How many rounds down a barrel before barrel is broke in

You'll get differing opinions. Here is mine. All barrels shoot better after a few rounds have been through them and it varies by the rifle. Some only need about 10-12, others don't reach optimum accuracy until they've had 100+ rounds through them.

The way I see it the barrel can't count. It doesn't know if it is cleaned after every round, every 5 rounds, or every 100 rounds. I clean the barrel as needed, which isn't terribly often with most of them. Some need more frequent cleaning before accuracy suffers. Others can go well over 100 rounds.

Let your barrel tell you. Find a load it likes and see what happens. Some manufacturers include break in procedures some don't. If yours did, follow them.
I buy a lot of used rifles and can only assume that it was never "broken in" by the original owner. I just shoot them.

I agree with Ontarget. Let your barrel tell you.

Carefully clean your barrel before you shoot a single round. Shoot a single round and clean again. Is the patch blue? If so, it could probably use a break-in. If not, shoot another three rounds. Is the patch blue? If so, maybe it needs a little bit of breaking in.

I've had fresh barrels that never needed break-in.

I have a 101 year old Swedish Mauser that copper fouled excessively. I carefully cleaned it down to bare steel, and did a break-in on it. Now it goes much longer between copper cleanings.

I have noted that the last one to two inches of rifling will tell me the condition of the barrel; not owning a barrel scope but using a small flashlight allows me to see several inches of bore/ rifling. I own rifles having been shot several hundred times over the years that will show copper residue after a bench session of ten rounds - some show no residue. I do not know if the barrels qualify as broken-in or not. I clean all of them to bare metal after use, pull them out sometime later and shoot/ clean them again. All of my barrels behave differently; like has been stated, each barrel will tell you it’s condition via shooting or looking.

With a new .22, a seldom occurrance, and if it is supposed to be "match grade", I will do a little lapping followed with a thorough cleaning before firing that first shot. After that, I shoot. Cleaning is only when accuracy starts to fall off.
With my centerfires, I also lap little, maybe twenty full strokes with JB saftipaste, then clean and shoot a five shot slooow fire sequence, clean and repeat. I don't go nuts but I have never had a really high end barrel to worry about. Used guns, clean and shoot.
I do have an old Anschutz 22 sporter that has a mind of its own and let's me discover how long it wants to play with me before settling down and performing. All common tricks have been done, screws torqued, bedding checked, changed, free floated, tip pressure added, crown cleaned up, scope checked, but i just live with it. Thought it would be a great squirrel rifle and it is but no center of eye shots. My CZ 455 is way better for first shot.
I laugh, quietly, when someone tells me how they broke in their $500 AR by doing the one, clean, one, clean, yada, yada, and spent a whole day to get a two to three inch gun that they only shoot with mil spec ammo. To each his own.

I agree with you’ll see different opinions. With rifles like a 700, my break in is done once the barrel has reached its peak in copper equilibrium. As the barrel gets copper build up the muzzle velocity increases rather quickly, then kinda plateaus for awhile...it’s enough to notice at distance over a few hundred rounds and for me there no use in aquiring data until then, in terms of a solid muzzle velocity. So for me it’s a few hundred rounds. However with a factory barrel, especially from Remington, that tends to differ as I’ve noticed the barrels are a little more ruff on the inside then the match barrels I usually use.

From the Kreiger webpage:


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 compared to a barrel with internal tooling marks. 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 removed from the jacket material and released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this plasma 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.

I used the "1 and clean", 3 and clean", "5 and clean", then just shoot normally method recommended by by Kreiger when I built my last rifle.

I've bought lots of new guns over the years. I never "broke in" a single one of them. Some require being shot a while before ultimate accuracy is attained. I put that down to small burrs in the but of the rifling and the crown. Generally all you need to do is shoot enough rounds so that the burrs get knocked down. The most I've seen that take was about 200 rounds. The least was no rounds at all.

The shoot once, clean twice, rub your head, shoot again, pat your stomach rules for breaking in barrels is a myth as far as I can tell. Every rifle I own shoots well. If it doesn't I sell it so basically I just keep the really good ones with a few exceptions. At any rate I sure haven't noticed any problems from not doing the break in dance.

Clean before you shoot. Monitor accuracy after that and function. Clean as needed. It's always worked for me. No matter what builds up you can clean it if you use the right cleaner.

