I just purchased a new rifle and want to properly break in the barrel. I know there are several techniques but want to make sure I do this one the most efficient way.I plan to eventually use this rifle as my platform for reload testing but want to make sure the barrel is broken in properly before I start running reloads thru it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Proper barrel break-in
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From what I have read the majority of professionals say barrel break in does more harm than good. There is another post on here that has a link to some of them.
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Just shoot it 
Ive only tried breaking in one barrel and i didnt notice any difference.
On my 300wm i just started workin on a load from the get go, factory savage 112 barrel and its a real shooter.
Ive only tried breaking in one barrel and i didnt notice any difference.
On my 300wm i just started workin on a load from the get go, factory savage 112 barrel and its a real shooter.
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Barrel break-in must be done properly on every new barrel... (Custom and factory) if you want it to shoot as acurrately as possible.
Each new barrel has a very rough throat due to the chambering reamer. Even hand-polished custom barrels cannot smooth out the throat. This can only be done by shooting a bullet through it. Each time a bullet passes through it the throat becomes smoother.
Imagine the throat is like coarse sand paper after the chamber is reamed. When you shoot your first bullet, the sandpaper rips your bullet apart and due to the massive temperatures and pressures associated with the discharge. The copper in the bullet is turned to plasma and is deposited all the way down your barrel. You now have a new copper-lined barrel! The problem with this is that it creates a platform for more buildup and soon your bore is full of carbon and copper and its a booger to ever get that stuff out of there. This absolutely destroys your acurracy.
So, the process is to shoot one and clean. Notice the large amount of fouling present. Shoot another and clean. There will be less fouling because the throat is now a little smoother and doesnt rip as much of your bullet apart. Repeat this process several times while increasing the number of shots fired inbetween cleanings as evidenced by the diminishing amount of fouling present. Soon you should be able to shoot several times and experience little fouling.
The X-factor is the quality of the barrel itself. Most (if not all) factory barrels have a significant amount of tooling marks that were made during the rifling process. We look through these with a bore scope and it looks like a bulldozer left tracks down the inside of the barrel. These "tooling marks" in a "rough bore" will continue to serve as a place for the fouling to be deposited and build up for the life of your barrel. Some factory barrels actually have 1-2" spaces where no rifling exists at all and a higher-than-expected number of the barrels are found to actually be warped as we spin them off!
Conversely, the inside of a custom barrel has a mirror-finish and subsequently has nothing for the fouling to stick to. Thats why you can shoot all day with a custom barrel and its clean after only wiping with a few patches. Most shooters with these barrels find that they rarely need to clean. But again, even these barrels need to be "broken in" in the beginning because the throat is always rough after the barrel is chambered.
Here is the best explanation I have seen:
http://www.kriegerbarrels.com/Break_In__Cleaning-c1246-wp2558.htm
Each new barrel has a very rough throat due to the chambering reamer. Even hand-polished custom barrels cannot smooth out the throat. This can only be done by shooting a bullet through it. Each time a bullet passes through it the throat becomes smoother.
Imagine the throat is like coarse sand paper after the chamber is reamed. When you shoot your first bullet, the sandpaper rips your bullet apart and due to the massive temperatures and pressures associated with the discharge. The copper in the bullet is turned to plasma and is deposited all the way down your barrel. You now have a new copper-lined barrel! The problem with this is that it creates a platform for more buildup and soon your bore is full of carbon and copper and its a booger to ever get that stuff out of there. This absolutely destroys your acurracy.
So, the process is to shoot one and clean. Notice the large amount of fouling present. Shoot another and clean. There will be less fouling because the throat is now a little smoother and doesnt rip as much of your bullet apart. Repeat this process several times while increasing the number of shots fired inbetween cleanings as evidenced by the diminishing amount of fouling present. Soon you should be able to shoot several times and experience little fouling.
