New barrel procedure/break-in?

[ford8nr]

I find it interesting people will break in a custom barrel but think a factory barrel is good enough out of the box. My Howa came with very specific recommendations.
A new Savage Axis I had had a visibly rough barrel using just a bore light.
I find the shooting a few / cleaning process really smooths the bore instead of packing the imperfections with copper.

 

[David Hoback]

Well yes...people will always argue their superstitious beliefs...right to the grave, if need be. Barrel “Break In” has always been a contentious subject. One man believes 5 shots, clean with donkey pee, wait 14 minutes and repeat....While another believes 1 shot & clp/patch clean...2 shots & clp/patch clean...3 shots & clp/patch clean. Repeat 3 times & have at it.

With my metallurgical knowledge, I do not believe in special Barrel Conditioning, other than what normal shooting & cleaning will do. No special procedure is going to magically make make the surface of the steel any different from one way to another. Now I do realize that nothing said is going to change a man’s mind, what’s been doing the same procedure year in year out their entire life. No sir! And hey...that’s all fine and good. You think your “A-B-C*1,2,3*Do-Re-Mi” procedure, makes a difference over just shooting & cleaning... well cool! More power to ya! Afterall, everyone has equal opportunity of being wrong. But then, placebos can be very useful medicine to the INDIVIDUAL. Just not to the masses.

Remember also, any “break in” topic accounts ONLY for bare steel barrels.
When speaking of barrels using a Chrome lining or QPQ Nitriding, it becomes an irrevocable MOOT point! Hence, any kind of break in would take several THOUSAND rounds! This limits the entire discussion to bench & hunting rifles, using bare steel barrels for accuracy only. And we already know that the lifespan of such barrels are based on caliber, powder load & round count. Shoot, it’s pretty much down to a science at this point. A smaller bullet diameter, driven at higher speeds will be useful the least amount of rounds. Ever heard the term “Barrel Burner”? So it can be argued, when this is entered into the context, the discussion of barrel break is once again moot.

 

[ford8nr]

Excerpt from the Krieger Barrel website.
Someone that REALLY knows barrels.

• 
  
  • What is the best way to break-in and clean a Krieger Barrel?
  
  Background:
  
  Below are our recommendations for proper break in and cleaning of a barrel. The information below is meant as a guideline and not meant as step by step instructions. If you have a better way that works for you without damaging the bore or using improper chemicals, by all means continue to use your methods. Many successful competitive shooters will use these instructions to the letter, some will disagree.
  
  BREAK-IN & CLEANING:
  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.
  
  Every barrel will vary slightly in how many rounds they take to break in 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 a similar 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. 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 cleaning procedure are really the same except for the frequency. Remember the goal is to get or keep the barrel clean while breaking in the throat with bullets being fired over it.
  
  Finally, the best way to tell if the barrel is broken in is to observe the patches; 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
  

 

[ford8nr]

Afterall, everyone has equal opportunity of being wrong

And you are correct.

 

[taliv]

I find it interesting people will break in a custom barrel but think a factory barrel is good enough out of the box.

this is because you can see the change in a custom barrel in just a few rounds. it's obvious. in a factory barrel, you could go hundred rounds and never see it. it's much less demonstrable. and frankly, i don't do it to any of my factory barrels because who cares? their job is to spray tens of thousands of rounds as fast as i can pull the trigger. if there's a 100 fps variation in velocity, i'd never even notice.

Excerpt from the Krieger Barrel website.
Someone that REALLY knows barrels.

there's a great Bartlein video on youtube discussing it too.
the late gale mcmillan is the only barrel maker i know to really poo poo the concept, with a post 20 years ago on TFL about it that caused most of the debate.

 

[ford8nr]

frankly, i don't do it to any of my factory barrels because who cares? their job is to spray tens of thousands of rounds as fast as i can pull the trigger

And if that's how you chose to shoot those guns you are correct.
None of my guns do I disregard accuracy or ease of cleaning. But that's just me.
Hell, I weigh / sort my mil surplus 7.62x54r ammo to get rid of fliers

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

If it's a new rifle I would clean the barrel and dry it and just shoot it. Most barrels take some breaking in just like vehicles. Clean it when you are done and repeat. Nothing new under the sun.

 

[Demi-human]

Have you a bore scope? That will tell when your bore is actually clean. This one is not, yet.
No amount of “break-in”, or not, is going to lap these railroad ties out of my Savage.

Now it is better... not great.

Yet it will still shoot like this on a bad day.

A set of ten, 20-30 of 40 that day. Pulled one and one .30 caliber from a Blackout.

 

[Mk-211]

Demi, is that a stock barrel or a match barrel?

Just looking at the tool Mark's from it being made, I would think that from the pic it's a stock barrel. If it was hand lapped most of them would be gone.

Great pics by the way, really shows and tells a lot about a barrel.

 

[Demi-human]

Factory.
There are two spots that are tighter, smooth, pristine and always clean. At midway and the muzzle, which I attribute its good accuracy to.

If it was hand lapped

Oh, it is.
I did so myself, wearing out two .22 caliber mops.
And I 40x Bore Paste every two hundred or so. It keeps accurate til ~140 rounds and a simple clean will get it back, but the throat needs it by then so the whole barrel gets it.
Lapua brass is so good it won’t grow to fill the chamber very quickly, leaving a carbon ring. You can see the artifact of it, now scrubbed out, at the end of the chamber as a darker ring of steel where the throat begins. The darkest ring being the chamfer up to the throat from the chamber.

 

[Hookeye]

Im no benchrester.
Not worried about long strings.
I hunt, and have to clean often usually due to weather.

New gun? Clean the bbl. Then get the bore dry. Shoot. Pay attention to number of shots where accuracy drops off.
There's your cleaning interval.
Test to see if it shoots best from a clean bore or needs a couple foulers.

 

[Hookeye]

Last new centerfire I bought was a Steyr Prohunter.
Cleaned the bbl and went shooting.
Took maybe 3 or 4 to get it 1" high at 100 yds.
I need to change the scope (wears nothing now)............rifle has had less than 2 boxes through it.
Just cleaned it this week.
Start fresh w new ammo/scope.........see what it does.

BTW, the beater '63 Rem 760 I got, had copper fouling pretty bad. Shot great though.
I scrubbed it for a while, maybe got it reduced to 50%.
Be interesting to see if that helped or hurt accuracy.
When I got that rifle 2 yrs ago the trigger group was all gooped up.
I suspect that rifle got WD40 and maybe a swab once a yr, never a brush LOL

 

[GooseGestapo]

I’ve found in many instances that a factory or low end aftermarket barrel will require 200-300 rounds to “settle” down.
This isn’t just lapping in the throat/bore, but also a form of heat treating the barrel such that machining stresses are releaved.
I’ve got several rifles that exhibited this phenomenon. Several rival the best custom barrels after a few range sessions and repeated cleanings.

The closest thing to a “custom” barrel I’ve ever had is a E.R.Shaw .257Roberts barrel on a M98 action. I was very disappointed in it and tried many of the old favorite loads in it. Nothing helped it. Most everything shot 1.7-2moa. At around a shot count of 250rds, it miraculously started shooting “bug” holes! Any decent “premium” bull let (ie: Sierra, Nosler, Hornady) started shooting under MOA, some 1/2 MOA.

I’ve got a RRA AR15 NM with a Wilson 1/8” barrel. It took almost 200rds before it “settled” down.