Barrel break in

[Absolutlee]

I just bought a new high power rifle. It was built for someone else and has not been shot since it was built. I have read a few articles about breaking in a new barrel and was wondering if I could get some advise from those who have done this before. Thanks, Lee.

[Bob259]

Here's on persons perspective,
http://www.6mmbr.com/gailmcmbreakin.html

Here's the other....
http://www.rifle-accuracy-reports.com/b ... ak-in.html

If it's a custom and you know the barrel maker, send them a note and ask, if it's a stock rifle, ask the manufacture tech folks.

[Snake]

The traditional bench rest break-in is 1) fire one shot from a clean bore ...all machining residue removed...then clean and check for and remove all blue (copper) with sweets 2) fire a second..repeat the sweet's clean up 3) if the blue stops then fire 3 shots...check for and clean up copper with sweets 5) if no blue after three go to 5 shots....if your barrel is still copper fouling at this stage you got a rough barrel! Final clean up requires a a patch wet with a 50/50 mix of marine oil and naphtha....that will soot right out without and residues.
The O'malley break in requires you start with 5 shots then clean up before another 5...followed by 8-10.....premium stainless barrels properly lapped clean up very easily....factory barrels never clean up easily

[Trent]

Load ammo... shoot ammo... go home with a big smile. Like this...

If a barrel is going to "break in" it will do it after a certain number of shots fired, not by any amount of cleaning.

[boats]

Agree shoot then clean when you get home. Top notch barrels will wipe clean easy. Factory not so easy. Worse the factory is worse they fowl,

More barrels ruined by cleaning rods than shooting.

Boats

[Jerry G]

Go to the Lilja web site.

[Snake]

If you let copper build up...you hurt accuracy and potentially useful barrel life. Cleaning rods damage barrels when improperly guided and over used.....nothing bests the barrel damage from swaging a guilding metal projectile through it with a 5000 degree flame even if that happens in nanoseconds. Personally I have never had more than 7 shoot and clean cycles to break in a barrel....then I don't clean until after the match day...or the match if it goes more than one day. Copper fouling is the bane of rifle accuracy...or inaccuracy as the case is

[Bob Mc Alice]

There are a lot of opinions on this older thread....read both pages.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=287509

[Snake]

So long as you burnish the new barrel sufficiently where it no long copper fouls...that's the extent of any useful break-in procedure. Some barrels...like Shilen break-in after two or three shots...some cut rifle barrels take a lot longer. It all depends on tool marks etc in the new barrel. this likely explains the variety of break-in theories

[Trent]

I think the variety in break in techniques is the result of the fact that there is absolutely no way to prove or disprove that it does anything.

Take this for example… do the shoot one - clean one method and say by the end you have fired a total of 25 rounds. Another person just fires 25 rounds and cleans when they're done. Both barrels will end up at the same place. The bullets will do any "breaking in" of the barrel regardless of any cleaning.

Just my opinion... but you can't prove me wrong.

[Bob Mc Alice]

Trent, here is an example. That most recent 700 BDL I put the new factory stainless barrel on now has 100 shots through it. Two weeks ago I fired the first 50 shots without any cleaning at all. It was a half minute shooter right away. I cleaned it when I got home. This past Saturday I put another 50 shots down range, again with out any cleaning. 150 SMK's shot an inch 300 meters at the beginning and end of the day. This last batch of new SS take off barrels I bought have been fantastic shooters. Cleaning was as easy as any of my Douglas barrels. I looked the bore over with the Hawkeye bore scope Sunday night and not a trace of copper fouling was seen.

Last November I fitted one of them to BW's 40x action. Had to take .009 off the shoulder to make minimum head space. He finally got around to testing it at our last practice match. After getting on the 200 M gong we watched him overlap his next few shots with it. He banged five in a row chickens with it, too. Needless to say he was a happy camper.

Break in? Don't need no stinking break in.

