Originally Posted By: buckstix
....In reality, I have yet to have someone tell me "first hand" that they have conducted any barrel wear tests, and found that after "X" number of smokless powder shots, or after firing "X" number jacketed bullets, that the rifling was measured to show that it has worn "X" thousands of an inch. It just ain't so....

I think your position is just fine with me, but there are good examples to look at.

A jacketed bullet bench rest shooter will set the barrel back or rebarrel when the shot count is in the low thousands. Top cast bullet bench rest shooters may go well north of a hundred thousand shots and be confident in the performance. Those jacketed bench rest barrels generally look really good, and are properly cared for, but have measurable wear and will fall off in the performance that it originally had.