on these topics, but Mark ties it all together so completely and so clearly. I am getting better and, more importantly feel confident I know what next steps are needed in my process to continue on that path. So glad he does these presentations for us!

This was the best explanation of hybrid bullets I've ever seen. Great info on mirage and barrel life as well. I'm getting ready to put a new barrel on my RPR 6mm Creedmoor, so it's perfect timing. Thanks for the great info!

Another very instructive video Mark. A good demonstration of things not being where they appear is when you like a straight stick into water and the submerged end ceases to be in a straight line - refraction, like a mirage.

Fantastic information. I was listening to the Wired to Hunt podcast earlier today and they had Adam Weatherby on and he briefly touched on how his family early on was on a mission to provide faster cartridges. Was neat to hear you bring that up in this video

Great video. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and I am amazed at your equipment and abilities!

That’s nice to know I’m careful of the rate of fire as well.hope to get 3k out of my Lithgow 243 only got it out to 550 yards so far. That’s as far as I can shoot on my block need neighbours like yours let me put some targets up ;-) then out to 1000. Great videos mark and sam

Great video Mark! Thanks for the info and keep the videos coming!

Excellent information/advice. I learn a lot from you guys. Thanks.

Very knowledgeable person. Just a comical thought as we contemplate barrel life while giving no consideration to the fact that our guns are all going to outlive us. Mark and Sam are the best!

Love your videos. Oldie but goodie. Thank you. ❤

I learn something new with every one of your videos I watch.

Your a legend. thank you for your and Sam’s hard work. Merry Christmas and best wishes for your next year.

Great video, I've been shooting for many years but still learning. Thanks

I have been working up a load for my Enfield. Was at the range today. My first 10 shot group was awesome with the COL of 3.075 " I shoot 10 shot groups and discard any flyers. 1.5 " group of 6 shots at 100 m with 180 grain round nose soft point. The rest of my targets using shorter COLs really sucked ... looked like buck shot patterns. It was cold today too since its winter time in Canada .

Some good info there. I shot at 600 yards once at Boggabri on a 35 Degree day and they mirage was something to be seen to be believed!!!!!! The heat simmer was making the targets seemingly wobble through the spotting scope. I ended up just watching the flags for my adjustments. Anyway that thing called Mirage is a crazy beast.

Very informative again, many thanks for sharing! I'm looking into getting a centerfire rifle sometime next year and any lessons I can learn up front will help. Greetings from the Netherlands!

great info, thanks. I shoot PRS style matches and most of those you get no chance to really let the barrel cool so i'd say that is my problem. I just rebarreled my rifle and i did run 50 rounds of a light slow charge with more regular cleaning, trying to do a better job with break in, hoping this helps. thanks for your videos.

Great discussion/talk and som great points. Thank you.

Interesting Mark, ill give it a blast. I fancy having a play with depths as I've always run almost touching.

Fantastically interesting stuff, thanks!! The older bottleneck Weatherby info I found especially interesting...

You know mark and sam, You videos are excellent and most infortmative, best on youtube. I support you guys in the way as I let the ads run right through, even thou I hate them. keep up the great work.

Yet another beautifully articulated video. Very impressed and many thanks.

Again, thanks for sharing, invaluable for us, trying to learn :)

Wasn’t aware Weatherby prefers jump - thanks for thenknowledge 😮. Have a Howa 1500 6.5 CM converted to 6 CM with a Bartlien barrel. Shooting 105gr’s the rifle shoots best up on the lands. Great content as usual 👍

I don’t have a lot of high pressures cartridges I do have one 300 WSM and I’ve been very concerned about barrel life, so basically if I should heavier bullets a little bit slower it should last pretty good, I wanna say I really enjoyed your video, I really like how you explained it, and how you used down to earth terms, and didn’t use a bunch abbreviated words, i’ve seen several videos talking about this but you couldn’t understand what they were saying without doing a bunch of Google searches. I also break in rifles like you mentioned, thanks again

Wow you answer everybody post. A class act.

More great info Mark. One day when I visit Australia I'd love to sit down and have a beer with ya! Cheers!

Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Thanks Mark. You’re a great teacher.

Years ago I always set bullet jump now I don't worry about it... you have great videos...

Very educational.Absolutely terrific effort my maaaaan.Good to hear these things in laymans terms.

Long story short. Listen to this guy. The proof is in the pudding my friends 👍

ANYBODY that knows you and doesn't absorb the knowledge that you have IS A DAMN FOOL!!! LOVE THE VIDEOS!!!!!