The X-factor is the quality of the barrel itself. Most (if not all) factory barrels have a significant amount of tooling marks that were made during the rifling process. We look through these with a bore scope and it looks like a bulldozer left tracks down the inside of the barrel. These "tooling marks" in a "rough bore" will continue to serve as a place for the fouling to be deposited and build up for the life of your barrel. Some factory barrels actually have 1-2" spaces where no rifling exists at all and a higher-than-expected number of the barrels are found to actually be warped as we spin them off!
Conversely, the inside of a custom barrel has a mirror-finish and subsequently has nothing for the fouling to stick to. Thats why you can shoot all day with a custom barrel and its clean after only wiping with a few patches. Most shooters with these barrels find that they rarely need to clean. But again, even these barrels need to be "broken in" in the beginning because the throat is always rough after the barrel is chambered.
Here is the best explanation I have seen:
http://www.kriegerbarrels.com/Break_In__Cleaning-c1246-wp2558.htm
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Agreed. Every shot goes through a chrono for speed and into a target for group. Write down the data. It will serve you well in the future.
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I'm not going to claim anything one way or the other but I am going to throw this out there just as the devil's advocate. Gale McMillan has a pretty impressive list of credentials and this is his dissenting opinion. Is he just wrong or what?
http://www.6mmbr.com/GailMcMbreakin.html
http://www.6mmbr.com/GailMcMbreakin.html
G
Guest
·Most every gunmaker has their own opinion of barrel break-in. Some say yes while some say no. I break-in all of my new barrels. I clean the bore extremely good before I fire the first shot. I then fire one and run a boresnake through the barrel twice. I repeat this for five shots and after the fifth shot, I give the bore a good cleaning with solvent. I then repeat this process. Then I start testing my loads by firing 5 consecutive shots and clean the bore good with solvent after the fifth shot. I repeat process again. Then I just continue with my load testing regardless how many rounds go down the tube. Do not clean from the muzzle end of the rifle unless it has an enclosed action and that's the only way to clean it. Always clean from the chamber end unless as stated above. I have never ruined or damaged a barrel doing this. And I don't figure I ever will.
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I have done the shot and clean exercise and I have just shoot them. Had a couple of Garands with NEW barrels installed - both had the same manufacture new barrel. On one I used the shoot and clean exercise and on the other I just starting shooting it. Could tell no difference in the two after a couple hundred rounds. HOWEVER, with the Garand there are MANY other varibles that could effect accuracy.
Now, I just play it safe and do the shoot and clean exercise. Can't hurt if you clean properly as stated by SGMJody above.
Now, I just play it safe and do the shoot and clean exercise. Can't hurt if you clean properly as stated by SGMJody above.
He's not alone. Shilen doesn't think barrel break in is a big deal either. http://www.shilen.com/faq.html#question10JMS39339 said:
I was going to type out a reply to the post made by DeltaSouthHunt. But instead I'll just post an excerpt from an email I sent to another guy on the forum.
Here it is:
From an engineering standpoint: Every time the subject comes up I always ask WHY. The response I always get is "Duh, it'll make it more accurate." BUT WHY?? "....Cause it just does." I choose to think it's ridiculous.
You already know this next part, but I need to preface it. Assume jacketed bullets and standard rifled (not polygonal) barrels. Whenever you make a shot, the lands and grooves of the rifling are fouled with copper, powder, and carbon deposits. The "break-in" procedure will (ideally) clear the fouling and allow the next bullet's bearing surface to contact the rifling and "polish" it. The repeated use of this method will only further polish it. The idea is to allow the bearing surface of the bullet to contact rifling directly, and not the copper/carbon fouling. This is all well and good EXCEPT:
Why should you do the: "shoot 1, clean, shoot 5, clean, shoot 10, clean" or whatever ridiculous combination? After the first shot, the bore would be fouled. If the original idea was to polish the bore, then you would shoot one and clean EVERY TIME. And even then, when do you decide the bore has been officially broken in? To have to polish/break-in a barrel, is a flaw in manufacturing/machining.
