Durability of Ion-Bonded barrel in LW-50 Stainless?

AR/M4 AR Technical Discussion
1

OK, I’m thinking about a very accurate AR for the prairie dog stuff, and noticed LaRue sells their upper using a barrel made of LW-50 Stainless steel with the ion-bonded process. I understand a good chrome lined barrel will hold its 1-1.5" groups to about 8-12K rounds, on average. Anyone have any idea how many rounds the LW-50 stainless barrel will hold its (LaRue guaranteed) <1" groups?

To be clear, I’m primarily interested in how long the barrel with have sub MOA accuracy, as opposed to how long it will have acceptable accuracy (which for an AR I define as 2" or less MOA).

2

As far as I know, the Ionbond process cannot be applied to the bore, so that particular barrel should have a similar accurate life to any other quality stainless barrel of the same grade.

3

Correct, IonBond is in the outside of the barrel not the inside.

I got my IonBond barrel from GTS/Denny’s - I haven’t actually held it yet, only seen pics.

If you can afford to shoot tens of thousands of rounds, just plan on getting a new barrel every so often.

4

Thanks guys.