Really useful,well explained info cheers

Great info as always 👏 I just bought a Vanguard in 6.5-300 Wby Mag to use as a hunting rifle and people’s first reaction is usually some quip about how the barrel won’t outlast a box of bullets etc. I’ve started asking them how many barrels they’ve burned out in their shooting careers and haven’t found anyone yet who’s done it.

I think you've made it as "clear" 😁 as possible about mirage. I think most of the shooters are not really aware about the "diffraction/refraction" of light concept. As a graphic artist i know a bit about it and it helps me a lot with it. Good point as usual! Regards from France. 🖖🏻🇫🇷😎🇫🇷🤪🇫🇷🖖🏻

thanks I find all your videos very informative

I have heard (as Mark explained) rate of fire and heat is a big factor in barrel wear and never buy a semi auto used unless you can scope the bore. As a kid I had a 12 gauge semi auto and I loved to empty that thing as fast as possible, so I can understand the temptation!

Tbh i never knew nothing about mirage thanks for the info and it makes more sense now why some days split bullet holes and others 1 inch or worse i have seen it just never gave it a thought so thanks

Great information. Thanks again.

A great vid not many people have explained this that clearly I have tried to explain all of the points of this to people but I will now just send a link

Great video, as always. As far as barrel wear goes, I've always thought it was basically a matter of bullet speed x round count x rest time between shots. A hunting rifle that gets a 3-5 round zero check before the season and the remainder of that box spread out over a few months of hunting will last forever! On the other hand, the super-tactical-guys running 5-10 boxes of 223Rem through AR-15's per range trip will have barrel wear and other issues much sooner. **Mark** At some point I'd like to get your take on what to look for, both pro and con, when buying used rifles (previously owned, for the expensive models, LOL!). I know that's a huge topic so I'd ask you to focus on bolt actions since that's what you use on most of your videos. Thanks!

Awesome information! Thanks for sharing 👍

Thanks mate I will try to slow down a little bit and see it if helps. I am sure it will. Cheer's

You 2 are AWESOME!!!

Thank you for the good info. I liked and subscribed!

Great info Mark. You explain the skill and science behind shooting cheers Mate.

Excellent video!

More solid info. Thanks

very informative video, well done.

One word….. freakin great video my friend. Oh that’s like 5 words. You Just earned a sub. Thank you. Look forward to the next one.

Very good, common sense advice. Takes the folklore out of barrel cleaning on break in. The other aspects of barrel wear were skipped a bit such as choosing calibres where you avoid long and wide powder columns for calibre. Eg a .243 will generally shoot out a barrel quicker than .308 because you're pushing a reltavely small but long bullet for cal at higher velocities than .308 yet using similar powder mass and column so similar energies spread over smaller barrel surface area which means faster throat erosion.

some good info thanks.

Interesting thank you very much for sharing do you by chance have a video out that you run through your break in procedure and overall maintenance thanks again

Great stuff! Thanks

Little tiny comments...Aussie translation? ...nuggets of true wisdom. Thank you 'mate'...from the states, i.e. HUSKER NATION

I always check my barrels with an endoscopic cam. It's worth its price... My 222 Rem has 2500/3000 rounds shot and is still running good!

Great video 👍👍

Thanks for the information

Interesting stuff !!!

Been watching your channel for a few years, and I'm always amazed at the amount of knowledge you have. Were you trained in the military?

Thank you!

Mark: I have a Howa 1500 in 22.250 Remington. After about 2000 rounds, there is visually obvious throat errosion. Is there a bullet/powder combination that will help reduce group size? I am now at 1moa and growing, it started out as 1/2 moa and consistent. I have been loading 34gr. H4895, and a 52gr. Hornady match bullet. I seat them to SAMMI length. Keep up the good work!

Regarding the bullet jump, I think you were saying that you were changing the overall length to deal with magazine variation, but ended up finding that pressure changes due to the bullet jump helped or hurt accuracy (and as a byproduct barrel life). How were you measuring these things? I've played with bullets and charges, but am at a loss for testing bullet jump. Maybe you touched on it when talking about charge and bullet weight, but twist rate probably matters too. I'd love to hear an in depth discussion on the topic (or be pointed to what is likely an obvious resource).

Excellent, concise and well presented. Great Info MarkandSam #Thumbsup..

Cheers for the info, I suffer from mirage I first thought it was my tired eyes until club member explained it and told me when I am ready to take the shot is to blow down the barrel just before pulling the trigger. I have a 243 on my licence but many tell me to change it to a 308 due to 243 barrel life compared to 308 what’s your thoughts on this

Any research on whether bullet jump has any effect on recoil? Logic tells me that a bullet engaging the rifling at ( some) speed due to bullet jump will have a slight effect of "pushing" the barrel (and therefore the whole rifle) slightly forward and thereby reducing recoil slightly. Not that recoil is a problem, to me it is part of the experience of firing a rifle and something I remember afterwards. Thanks for the presentation, very informative.