Give me twenty identical rifles straight from the factory. Give 10 the break in treatment (the experimental group), and 10 just shoot like a "normal" person (the control group). After 100 rounds through each gun, I'd be willing to bet that the average group size of each group, shot from a machine rest, would be damn close.
Let me define the word polish: Polishing is the removal of the surface of a material to expose a smooth surface underneath.
By doing the "break-in" procedure, all you are doing is removing bore of the barrel. OF COURSE you're going to have less fouling!! The bore is no longer the same diameter!
If anyone has a response (one with some factual evidence behind it) to the contrary, please let me know.
Here it is:
From an engineering standpoint: Every time the subject comes up I always ask WHY. The response I always get is "Duh, it'll make it more accurate." BUT WHY?? "....Cause it just does." I choose to think it's ridiculous.
You already know this next part, but I need to preface it. Assume jacketed bullets and standard rifled (not polygonal) barrels. Whenever you make a shot, the lands and grooves of the rifling are fouled with copper, powder, and carbon deposits. The "break-in" procedure will (ideally) clear the fouling and allow the next bullet's bearing surface to contact the rifling and "polish" it. The repeated use of this method will only further polish it. The idea is to allow the bearing surface of the bullet to contact rifling directly, and not the copper/carbon fouling. This is all well and good EXCEPT:
Why should you do the: "shoot 1, clean, shoot 5, clean, shoot 10, clean" or whatever ridiculous combination? After the first shot, the bore would be fouled. If the original idea was to polish the bore, then you would shoot one and clean EVERY TIME. And even then, when do you decide the bore has been officially broken in? To have to polish/break-in a barrel, is a flaw in manufacturing/machining.
Give me twenty identical rifles straight from the factory. Give 10 the break in treatment (the experimental group), and 10 just shoot like a "normal" person (the control group). After 100 rounds through each gun, I'd be willing to bet that the average group size of each group, shot from a machine rest, would be damn close.
Let me define the word polish: Polishing is the removal of the surface of a material to expose a smooth surface underneath.
By doing the "break-in" procedure, all you are doing is removing bore of the barrel. OF COURSE you're going to have less fouling!! The bore is no longer the same diameter!
If anyone has a response (one with some factual evidence behind it) to the contrary, please let me know.
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I felt like I had explained the process and the reasons behind it pretty well in my earlier post. Nothing in Will_M's post seems in any way related to or an expansion upon what I had explained earlier. Krieger custom barrels, arguably the finest custom barrels available today has this on their website:
Blake
"With any premium barrel that has been finish lapped -- such as your Krieger Barrel --, the lay or direction of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, so fouling is minimal. This is true of any properly finish-lapped barrel regardless of how it is rifled. If it is not finish-lapped, there will be reamer marks left in the bore that are directly across the direction of the bullet travel. This occurs even in a button-rifled barrel as the button cannot completely iron out these reamer marks.
Because the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, very little is done to the bore during break-in, but the throat is another story. When your barrel is chambered, by necessity there are reamer marks left in the throat that are across the lands, i.e. across the direction of the bullet travel. In a new barrel they are very distinct; much like the teeth on a very fine file. When the bullet is forced into the throat, copper dust is released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this gas and is carried down the barrel. As the gas expands and cools, the copper comes out of suspension and is deposited in the bore. This makes it appear as if the source of the fouling is the bore when it is actually for the most part the new throat. If this copper is allowed to stay in the bore, and subsequent bullets and deposits are fired over it; copper which adheres well to itself, will build up quickly and may be difficult to remove later. So when we break in a barrel, our goal is to get the throat polished without allowing copper to build up in the bore. This is the reasoning for the "fire-one-shot-and-clean" procedure.