Hart Rifle Barrels Inc., of Lafayette, NY makes some of the best barrels and custom rifles in the world, bar none. And if you ask them, they will flat out tell you breaking in a finished barrel isn't necessary. Their take on the subject is, clean as often as your course of fire allows.

So how many posts are there going to be before we decide......”whatever”....?

The harder your barrel the longer it takes. Competition barrels will take longer to break in than a standard barrel.

People wear out their barrels by over cleaning more often than over shooting.

bayjoe said:

So everybody that has replied says just a few rounds

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Not everyone.

Keep in mind custom barrels are different, most if not all respectable company’s hand lap them.
I don’t think “accuracy” is what is effected by the barrel break in specificly, however as patMcCoy got from kreiger, as well as what I said, how easy it to clean and how the copper builds can be questionable. copper builds up, pretty well known fact, if that makes a difference for you if you shoot in a capacity that a solid mv matters then it’s a factor to consider of how you clean it. Other than that,
I’ve never seen anyone mess up a barrel by not breaking it in. I have seen people mess it up playing with sweets 762 and using poor cleaning methods. Just a thought.

About 150 rounds, according to Kenny Jarrett:

http://palmettomagazine.com/aiming-for-perfection/

breaking in barrels is a myth as far as I can tell. Every rifle I own shoots well. If it doesn't I sell it

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Maybe those are ones that could have used a break in

From the Kreiger webpage

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And obviously a maker of premium barrels knows nothing ...

It's your gun.
Break it in if you want, just clean it and shoot it. Heck shoot it without cleaning it if you want. Got no dog in the fight. I know how I break in rifles and that's all that matters to ME.

I am guessing the O.P. is wanting benchrest accuracy.

I have a Ruger All-Weather Stainless Steel rifle in .270. When I got it I cleaned the barrel and then firelapped it with 20 rounds. I then cleaned the barrel and did the "1 and clean, 3 and clean and 5 and clean" procedure. This took me most of the day but the weather was very nice that day so it was good to be outside.

The final result is the gun will shoot 1/2" 3 round groups at 100 yards with my handloads. And this is from a hunting rifle with a 6x fixed power scope. Needless to say I am very pleased with this gun.

HOWEVER there is one little tidbit of information. I did not shoot the gun before I firelapped and broke the barrel in so I can not say that all of that work helped. I can say it did not hurt it.

bayjoe said:

How many rounds down a barrel before a barrel is broke in.

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I don’t think anyone can answer this question for you.
I tend to clean a barrel every time I shoot it. So, by the time I have tested it, got some rough zeros, did some load development, got some good zeros, did some more load development it probably has settled in, if not broken in.

ford8nr said:

Maybe those are ones that could have used a break in

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But I don't sell them until I've shot them long enough to know if they are shooting their best. I plainly said some barrels require a few hundred rounds through them to shoot their best. I've never owned any firearm I didn't shoot that many times and more.

Going back to the Kreiger comments, they are excellent. What several of us have come up with that seems to work for us is get a new rifle and defoul it with a copper removing bore cleaner. You can buy the expensive stuff like Sweets for like 8.00 for 8oz or you can make your own for like 8.00 for a gallon. It's called Humpy's White.

"Humpy's White Bore Cleaner"

This modification of the "ammonia solution" thickens the liquid and helps to keep it in the bore for more efficient cleaning. You can if you like omit the 1-part sudsy ammonia

2 parts - 10% ammonia,
1 part - standard household "sudsy" ammonia (optional)
1 part - Ivory liquid dishwashing detergent (It has been reported that "Formula 409" can also be used though the resulting mixture is probably thinner.)

This formula yields about a 6.5 percent ammonia solution. If you omit the sudsy ammonia the solution is about 7.75 percent.

Note: while doing the following you can be sighting your rifle in.

If you have an erosion gage take a measurement of where your barrel is at "0" rounds and record it. I have a little 2 1/2X3 1/2 bound book with hole drilled in spine and a piece of mason's cord tied in a loop I keep around my muzzles and I record things like erosion gage movements, round counts etc. Note: you will probably see a rapid forward movement of the erosion gage in the first hundred rounds but not to worry. On a GI erosion gage with rings separated .100" you will normally (on 30 cal barrels) see about one ring of movement per 1000 rounds.

