Do suppressors reduce barrel life

[3gunyotehtr]

I had read on other forums before about suppressors reducing barrel life, then recently watched a video from Wolf Precision talking about it. Is it a concern, or just accepted that the upsides are worth it. I have suppressors on my two main hunting rifles, and was thinking of getting a couple more for my heavier use rifles, but maybe will just stick to brakes for those. I get that barrels are expendable, and I have replaced a few, but was wondering what real world experiences were in this regard.

 

[StupidLightweight]

This is news to me. Care to elaborate? Barrels wear out from the throat forward, so I’m wondering how adding a suppressor could increase throat damage.

 

[JGRaider]

Another internet fairy tale.

 

[3gunyotehtr]

From what I gather, it is from the back pressure causing more carbon buildup in the barrel. In the video from Wolf, the bad effects were exasperated by excessive lube in the barrel from improper reloading practices. I believe that Bartlein claims around a 20% reduction in barrel life. I know a few on this site run suppressors extensively, and was just curious if there were any noticeable effects.

 

[HandgunHTR]

Another internet fairy tale.

Yeah, I am in this camp.

From what I gather, it is from the back pressure causing more carbon buildup in the barrel. In the video from Wolf, the bad effects were exasperated by excessive lube in the barrel from improper reloading practices. I believe that Bartlein claims around a 20% reduction in barrel life. I know a few on this site run suppressors extensively, and was just curious if there were any noticeable effects.

Carbon build-up doesn't reduce barrel life. It can be removed.

In the video, if the bad effects were "exasperated" by increased lube, then the lube is the problem, but again, all I can see happening in that scenario is more carbon, which can be removed.
I will hop over to Accurate Shooter and ask Frank directly regarding the Bartlein claim.

My guess is that if there is reduced life it is due to the fact that there is much less noise and recoil, so people are shooting longer strings and eating their throats faster due to heat. Again, not a suppressor problem, a shooter/cartridge problem.

 

[Murdy88]

Unless you are talking rapid fire where it would keep the barrel temp up I’d say, not enough to worry about. Cartridge choice will have way more of an effect if you are concerned about stretching barrel life. Hornady had a good series of podcast on barrel cleaning and presented a lot of data on barrel life for different cartridges.

 

[hereinaz]

Click bait… I don’t buy it.

What’s the mechanism behind wearing out barrels faster?
How much faster?
How would you attribute whatever is happening to the suppressor?

 

[Lawnboi]

I don’t buy it either.

I’m through entire match barrels shot suppressed now and they are no different from my others.

I do clean regularly within reason. And I do spend more time in my chamber since swapping to suppressed shooting only.

 

[General RE LEE]

There are some who religiously don’t clean their rifles and shoot suppressed so maybe that isn’t a good thing. I haven’t thought about throat wear but my Banish Backcountry gets a lot more back pressure when dirty and hot.

 

[justinspicher]

Fake news. Just more useless content so somebody can make money on YouTube.

 

[waspocrew]

Nope - never heard of this at all and if it were true, I wouldn't care.

 

[Unckebob]

Probably. I want to shoot my bigger calibers more often with suppression. Those extra shots will add up.

 

[Marbles]

Carbon build up? I mean it would depend on the powder, but here is a never cleaned Tikka 223 barrel with about 3k rounds on it and the last 1k or so suppressed.