[Dee]

I think you have to take some barrel breakin routines with a grain of salt. Many of them are out there for the super over the top benchrest shooters that love to mess with their equipment all the time. I think it gives them the feeling it makes a big difference. From all my readings if you have a quality hand lapped barrel all you are really breaking in is the chamber cut areas in the throat of the barrel. Getting those edges smoothed over to prevent copper fouling from happening quickly thus affecting accuracy. Once that is done I think you are done breaking it in.

Kreiger has a routine listed on their site they recommend for break in. I cut it down and only did a round of 1 shot one quick clean for 3 shots than a couple of 3 shots per cleaning then one 5 shot and I was done. Must have worked because I can make headshots on Turkeys off the crappie benchrest with it and that is plenty accurate enough for me.

Do these bench warmer guys that buy 6 barrels and then try to find the best go through this entire breakin for each barrel before picking a winner? It would be interesting to see what results are from barrels with the 'proper breakin' compared to no breakin at all.

I saw a high magnification image of a Kreiger barrel and a stock Rem 700 barrel. When you see that pic it makes you realize there is nothing to really break in on the Kreiger and with the Remington it would appear no amount of breakin will make it look like the Kreiger The Reminton barrel looked like hacksaw blade along the lands they were so rough, the Kreiger was like a polished diamond.

Will more lengthy breakin routines give you an extra .1" or more smaller group off a bench at 100 yards? Maybe, maybe not. Will it matter when you are trying to settle in offhand on a HP animal, probably not.


Dee

[Bob Mc Alice]

Dee, that video is from Lilja. We have all seen it before. There is no way that supposed new Remington barrel had that much wrong with it after being hammer forged over a mandrel. NO WAY. I strongly suspect deliberate damage was inflicted to enhance the video in favor of his product. Brand new take off my ass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf9zZqn00CA

Your last statement is spot on.

[Snake]

Mcalice...i have a steyr mannlicher with a cold hammer forged barrel and two Ruger M77 with hammer forged barrels....all copper fouled initially..the Steyr less so than the two Rugers.As Dee points out lapping is the key. No deep drill hole is clean and no mandrel used on thousands of barrels doesn't impart boo-boos in the barrel that need to be burnished out. having done both the long and fast versions of break in...i assure you that group sizes shrink precipitously during break-in and in some cases 5 shot groups went from over 1 " to under .5......but a rapid break-in ala Dee is the answer A group of over 1" at 100 translates into a missed turkey at 385 offhand. So Trent i can prove you wrong....actually you can prove it yourself when you test a new barrel. Another area of fouling is the slope of the leade...most are 11/2 degrees....which increases fouling ...when a 3 degree conforms better with match bullet ogives and fouls less. Three degree however shortens barrel life according to some

[Trent]

Mcalice...i have a steyr mannlicher with a cold hammer forged barrel and two Ruger M77 with hammer forged barrels....all copper fouled initially..the Steyr less so than the two Rugers.As Dee points out lapping is the key. No deep drill hole is clean and no mandrel used on thousands of barrels doesn't impart boo-boos in the barrel that need to be burnished out. having done both the long and fast versions of break in...i assure you that group sizes shrink precipitously during break-in and in some cases 5 shot groups went from over 1 " to under .5......but a rapid break-in ala Dee is the answer A group of over 1" at 100 translates into a missed turkey at 385 offhand. So Trent i can prove you wrong....actually you can prove it yourself when you test a new barrel. Another area of fouling is the slope of the leade...most are 11/2 degrees....which increases fouling ...when a 3 degree conforms better with match bullet ogives and fouls less. Three degree however shortens barrel life according to some

If you can prove it to me, then prove it to the world. No two barrels are alike. It would take a CONSIDERABLE amount of money to run enough testing to prove that "break in" does anything at all.

Oh... and I'm not saying that some barrels don't need breaking in. I'm simply saying that "break in" doesn't need to include all the crazy cleaning in between shots. The bullets do the breaking in, not the cleaning. I know you have a theory that cleaning between shots does some magical metallurgical molecular aligning... but I don't buy it.
;)