Anyone NOT break in your rifle with the one shot/one clean method?!?!

C

chiz45

New member
was wondering how many people have hunting/sniper type rifles, and did NOT clean the rifle after every shot. SOMEONE here must have picked up a 700, 70, 77, or 110/10 and just shot it, without the 'proper' break in procedures! If you did just shoot your rifle right out of the box, what kind of accuracy were you able to produce?

thanks,

chiz45
 
When I had my Savage 110 FP I did not break it in one shot/clean, one shot/ clean. I shot twenty to forty rounds then cleaned it.

Using a Redfield 3-9X scope, I was able to group 0.6" at 100 yards on a bad day and 3" at 440 yards. I later sold it to afford food after getting divorced. :(
 
Not me

Neither of my 10/22's nor my M1A Loaded got "broken in." My M1A has only had a brush (clean bore snake or one-piece coated rod) through it about six or eight times in 400-500 rounds, including one out-of-stock full gas-system cleaning.

I'd be surprised if barrel break-ins were very popular here at TFL.

Regards.
 
I've never used that method. With a new barrel, I clean the tube after each 50 rounds or so, and that's it. I also no longer use any abrasives (such as JB paste) due to the information gained on this site.
 
When I got my 110, I didn't even know about the break-in procedures, so I just shot it normally. Still was able to shoot about 1/4 MOA before I took the scope off.
 
you didn't expect me to check the archives FIRST did you?! :)

anyhow, the previous thread only confirmed what i was feeling before. I am shopping for a nice, accurate rifle, and was wondering if these procedure was even necessary. Thanks again for the links!
 
Barrel beak-in

I suppose that there are as many thoughts on this as the Ford vs. Chevy thing. I've tried to follow this pretty closely as I have a lot of nice rifles and want to treat them right.

The reply by McMillan referred to his barrels and other custom barrels. I suspect that factory barrels are a different matter, and I would hope that, if I pay as much for a custom barrel as a complete factory gun, that the barrel would be smooth. McMillan's contention was that you could ruin a good barrel (or at least shorten the life) by incorrect polishing. I suppose that's true, but you can also do the same damage by just rubbing the rod against the rifling during normal cleaning. He got barrels back that had been damaged by over use of abrasive. I have no doubt that's true.....I've seen guys that could destroy an anvil with a rubber mallet.

Do you need to polish the bore? Shoot a little, then run copper solvent thru it. If you get a lot of copper it's probably rough. If you don't, it's not.

One opinion that I would REALLY trust is Fred Sinclair. Everyone with a computer is an expert...just ask them. In the Precision Reloading & Shooting Handbook is a detailed break-in procedure for both coated and non-coated bullets. http://www.sinclairintl.com
 
I wonder how many manufactures test fire a gun before they send it off,and if so,how many shots??I doubt they fire one then clean,fire another then clean,etc.Some over at ar15.com were wondering if they should "break in" their new RRA AR-15's group purchase rifle or not,even though it was a known fact that one of the delays was because of the weather(rain)was keeping RRA from test firing the AR's...I would think most guns were test fired,the question is how many and if they clean before every shot or not.
 
I shoot 5 shot groups, cleaning between each group for the first 100 rounds.

My stock PSS .308 has shot a .192" 5 shot group and my stock VS .308 has shot a .223" 5 shot group at 100yd. Both will shoot well under 1/2" at 100yd all day long.
 
Anybody that does not follow Gale's advice is a fool. You will be hard pressed to find anybody on the face of this planet with more knowledge about barrels than Gale.

Gale was a valued friend here and his experience and advice is sorely missed.

My LEGP ar15 is a tack driver and all I did was to shoot 5 mags of ammo through her before her 1st cleaning. (I did rod the barrel first with 1 wet and 2 dry patches)

Gale knew what he was talking about, listen and enhance your knowledge young grasshopper.
 
I have a Rem 700 LTR in .308 and I did not follow any "shoot once and clean" barrel break-in procedures. I just shoot the dang thing and gave it a good cleaning after every range trip, which typically is 20-30 rounds. From the bench (yeah I know, shooting like a wimp) it easily does .5-.75 MOA.

Doesn't prove anything, just a data point. FWIW.
 
In his one post Gale mentioned how abrasive nylon was. Is it a bad idea to use nylon brushes? I use them all the time and I hope they are not a bad idea. It is hard to think of nylon being worse for your barrel then the copper brushes? :confused: I wish that I had seen these posts before I wasted a bunch of time breaking in a remington 700. On the plus side I have a bushmaster that should be in wednesday so the info on chrome barrels was good.
 
I'm not going to go back and read all of Gale's posts, but I don't think that he approved of any kind of brushes for rifle bores. (Just patches)

The most accurate rifle that I own has shot many groups in the 2's. It's a Rem. 700VS in .223. I didn't know about barrel breaking in when I bought it, so I just shot it and cleaned it . I now shoot only moly throught it, so only clean after every 75-100 shots or so.

I don't think that Gale's recommendations were specific to his brand of barrels, nor do I suppose that his recommendations were appropriate only for custom barrels. If you pay attention to his post regarding barrel cleaning, you'll see a history of how the breaking in silliness got started.
 
Break in does help accuracy to a small part by cutting down on fouling for shot consistancy but what it does the most of is make cleaning afterwards much easier. In custom barrels it's not needed as much because they are usually handlapped and pretty smooth so not to much fouling will build up. But if you've ever seen a $30 factory barrel, whick all Remington barrels are, it definately needs a breaking to smooth out the rough spots. Just imagine it like this...a non broken in factory barrel is like 60 grit sand paper and a handlapped custom is like 400 grit. Which do you think will pick up more copper?

As far as breakin and undue wear on a barrel. That's a bunch of crap pure and simple. First off you get about 5-8k rounds through a .308 barrel before accuracy starts to decline to a point it's unusable. How much do you think that little 25-50 round breaking will hurt it? Not much if any and it will actually help. Also it depends on what you do with those rounds also. I use them to sight in my scope and use them for some load developement. They are not just wasted rounds to me and they won't be to you either. If you do break in properly you will have a sighted in rifle that will shoot more accuratly longer without fouling badly and will be much easier to clean afterwards.

I'm sure someone else will have a counter point to this and in advance let me say that's fine because I'm going to keep doing it the way that has proven itself to me over the years which is one shot/clean for the first ten, 2 shots/clean for 5 groups, 3 shots/ clean for 5 groups and then 5 shots/clean for 3 shots. I think alot of people won't do it and say it's not needed because they don't want to put forth the time and work it takes to conduct a proper break in which I admit is about 6 hours if not more at the range. And that's fine for them but don't let a new shooter think break in doesn't matter because it does.

Also you can break in a used rifle. All you have to do is clean it very, very good so that no fouling is in it and then conduct the break in procedure.
 
Walter,

Gale expressed no dissenting opinion about brass brushes, in fact he explained that because brass was softer than the metal used to make the barrel it was safe to use. Stainless steel brush, on the other hand, he said were harder than the metal the barrels were made of, thus scratching occurs.
 
I own a 12BVSS and as long as I clean it every 20 rds I can shoot between .3 and .5" groups at 100. No break in procedure for me, as I hadn't heard of them.
 
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