Barrels will vary slightly in how many rounds they take to break in because of things like slightly different machinability of the steel, or steel chemistry, or the condition of the chambering reamer, etc. . . For example a chrome moly barrel may take longer to break in than stainless steel because it is more abrasion resistant even though it is the same hardness. Also chrome moly has a little more of an affinity for copper than stainless steel so it will usually show a little more "color" if you are using a chemical cleaner. (Chrome moly and stainless steel are different materials with some things in common and others different.) Rim Fire barrels can take an extremely long time to break in -- sometimes requiring several hundred rounds or more. But cleaning can be lengthened to every 25-50 rounds. The break-in procedure and the clearing procedure are really the same except for the frequency. Remember the goal is to get or keep the barrel clean while polishing out the throat.
Finally, the best way to break-in the barrel is to observe when the barrel is broken in; i.e. when the fouling is reduced. This is better than some set number of cycles of "shoot and clean" as many owners report practically no fouling after the first few shots, and more break-in would be pointless. Conversely, if more is required, a set number would not address that either. Besides, cleaning is not a completely benign procedure so it should be done carefully and no more than necessary.
CLEANING
This section on cleaning is not intended to be a detailed instruction, but rather to point out a few "do's and don'ts". Instructions furnished with bore cleaners, equipment, etc. should be followed unless they would conflict with these "do's and don'ts."
You should use a good quality straight cleaning rod with a freely rotating handle and a rod guide that fits both your receiver raceway and the rod snugly. How straight and how snug? The object is to make sure the rod cannot touch the bore. With service rifle barrels a good rod and guide set-up is especially important as all the cleaning must be done from the muzzle and even slight damage to the barrel crown is extremely detrimental to accuracy.
There are two basic types of bore cleaners -- chemical and abrasive. The chemical cleaners are usually a blend of various ingredients including oils and ammonia that attack the copper. The abrasive cleaners generally contain no chemicals and are an oil, wax, or grease base with an extremely fine abrasive such as chalk, clay, or gypsum. They clean by mechanically removing the fouling. Both are good, and we feel that neither will damage the bore when used properly.
So what is the proper way to use them? First, not all chemical cleaners are compatible with each other. Some, when used together at a certain temperature, can cause severe pitting of the barrel -- even stainless steel barrels. It is fine to use two different cleaners as long as you completely remove the first cleaner from the barrel before cleaning with the second. And, of course, never mix them in the same bottle.
Follow instructions on the bottle as far as soak time, etc. . . Always clean from the breech whenever possible, pushing the patch or swab up to the muzzle and then back without completely exiting the muzzle. If you exit the muzzle, the rod is going to touch the bore and be dragged back in across the crown followed by the patch or brush. Try to avoid dragging things in and out of the muzzle. It will eventually cause uneven wear of the crown. Accuracy will suffer and this can lead you to believe the barrel is shot out, when in fact, it still may have a lot of serviceable life left. A barrel with a worn or damaged crown can be re-crowned and accuracy will usually return.
The chemical cleaners may be the best way to clean service rifle barrels that must be cleaned from the muzzle -- i.e. M1 Garand, M14, etc. . .-- because this method avoids all the scrubbing necessary with the abrasive cleaners and the danger of damaging the crown. But again, as long as the rod doesn't touch the crown, abrasive cleaners should be fine.
Most abrasive cleaners work very well. And MOST do not damage the bore, they clean all types of fouling (copper powder, lead, plastic), and they have the added advantage of polishing the throat both in "break in" and later on when the throat begins to roughen again from the rounds fired. One national champion we know polishes the throats on his rifles every several hundred rounds or so with diamond paste to extend their accuracy life. However, abrasives should be used with great caution, as it is very easy to change throat dimensions and wear each individual land in an uneven fasion.
