Thoughts on Barrel break-in

[William77]

Hello,

I have a new savage110 in 22-250. I saw what I thought was a very extensive procedure to "break in the barrel on their website. I have never considered break-in much in the past. Just shoot and clean well has been my M.O. What do others do regarding break-in??

Thanks for your input and help.

 

[skinewmexico]

Shoot it. But this will rapidly turn into a 10 page thread, with quotes from all the major barrel manufacturers. Except for the one from the manufacturer who said he offered a break in procedure because his customers kept telling him they read on the internet that you had to.

 

[a-sheepdog]

Tikka says go out and shoot it and clean properly after each range session. Savage obviously thinks differently, but my Tikka shoots moa all day long and did not get a barrel break in.

 

[The Bushmaster]

You have a new Savage 110 .22-250? What does the manufacturer say to do with the barrel? You do have a manual with that new rifle don't you? No? Check Savages web site and get one. They should be available on the web site and printable...

Enjoy your new rifle...

 

[NCsmitty]

Premium hand-lapped custom barrels generally need very little break in. Standard factory barrels probably benefit from some type of shoot and clean break in procedure initially, depending on brand. Do as you want, that's my opinion.

NCsmitty

 

[The Deer Hunter]

Just shoot it and clean it when you are done. It doesn't make any sense to "shoot it three times and clean it, then shoot it five times then clean it, and then shoot it 10 times..." What is that going to do cleaning it afterwards won't?

Even if it's to keep the barrel cleaner, its just going to get dirty when you don't clean it every three shots.

 

[matrem]

That "break-in" procedure,DOES have merit.It is not the "end-all",but it CAN be worth trying.
Can't see where it would hurt...Can you ?
It's your rifle...

 

[mljdeckard]

The idea is to burnish the bore and microscopically 'deburr' the rifling without heating the barrel up to full temperature. I used to do the 100-rd procedure, now I think I'd do 10 rounds and call it good. For a precision rifle, I don't shoot it that quickly anyway.

 

[DRYHUMOR]

I've done anywhere from 30-60 rds for break in. Sometimes in one day, sometimes over several months or years.

I broke in a 338 Win mag one day with 58 rounds, or should I say it broke me in.

 

[marsche]

The care you take with it in the beginning will prove itself with the way it shoots in the future. Who would know more about a Savage barrel and how to break it in than Savage. They are the only ones with facts behind their recommendation, the rest of this is opinion.

 

[moooose102]

where did you find this information? i would like to read it before i post a comment.

 

[William77]

Info on Barell breakin

Thanks all for all the input. The breakin description I found was on the Savage website. Hit the support tab then hit the FAQ's tab. The procedure listed is from precision shooting magazine. The manual for their rifles has nothing in it regarding break in.

Thanks again

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

The only topic with more threads than barrel break-in here on THR, is 9mm vs. .45 - in other words, if you do a search, you will get more information than you can possibly want to know on the subject.

 

[Jim Watson]

The referenced procedure is 50 rounds.

If you are not just dumping bullets in the dirt and grabbing the cleaning rod, you can use those 50 rounds to have at least a rough zero. By the time you get to the 5 shot strings, you can get some group testing started. The first ten shoot and clean are tedious, but after that, it is all shooting that needs to be done anyhow.

There was a gunziner who said that the only thing that counted was the first shot after cleaning. It didn't matter if you cleaned it every shot for ten or every ten shots for a hundred, the same amount of burnishing would be done. The increasing string length in the usual rituals is more to see if you have knocked down the roughness enough for it to stop copper fouling than to get any good out of the second and later shots.

 

[rangerruck]

I like it and do it, but not very much, clean and shoot after every round for 5 rounds, clean and shoot after each 5 round group, until I hit 25 shots.
that is it. By the way, before you ever shoot it, CLEAN THAT NASTLY BBL FIRST!!!! they can be filled with all kinds of nasty mfgrng crap.

 

[Chilean]

maybe a very stupid question, but barrel break in is only used in centerfire rifles, right? (not in rimfires)

 

[Art Eatman]

Chilean, that's correct. The whole deal of "barrel break-in" is a fairly new concept, from sometime in the 1990s SFAIK..

I never heard of barrel break-in until I got onto The Firing Line in late 1998. I started in with centerfire in 1950.

Gale McMillan (Yeah, THAT G McM) said that the idea started with a custom barrel maker who dreamed it up as a way for benchresters to shoot more, early on, and thus re-order a new barrel sooner than otherwise. $$$$$.