Quote Originally Posted by bobbyfairbanks View Post
I am a hand loader and do want good accuracy but more important to me is the barrel life. I would rather pay a little more and have the barrel last me a few thousand rds more.
Unless you are retired and have plenty of time and money to shoot very often it would be really difficult to wear out a barrel on a semi-auto rifle. I had a friend who probably had over 20,000 rounds on his rifle and it was still shooting quite well with the original Bushmaster barrel. If I truly planned to shoot a rifle enough to wear a barrel out I would probably buy the cheapest barrel I could find since I would be replacing it once or twice anyways.