Breaking In A New Rifle Barrel

[airedale]

Some interesting thoughts.

Al

 

Why Shooters Break In New Rifle Barrels

The theory behind barrel break in is that cleaning the abrasive residue out of the bore after each shot allows the bullet which follows to flatten out or scour away all the tiny nicks, dings, and imperfections that are part of most bores, making the barrel smoother and less apt to pick up copper fouling.

That’s the theory. Based on my experience, I have doubts. Gunsmith John Blauvelt, who has installed more barrels than most, wrote me: “On a rough factory barrel it may have some merit. But on a custom hand-lapped barrel it is not needed…. I don’t think that scrubbing the bore with a copper brush does anything except loosen carbon fouling…. A few shots and some J-B Compound is not a bad thing for a new factory barrel, but those long sequences of one shot and clean for 20 rounds and then 3 shots and clean for more are excessive.”

I’d go further than that. I’ve yet to see a really rough barrel that was improved by any kind of break-in procedure. Barrels are made of steel. Bullets are made of copper, or gilding metal alloy, which is mostly copper. How is copper going to wear away steel? The only thing you can do with bum barrel is unscrew it and replace it with one whose bore does not look like the surface of the moon.

There’s no correlation between bore smoothness and accuracy. I’ve seen horrendously rough barrels that shot extremely well, although cleaning them was a nightmare, and if you didn’t clean them, they would quickly lose their accuracy.

Which brings us to the final point. Whether you break in or not, it’s an absolute truth that if you let your barrel collect powder fouling and especially copper fouling, you’ll quickly have a non-shooter, no matter how the rifle started out. This applies to factory horrors and the best custom barrels alike.

[Shoots100]

I've done testing and have seen test's in comparison of barrel's broken in according to manufacturers recommendations and a total disregard of those recommendations.

It all came down to how well the barrel was made, what material it was made of and what type of projectile you were shooting.

Some barrels from the same lot of steel wear in quicker and clean better than others, so it's just the luck of the draw sometimes.

I've taken rifles fresh from the factory, made sure the bore was clear and shot it till the rifle wouldn't chamber a round.

The other rifle was broken in with the shoot, clean, shoot, clean break in process and it didn't make a difference in accuracy between the two.

We also lubed and cleaned the broken in barreled rifle.

Both rifles were tested strapped to a lead sled, so no shooter error would be introduced into the equation.

Hundreds of rounds with only a borescope inspection to see if the barrels were getting compromised with copper or carbon buildup.

The two test subject rifles performed the same in accuracy and barrel fouling testing, but without proper cleaning of the chamber the un broken in rifle crapped the bed and wouldn't chamber or extract a round without using a mallet on the bolt.

I leave barrel break in to the person buying the barrel.

SJC

 

   

[airedale]

Personally, I do not do anything too radical to break in a new rifle, I do feel after a few rounds are put through a new barrel they will settle in and start shooting their best. I use tips I got from old time bench rest guys. At the range I make sure not to overheat the barrel and do not scrub a barrel hard, I will run a patch with a small amount of good solvent over a somewhat loose fitting brush down the bore every 10 shots or so, I always unscrew the brush after it exits the muzzle and then run a clean patch to wipe out any fouling residue left behind.

Rimfires just get a solvent soaked patch every now and then wiped out with a clean patch, I do not use brushes on their barrels unless I have a leading problem which if it does happen is very infrequent and many times ammo related.

Black powder is a whole different game, I have actually used a drill attached cleaning rod with a plastic brush to scrub out the crud that builds up in those barrels.

Al