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[robert w.]

And some say the sky is falling too.
Ever consider how long a bullet takes to exit a 24 " barrel? Its about .002 of a second. Figure 6000 rounds fired for a barrel life in a given cartridge. So it makes a barrel last about 12 seconds by bullet time exiting the barrel.
Now how many fire that much at a time?
Caliber and load comes to play but its actual barrel life

[Rick in Oregon]

With that in mind, consider the heat and barrel life of a WWII German MG42 in sustained fire........

Ever wonder why that weapon and many others came with asbestos gloves for the gun crew for changing barrels? I know of one individual from my time in SE Asia that left the palm skin of his right hand on the very hot barrel of a Browning M2 after just blowing through a 200 rnd can. Not pretty and dang painful!

Barrel heat: The enemy of every firearm.

[robert w.]

Yes,dad spoke of vickers in WW II and the liquid cooled rifles.
And we have burned out barrels. The WW II barrels must had better metal

[Rick in Oregon]

The WW II barrels must had better metal

Maybe, but probably not. They just got changed very, very often.

[Bill K]

The WW II barrels must had better metal

Maybe, but probably not. They just got changed very, very often.

That and the fact that they were not looking for accuracy, like we do, all they wanted was fire power down range and into the enemy, wounding or killing as many as they could to get them out of action, one way or the other. Bill K

[robert w.]

but,no matter what they got hot. some old military rifles were inaccurate,some were tack drivers, lots of the accurate rifles become sniper rifles.