I’m sure your spot on Mark rate of fire is a big factor a barrel needs time to wash off some heat especially with big loads , I single feed so I don’t seem to have a problem Regards Steve .

Mark, i dont know if you remember the Berger VLD hybrid, they came in a whitish box and were not as sensitive to seating depth, they were a hunting bullet, have you seen them..as far as i know they stopped making them.. thanks

I like watching your channel, I think you give shooters very good advice. As far as bullet jump, is it safe to assume a hand loader isn’t usually going to even have the option to load very close to the lands unless a heavy grain longer boat-tail type is used, because the bullet might practically be falling out of the neck of the case? I read somewhere that typically a person wants approx the dia of the bullet minimum seated in the case neck for proper bullet retention. I also was told that if your rifle uses detachable box magazine, you might not even be able to load cartridges in magazine and use with long C.O.A.L. when trying to load close to the lands. So is it safe to assume that if shooting a non match style bullet such as a regular flat based design hunting bullet, that trying to chase the lands is foolish and not going to gain any significant accuracy benefit, and that common 0.020- 0.040” off lands amount will usually produce very acceptable 1MOA 3 shot group accuracy when loaded correctly, say if the gun is advertised as a factory 1MOA rifle such as a Winchester mod 70 in .243 Win or .270 Win? Cheers from 🇺🇸

On your piece on barrel life I'd like to comment during the late 70's early 80's fox skins were in hight demand and everyone purchased a .17 rem .Unfortunately they also purchased several boxes of loaded rounds and proceeded to shoot the rifle in with these full velocity rounds, here in New England there were hundreds of these rifles bought by hunters and in those days I did a lot of bedding and tuning for these individual shootets and gun shops . The .17 rem ended up with a very bad reputation for accuracy and I at the time put this down to the way the barrels were run in .I believe that almost 50 PERCENT of these barrels were totally ruined in the first 100 rounds

I bought a Winchester Model 70 7mm Mag. I thought I was getting a decent deal on it, but it shoots TERRIBLE. I mentioned this to a friend who is a competition shooter. He said that sometimes guys will buy a 7mm Mag. and will take it out and pump a box of shells through it, and it will CRACK THE THROAT of the rifle. I ran a bore scope down it, and, sure enough, the throat is cracked. I'm in the process of getting it re-barreled :(

Berger recommends trying seating depths in bands of 30 or 40 thousandths.... 10 thou, 40, 70 thou,

thanx, again

I’m running the 175gr berger elite hunter in my 7 Rem Mag. After watching your video I’m inclined to try shooting them as far as 75 thou off. I’m shooting them 20 thou off right now and it seems like ever 4th or fifth shot I see an ejector mark on my brass like I’m getting a pressure spike. Does this sound correct?

Hey partner I know this is an older video but I do have a question. I found that my parallax needed to be adjusted for a clear image when I was at the range as I increased my magnification and could no longer see clearly at 100M and 20x and up. the only way I can get a clear image on my black hound Optics 6 - 24 x50 was to increase the parallax and I found that my settings at 100 yards was closer to 125 according to the dial when using magnifications above 20. I try to Justin die after first

After barrel break in how often do you clean

Barrels are consumables just like bullets, primers, cases and powder.

Have you had a look a the new zero tech trace?

Refraction. It is like looking at a fish from the creek edge in a beautifully clear water. The fish is NOT located where you actually see it.

👍👍👍

I was looking for Warframe stuff but this is interesting

Around the 9-10 minute mark, you are talking about bullet jump and pressures. How exactly do you test pressure other than looking for deformities on the brass?

Hi Guys is bullet jump the same as head space?

We don't see you using stainless steel barrels very often. Is there reason for this?

The mirage I deal with comes from a hot barrel!

You made an confirmation bias assumption that Weatherby long seating depth is less accurate. And then turned around and said that a long seating depth works just fine. It makes more sense to me to let the bullet exit the soft brass case neck before it enters the rifling so that it is supported by the barrel Steel to swage into the rifling.

I have seen through the years that neck tension vs bullet jump always has neck tension as an important role. My limited experience tells me that if a hand loader is jamming his bullets, then neck tension is irrelevant. Neck tension is directly responsible for controlled start pressure. Well, doesn't jamming a bullet create manageable start pressure that neck tension would do? After all, jamming a bullet destroys your seating neck tension.

Came here from kiwitedferny.

Burning out a Barrel in one day..... Are they even aiming?

Good stuff. Thanks!