Again, as with the chemical cleaners, a good rod and rod guide is necessary. A jag with a patch wrapped around it works well. Apply the cleaner and begin scrubbing in short, rather fast strokes of about two to four inches in length. Concentrate most of the strokes in the throat area decreasing the number as you go toward the muzzle. Make a few full-length passes while avoiding exiting the muzzle completely, but do partially exit for about six strokes. You can avoid accidentally exiting by mounting the rifle in a vise or holder of some sort and blocking the rod at the muzzle with the wall or something to keep it from completely exiting.
This information is intended to touch on the critical areas of break-in and cleaning and is not intended as a complete, step-by-step guide or recommendation of any product.
The following is a guide to "break-in" based on our experience. This is not a hard and fast rule, only a guide. Some barrel, chamber, bullet, primer, powder, pressure, velocity etc. combinations may require more cycles some less!
It is a good idea to just observe what the barrel is telling you with its fouling pattern. But once it is broken in, there is no need to continue breaking it in.
Initially you should perform the shoot-one-shot-and-clean cycle for five cycles. If fouling hasn't reduced, fire five more cycles and so on until fouling begins to drop off. At that point shoot three shots before cleaning and observe. If fouling is reduced, fire five shots before cleaning. It is interesting to shoot groups during the three and five shot cycles.
Stainless Chrome moly
5 one-shot cycles 5 - 25 - one-shot cycles
1 three-shot cycle 2 - three-shot cycles
1 five-shot cycle 1 - five-shot cycle"
Blake
"With any premium barrel that has been finish lapped -- such as your Krieger Barrel --, the lay or direction of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, so fouling is minimal. This is true of any properly finish-lapped barrel regardless of how it is rifled. If it is not finish-lapped, there will be reamer marks left in the bore that are directly across the direction of the bullet travel. This occurs even in a button-rifled barrel as the button cannot completely iron out these reamer marks.
Because the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, very little is done to the bore during break-in, but the throat is another story. When your barrel is chambered, by necessity there are reamer marks left in the throat that are across the lands, i.e. across the direction of the bullet travel. In a new barrel they are very distinct; much like the teeth on a very fine file. When the bullet is forced into the throat, copper dust is released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this gas and is carried down the barrel. As the gas expands and cools, the copper comes out of suspension and is deposited in the bore. This makes it appear as if the source of the fouling is the bore when it is actually for the most part the new throat. If this copper is allowed to stay in the bore, and subsequent bullets and deposits are fired over it; copper which adheres well to itself, will build up quickly and may be difficult to remove later. So when we break in a barrel, our goal is to get the throat polished without allowing copper to build up in the bore. This is the reasoning for the "fire-one-shot-and-clean" procedure.
Barrels will vary slightly in how many rounds they take to break in because of things like slightly different machinability of the steel, or steel chemistry, or the condition of the chambering reamer, etc. . . For example a chrome moly barrel may take longer to break in than stainless steel because it is more abrasion resistant even though it is the same hardness. Also chrome moly has a little more of an affinity for copper than stainless steel so it will usually show a little more "color" if you are using a chemical cleaner. (Chrome moly and stainless steel are different materials with some things in common and others different.) Rim Fire barrels can take an extremely long time to break in -- sometimes requiring several hundred rounds or more. But cleaning can be lengthened to every 25-50 rounds. The break-in procedure and the clearing procedure are really the same except for the frequency. Remember the goal is to get or keep the barrel clean while polishing out the throat.
Finally, the best way to break-in the barrel is to observe when the barrel is broken in; i.e. when the fouling is reduced. This is better than some set number of cycles of "shoot and clean" as many owners report practically no fouling after the first few shots, and more break-in would be pointless. Conversely, if more is required, a set number would not address that either. Besides, cleaning is not a completely benign procedure so it should be done carefully and no more than necessary.
CLEANING
This section on cleaning is not intended to be a detailed instruction, but rather to point out a few "do's and don'ts". Instructions furnished with bore cleaners, equipment, etc. should be followed unless they would conflict with these "do's and don'ts."
