What makes a firearm a "high round count"?
 

I see ads for firearms with a "low round count" of 60 or 100 rounds, etc. What volume of rounds would move a firearm into the "high round count" category? I believe maintenance helps prevent premature wear and tear, but there's likely a point where, even with the best care, performance and functionality are affected by the high number of rounds fired.

The reason for my question is that I use firearms as part of my job and we have 20 year old stainless synthetic Remington 700's in .30-06 that have each likely fired over 5000 rounds.

I expect that sellers referencing "low round count" are trying to convey that the gun is in good condition. Possibly more important to throat erosion than round count, is how those rounds were fired. ie: fast and hot vs. slow and cool.
Edit: Obviously, what the firearm is used for is important to "condition". A 30-06 with 5000 rnds purposed to dispatch an injured animal at close range should be no problem.

I would be more concerned about what load is being used and then the round count, if you have a pretty hot load (ie 7mmSTW) you may only get 800-1200 rounds out of a barrel.

That said your work rifle definitely has a high round count.

Depending on the requirements for a rifle , 5000 rounds may or may not be okay

If the targets are within 100 yards I doubt if it would make a difference depending on the accuract parameters and the particular shooter .
Some shooters are better with a worn out rifle than others are witha brand new one
Cat

All are factory loads, with about 2/3 being lower velocity "managed recoil" loads for training. Still, I know it's a lot of rounds!

Unless you know the loads used, and how they were fired, the round count is not a great indicator. While 100 rounds fired out of a 308win while not overheating the barrel is going to use up very little of the barrel's life, firing 100 rounds in rapid succession out of a 30-378 could use up more than 25% of the life of the barrel. 5000 rounds out of a 30-06 is a lot of rounds, and the accuracy will likely be effected to some degree. As to whether that loss in accuracy will be an issue, depends on the shooter, and his intended use for the rifle.

Accuracy is secondary in this case. Most shooting is 50m or less. The sheer number of times the bolt has been cycled has also resulted in some wear in the action. These rifles aren't feeding as reliably as they used to either.

Good thoughts all. Thanks.

I just replaced a barrel in a 20 caliber wildcat that had an estimated 7000 rounds through it and surprisingly it still shot between 1/2" and 1" groups. Inspection with a bore scope showed severe erosion for the first 4-5 inches of barrel, it would not have lasted long in the spring gopher patch before things went horribly south. David.

that is amazingly impressive

The day a tool I rely on doesn't feed properly is the day it goes in to a good smith to get fixed or I buy a new one. Bad feeding is far more likely to cause an issue than a bit of a drop in accuracy. The accuracy is easy to test, fire a few five shot groups at 100 yards. If it still groups around and inch to 1 1/2" get the feed fixed. If it doesn't groups that well, I would suggest you get a new gun.

This is simply my opinion, and my interpretation is as such:

Low round count - means nothing to me because the definition of "low" can vary from person to person.

The second thing, being discussed, is the barrel life of a particular caliber. Assuming the frequency and use of a rifle is equal, generally the more the overbore a cartridge is, equates to greater ablation of throat, the less the barrel life. Even if we skip over the reloading argument of this equation "how hot you run it" -the same caliber i.e. 30-06 can vary because the materials of/and how barrels are produced vary.

As well, if you review barrel life numbers by discipline i.e. F-Class, PRS, Hunting etc. you will get a wide margin of numbers, and that simply reflects 1) how those barrels are being run and 2) what kind of accuracy is acceptable for each discipline.

But then again, this is only my experience. Hope that helps.

What makes it High round count? Honesty.

That's part of the reason I started this thread. Our work firearms are viewed by management as "indestructible" and there has been little support in past to spend money on them. Funny how a chainsaw will be replaced when worn significantly, but a firearms - not so much.

The good news is I believe I have approval to replace our old Remingtons. I brought up the reliability issue and emphasized that sometimes we only get one opportunity that may last only a few seconds to make a critical close-range shot on a dangerous animal and a misfeed can be serious.

I have seen many ads in the buy and sell for low count rifles but have never seen an ad for a high count rifle being sold....
Must be many of the kind hearted gun floggers who buy the high count rifles cheap from widows and then rebarrel them and sell them again as a good will gesture to the firearm buying guys here who are looking for low count rifles...................