When should I rebarrel a hunting rifle?

[Drift]

Clearly, the answer is "whenever I want to". But the question is more like "How fast will it continue to loose accuracy?" When new, the Walther barrel shot like .25 inches; and now its up to like .8 inches.
.8 inches is good for now, but when it gets up to 1.25 inches @100 yards I will want a new barrel. Is there a formula that will tell me when that will be?

[kb18no1]

Every barrel can be completely different depending on different factors.

[Von Gruff]

It will depend on the rate of fire as a cold shot hunting rifle will shoot more shots with accuracy than a rifle that has a number of shots through it in succession on a regular basis.

[hbp]

I'd take it to the gunsmith that did the initial chambering and have him check the head space and look for throat erosion.
You may just need to have the chamber "freshened",pushed forward and then rehead spaced. If you aren't doing it already, get a Hornady OAl gauge and keep track of changes in your chamber. That should give you some idea of how fast your barrel is wearing.

[Klem]

I'd take it to the gunsmith that did the initial chambering and have him check the head space and look for throat erosion.
You may just need to have the chamber "freshened",pushed forward and then rehead spaced. If you aren't doing it already, get a Hornady OAl gauge and keep track of changes in your chamber. That should give you some idea of how fast your barrel is wearing.

Can this be done?

I'm thinking this would be more difficult doing in an AR than a bolt gun. Pushing a reamer in a little further while shaving the barrel extension shoulder to keep headspace seems straight forward. But keeping the gas tube hole at 12 O'clock and the barrel extension feed ramps at 6 O'clock.

Surely it's cheaper to just buy a new barrel.

[LR1955]

Clearly, the answer is "whenever I want to". But the question is more like "How fast will it continue to loose accuracy?" When new, the Walther barrel shot like .25 inches; and now its up to like .8 inches.
.8 inches is good for now, but when it gets up to 1.25 inches @100 yards I will want a new barrel. Is there a formula that will tell me when that will be?

Drift:

I would imagine you need a new barrel for a Grendel after about 8K rounds fired.

I would really be skeptical about accuracy loss with a gas gun by shooting groups at 100 yards. I would be more convinced at 300 yards.

No need to buy a new barrel unless you need one.

LR1955

[hbp]

I've done this twice on AR barrels it's actually easier than it is with a bolt gun. Measure all your clearences, mark everything,and don't take any more metal than you have to. You don't have to remove much metal at all from the extension to regain the twelve o'clock position for the gas tube. Machinery 's handbook has charts/math for clocking. You should stop at least.0005"short of the calculated value to allow for torquing the extension.
Bolt guns are a little more involved but, it's a shorter version of what goes into chambering and threading the barrel in the first place.
All I'm really trying to say is I wouldn't give up on a good quarter MOA barrel without trying this first.

[SDguy]

Seems I have not noticed anyone mentioning the crown? "Clean" and bore scope seem in order here as mentioned. inspect crown with fine tooth comb my gut could be wrong though I am leaning towards to a potential dinged crown as the culprit here without knowing round count or rate of fire during range sessions.

[Drift]

I'v had 2 rifles re crowned by a gunsmith. I ended up with barrels a little shorter, but no change in accuracy.
And I stopped counting how many rounds through that barrel somewhere between 5 and 6 k (I think) so its probably getting close .

[SDguy]

Wow! You do some serious shooting. Only problem with New barrel is essentialy no barrel can come with a sub .5 MOA capability guarantee, though some are better than others. Sounds like you may be ready to roll the dice.

[am4966]

Wow! You do some serious shooting. Only problem with New barrel is essentialy no barrel can come with a sub .5 MOA capability guarantee, though some are better than others. Sounds like you may be ready to roll the dice.

Precision Firearms has uppers where they guarantee .5 MOA or better. So I think it would be pretty safe to say that, one of there barrels(Lilja,Bartlien or Krieger) will shoot that good and the others probably pretty close.

[SDguy]

I stand corrected. I am aware of some of the reasons that Lilja barrels are inherently very accurate. The other barrels you mention have not been on my radar yet. Time for me to study up on a few more manufactures i suppose.