You should use a good quality straight cleaning rod with a freely rotating handle and a rod guide that fits both your receiver raceway and the rod snugly. How straight and how snug? The object is to make sure the rod cannot touch the bore. With service rifle barrels a good rod and guide set-up is especially important as all the cleaning must be done from the muzzle and even slight damage to the barrel crown is extremely detrimental to accuracy.
There are two basic types of bore cleaners -- chemical and abrasive. The chemical cleaners are usually a blend of various ingredients including oils and ammonia that attack the copper. The abrasive cleaners generally contain no chemicals and are an oil, wax, or grease base with an extremely fine abrasive such as chalk, clay, or gypsum. They clean by mechanically removing the fouling. Both are good, and we feel that neither will damage the bore when used properly.
So what is the proper way to use them? First, not all chemical cleaners are compatible with each other. Some, when used together at a certain temperature, can cause severe pitting of the barrel -- even stainless steel barrels. It is fine to use two different cleaners as long as you completely remove the first cleaner from the barrel before cleaning with the second. And, of course, never mix them in the same bottle.
Follow instructions on the bottle as far as soak time, etc. . . Always clean from the breech whenever possible, pushing the patch or swab up to the muzzle and then back without completely exiting the muzzle. If you exit the muzzle, the rod is going to touch the bore and be dragged back in across the crown followed by the patch or brush. Try to avoid dragging things in and out of the muzzle. It will eventually cause uneven wear of the crown. Accuracy will suffer and this can lead you to believe the barrel is shot out, when in fact, it still may have a lot of serviceable life left. A barrel with a worn or damaged crown can be re-crowned and accuracy will usually return.
The chemical cleaners may be the best way to clean service rifle barrels that must be cleaned from the muzzle -- i.e. M1 Garand, M14, etc. . .-- because this method avoids all the scrubbing necessary with the abrasive cleaners and the danger of damaging the crown. But again, as long as the rod doesn't touch the crown, abrasive cleaners should be fine.
Most abrasive cleaners work very well. And MOST do not damage the bore, they clean all types of fouling (copper powder, lead, plastic), and they have the added advantage of polishing the throat both in "break in" and later on when the throat begins to roughen again from the rounds fired. One national champion we know polishes the throats on his rifles every several hundred rounds or so with diamond paste to extend their accuracy life. However, abrasives should be used with great caution, as it is very easy to change throat dimensions and wear each individual land in an uneven fasion.
Again, as with the chemical cleaners, a good rod and rod guide is necessary. A jag with a patch wrapped around it works well. Apply the cleaner and begin scrubbing in short, rather fast strokes of about two to four inches in length. Concentrate most of the strokes in the throat area decreasing the number as you go toward the muzzle. Make a few full-length passes while avoiding exiting the muzzle completely, but do partially exit for about six strokes. You can avoid accidentally exiting by mounting the rifle in a vise or holder of some sort and blocking the rod at the muzzle with the wall or something to keep it from completely exiting.
This information is intended to touch on the critical areas of break-in and cleaning and is not intended as a complete, step-by-step guide or recommendation of any product.
The following is a guide to "break-in" based on our experience. This is not a hard and fast rule, only a guide. Some barrel, chamber, bullet, primer, powder, pressure, velocity etc. combinations may require more cycles some less!
It is a good idea to just observe what the barrel is telling you with its fouling pattern. But once it is broken in, there is no need to continue breaking it in.
Initially you should perform the shoot-one-shot-and-clean cycle for five cycles. If fouling hasn't reduced, fire five more cycles and so on until fouling begins to drop off. At that point shoot three shots before cleaning and observe. If fouling is reduced, fire five shots before cleaning. It is interesting to shoot groups during the three and five shot cycles.
Stainless Chrome moly
5 one-shot cycles 5 - 25 - one-shot cycles
1 three-shot cycle 2 - three-shot cycles
1 five-shot cycle 1 - five-shot cycle"
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