4500 rounds with a 6.5 cm? Do you consistently see higher than average barrel life with Sako barrels?
Higher than average in my experience. Here’s a recent post of mine from another thread…
I’m up to somewhere around 40ish Tikka and Sako replacement barrels.
Most of them have shot as expected out of the box, however, I don’t normally put too much stock into the first 100 rounds. I’ll start getting a realistic and consistent velocity from the chrono at 100-200 rounds. Even with factory ammo and the large potential spreads.
When I used to clean my barrels I would wait at least 50 rounds before taking them on a big game killing trip. Probably not needed but it worked for me.
These days I don’t clean at all and I’ve found the barrels last the same amount of rounds or more usually within 200-300ish rounds before being “shot out”.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that your rifle shoots a bit better after a couple hundred rounds. I’ve seen this on multiple tikka and Sako barrels (not all barrels, but probably 20ish percent of them).
Good news with these barrels is, you never need to clean them, and they just keep on shooting very well.
My stainless 22” .243 Tikka barrel is finally dead after 7,000+ rounds. I just recently replaced a Tikka Stainless fluted .260 Rem barrel as well that made it 5,500+ rounds. A Sako stainless non-fluted .260 barrel made it 7,500+ rounds (my buddy in Finland who used to work for Sako at the time had me send it to him). A stainless fluted .204 Sako barrel made it 4,500 rounds before I bought a new one. A blued Sako 20” .223 barrel made it 8,000+ rounds.
Keep in mind that all of these barrels still functioned as expected and shot okay. They just didn’t meet accuracy/consistency specs needed any longer.
These are just a few examples of some round counts I had kept track of and had written down for a friend who was curious.