barrel break in

[shakes]

I'll be getting my highpower standard gun shortly and was looking for some advise from all you experienced shooters out there on how you guys break in your new barrel. It's wearing a Pac-Nor barrel on a Mr.Marvin tuned 700 action. I've read a bunch of different things, including what PacNor recomends but I'll be 40 before the barrel breaks in. I've seen barrels shoot full matches that have never had a round through them until they zero the chickens. does this "hurt" barrel, does it become less accurate? Inquiring minds want to know thanks guys.

[Jim Beckley]

I was told 3-4 barrels ago, that if I shot 1 shot cleaned after that one, did the same thing up to 5, and then shot 2 rounds, cleaned, 2 rounds cleaned, 3 rounds cleaned, 3 rounds cleaned, and then 5 rounds and then clean, that my barrel wouldn't foul. I have done that and have had no problems with fouled barrels since. I use Eliminator and after about the 7th patch it comes out about pure white!

[Jason]

I think you'll get a different story from every source you ask. Conventional wisdom is that factory barrels needs the break-in sequence that Jim just posted or a close variation of it (clean after each for first five, clean after every three for next fifteen, clean after every five for next 25). Most of the benchrest guys that I've talked to have said that it's entirely unnecessary on hand-lapped custom barrels and is just wasting part of the useful accurate life of the barrel. They were specifically speaking of the Lilja and Shilen match barrels. I don't much about Pac-Nor barrels, but I assume the same would apply.

On the rifle that I won (Pac-Nor barrel on it?), I was very cramped for time and shot 10 rounds to get on paper and test accuracy at 100m and cleaned when I got home. I didn't get find any copper in there, but that was probably due to moly-coated bullets. Then I shot the first high-power match. After ~100 shots, still nothing but moly with some powder fouling mainly toward the breech as expected. Cleaned up in a snap. Now I'm pretty well sold on just no break-in and moly-coated bullets so I can concentrate on loading and shooting instead of cleaning.

[Jim Beckley]

That is correct, if you ask 20 people you will probably get about 20 answers, every monkey has to swing by his own rope!

[malinois]

I do a very short break in...not much more than 10 or 15 shots in the series with a good quality hand lapped barrel the break in thing is really just an excersize I think....And yeah the usefull life on a HP is short thats why I have a scale version of my bigbore in a smallbore since the life on the 22 is a whole lot longer..so I shoot those the most and of course its cheaper...But the Big guns are more fun !!!

[Jerry G]

Go to the Dan Lilja site. He has a lot of real good information on barrels

[Jim T.]

I have been told that the gentlemen speaking at the links provided below know something about this subject. As always they could be wrong, but I belive they are right.

http://www.kriegerbarrels.com/Break_In_ ... wp2558.htm

http://www.usenet.com/newsgroups/rec.guns/msg01429.html

http://www.bartleinbarrels.com/BreakInCleaning.htm

Another opinion (note the section on using moly coated bullets):

http://www.snipercountry.com/articles/b ... kin_II.asp

As with any question such as this, you must do your research and make your own (hopefully educated and correct) decision.

[BlauBear]

Good articles! Thanks!

[shakes]

Thanks guys. I'm hoping Steve might have my standard done this week so I can sight her in and be ready for states at the end of the month. I'll probably use some sort of shoot/clean procedure to bust her cherry when sighting in and getting my elevation settings for the animals.

[malinois]

Multi tasking !! I do the same thing I fire form and sight in while I break in a new barrel....start looking for accuracy trends and so on...Range time and barrel life are limited and so are supplies so might as well get the most bang for the buck.