Thanks for the advice. I'm fully aware of the Melonite, Nitride, or whatever you want to call it and have actually sourced an affordable place to treat guns for me. But I figured that If I can just re-barrel for cheap in the future I wouldn't worry about it.
The lower velocities is a point I hadn't considered. But, I've been going off the test done here - http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/ The bore was gone on the rifles that fired Wolf and Brown Bear before they reached 6,000 rounds. And those were hard chrome lined barrels! I really wonder how long it would have taken if the barrels were not lined or nitrided. Even though 7.62x39 is slower it can't be so far behind that low velocities alone will avert the barrel wear.
Here is what I see happening, buy tons of Wolf (because it's the cheapest right now) shoot 5 to 8,000 rounds out of it and totally wear out the barrel. At that point the gun will need to re-barreled or sold for parts. Might work for very short range blasting. That's just my speculation though.
And as for the throat or gas port erosion, that can be averted or at least prolonged significantly by a treatment of Dyna-Bore coat.
Did you watch the video in that review? They were rapid firing throughout, to the extent of battlefield/combat conditions. On the 2nd Tula rifle, they set the handguards on fire and cooled it in a mud puddle... Not in the original link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6cwh4IxXScTo say this is equivalent to how most American's shoot mag after mag would be a vast exaggeration...
Also of note -- 5.56 wears barrel throats faster than 7.62x39 due to its larger case capacity to neck diameter ratio.
Without getting into all the science, rate of fire matters far more than bullet jackets (basically, fissures develop and heat causes small bits of molten metal at the throat to get pushed down the barrel with each bullet or follows the bullet as unburnt powder, etc, abrades the hot and softened -- more rapid fire=hotter and softer barrel=more molten barrel removed w/ each shot and deeper fissures which just further exacerbates).
The ability of barrel to absorb heat also matters more than bullet jackets (this goes to surface area of throat, overall metal quantity of barrel, etc -- how rapidly you can fire/how much damage each shot automatically penalizes the barrel).
Good read:
http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/gun-nuts/2012/08/how-rifle-barrels-dieIf you shoot like they do in the gun test, maybe you'll have 5k accurate barrel life... You can kill a barrel in 1000 rounds I'm sure if you really wanted to... No barrel coating/treatment would add significantly more like if you're purposely doing everything you can to kill your barrel and get it to those temps...
Just ask the target guys/hunters shooting .22-243, .220 Swift, and .22-250 and other overbore -- shooting copper jackets, target guys are lucky to get 1k rounds out of those calibers' barrels whereas hunters are lucky to get 4k (minute of animal accuracy) no matter how slow they shoot.
Ultimately, heat in its various forms is what kills barrels, not jackets. A structurally weakened barrel due to overheat may wear faster with steel jackets than copper when overheated, but again, the heat is the primary cause of wear, not the jackets.
Further, I'd say the standard post-range trip cleaning will do more to degrade your accuracy than will steel jacketed ammo...
The 7.62x39 round was specifically designed for extremely long barrel life. I'd think the VZ2008's barrel would be sufficient for a decade+ of most American's shooting patterns no matter what ammo you choose to shoot.