If you have a MUZZLE EROSION GAGE measure at "0" rounds and 500 rounds. You should not be seeing the erosion gage diving towards the chamber. It it moves 2 rings should see an increase in group size. This can be corrected by recrowning the barrel. I always recrown at 11 degrees to protect the crown from contacting the floor. With a taper crown the outside edge will contact before the crown.Wear at the muzzle is far more critical than throat wear. CIP I have seen barrels with rifling completely gone for 3" to 5" down bore and still shot great groups at 300 yards.



STEP A. I clean a new rifle barrel with this and leave it good and wet with the muzzle placed on a 1/4 folded paper towel on floor so the excess solution runs down out the muzzle. The fouling will turn a nice dark blue color at first. Then should get less until no more blue comes out.

STEP B. coat bore with Mobil 1 synthetic ( W20 to 10W-30) motor oil leaving it fairly wet and fire THREE rounds and repeat step A. until no blue comes out muzzle.

STEP C coat bore again with Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil. and shoot FIVE ROUNDS. Repeat Step A until no blue comes out.

STEP D coat bore again with Mobil 1 and shoot another FIVE ROUNDS. Repeat Step A until no blue comes out. Note: by now you should be seeing much less blue on the paper towels which obviously means you are leaving far less bullet jacket material in bore.

STEP E now shoot FIVE ROUNDS on a dry bore, No more Mobil 1. Repeat Step A and you should see only trace amounts of blue coming out.

STEP F now shoot 20 rounds and if you have a nice lapped bore to start with you should only be seeing trace amounts of blue on the paper towel.

If you can get a good bore scope it will tell you far more than you ever wanted to know.

The critical thing about long barrel life is NEVER FIRE A COLD DIRTY BARREL AS THE PROPELLANT RESIDUE LEFT IN BARREL IS CARBON AND WHEN CARBON COOLS IT BECOMES QUITE HARD (DIAMONDS ARE CARBON RIGHT?, DIAMONDS ARE VERY HARD RIGHT? LAPPING COMPOUNDS ARE MADE WITH DIAMOND DUST RIGHT? BEGGING THE QUESTION OF DO YOU WANT HARD CARBON IN YOUR BORE TO BE PICKED UP AND EMBEDDED IN NEXT BULLET JACKET SLIDING DOWN THE BORE SCRAPING SOFT BARREL STEEL?

SO SHOOT AND CLEAN BORE WHILE IT IS WARM AND CARBON IS SOFT FOR LONGEST BARREL LIFE.

For me, I clean a NIB rifle put a scope on it and take it to the range. I shoot enough rounds to get it sighted in. I let it sit a little while. Fire a couple more rounds. If it is still shooting to the same place as I zeroed I take it hunting.

Hummer70 said:

The critical thing about long barrel life is NEVER FIRE A COLD DIRTY BARREL AS THE PROPELLANT RESIDUE LEFT IN BARREL IS CARBON AND WHEN CARBON COOLS IT BECOMES QUITE HARD (DIAMONDS ARE CARBON RIGHT?, DIAMONDS ARE VERY HARD RIGHT? LAPPING COMPOUNDS ARE MADE WITH DIAMOND DUST RIGHT? BEGGING THE QUESTION OF DO YOU WANT HARD CARBON IN YOUR BORE TO BE PICKED UP AND EMBEDDED IN NEXT BULLET JACKET SLIDING DOWN THE BORE SCRAPING SOFT BARREL STEEL?

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I promise you that there aren't any diamonds left behind when the fouling cools in your rifle bore. The element carbon has a bunch of possible allotropes, but for the purpose of our discussion we can eliminate stuff like nanotubes and buckminsterfullerene. What's being left in your bore is almost certainly amorphous carbon, otherwise known as soot. Amorphous means it doesn't have an organized crystalline structure, so it's basically as soft as charcoal. It's the crystal structure that gives diamonds their hardness, and the conditions needed to turn ordinary combustion products into diamonds simply don't exist in a rifle barrel.

Besides, this is awful advice for hunters. The first shot from a clean, lubricated bore often lands a good deal away from all the subsequent shots. This is a recipe for a miss when hunting, since the first shot from a cold bore is usually the only one that matters. I personally will make sure I have left a couple of fouling shots in my bore before hunting season begins. Doing anything else potentially risks losing the trophy of a lifetime...and that's worth the cost of a new barrel regardless of if it's in 1000 rounds or 100,000.