How many to break in

Ok, all of you guys who justify a "break-in period" of thousands of rounds "to be familiar" with your weapon.

Let me pose a scenario for you. Shooter (let's make him a LE just to make it a real scenario) has a weapon with which he is very familiar. He has shot several thousands of rounds through it. That weapon is stolen/lost/destroyed, etc. so that shooter has to replace it. He buys EXACTLY the same weapon.

Are any of you advocating that this weapon also go through that 200 round breakin period before it can be trusted? We've now removed the other variables from your argument (training, familiarity, etc) and gotten down to pure manufacturing quality.

Saying that this new weapon has to be shot a couple hundred rounds is like saying you have to drive your new car 200 miles around the dealer parking lot before you can trust it on the highway.

Personally, I'd want to run one magazine through it for my own peace of mind but to actually need to feed it ammo to break it in - no way. If a manufacturer cannot provide that kind of quality then I will not buy from that manufacturer.
 
It's obvious from that thread that far too many people carry firearms without training with them. I personally would never carry a gun for personal protection without first being intimately familiar with it, which takes at least 1000 rounds, and maybe more. Yet there are people here complaining that they have to go shoot a couple hundred rounds through their new gun before they can carry it.... For these people, chances are if they ever need that gun they will be the limiting factor.
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You're still missing the point of the objection. Imagine that I'm buying a second copy of my primary CCW. Or imagine that I'm already very well-trained on the 1911 platform and am buying another 1911. Now re-read post #16. I personally would want to see at least 200 consecutive trouble-free rounds through any pistol I'd rely on for self-defense. As AB describes, a gun model that frequently requires some or all of a 200- or 500-round break-in to achieve reliability -- as is frequently the case with the assembly-line production guns that constitute all of Kimber's and Kahr's production -- is outsourcing the cost of achieving reliability to the consumer in an amount equal to the cost of how ever many rounds above 200 rounds are required to achieve 200 consecutive trouble-free rounds.

Your argument relies on some assumptions that are not necessarily true and thus fails to account for all scenarios.
 
You're still missing the point of the objection. Imagine that I'm buying a second copy of my primary CCW. Or imagine that I'm already very well-trained on the 1911 platform and am buying another 1911. Now re-read post #16. I personally would want to see at least 200 consecutive trouble-free rounds through any pistol I'd rely on for self-defense. As AB describes, a gun model that frequently requires some or all of a 200- or 500-round break-in to achieve reliability -- as is frequently the case with the assembly-line production guns that constitute all of Kimber's and Kahr's production -- is outsourcing the cost of achieving reliability to the consumer in an amount equal to the cost of how ever many rounds above 200 rounds are required to achieve 200 consecutive trouble-free rounds.

Your argument relies on some assumptions that are not necessarily true and thus fails to account for all scenarios.
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If it's an identical gun to one you already own and have trained with, then yes, I agree. However I do not think that is the case here. Even still, I would want to put at least 200 rounds through the gun to ensure it's reliable, and if the manufacturer recommends 500, than so be it, it's really not that big of a deal considering it's a back-up to one you already own, so just do it as time and funds permits, right?
 
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No, they do it because the guns very often need it with the way Kahr produces them. Kahr chooses to outsource final finishing to the customer in order to pad its profit margins.
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That's simply not true
Manufacturing doesn't work that way
 
I personally would never carry a gun for personal protection without first being intimately familiar with it, which takes at least 1000 rounds, and maybe more.
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It's a handgun.

It won't be radically different from any other similar handgun
 
I have had guns that ran well full power ball ammo right out of the box that would not run light loads until they had been shot for a while. Springs do take a set and parts do mate and friction should go down - that is a pretty common break in scenario that I experience with high quality firearms.

Reliability testing is different than break in - I do that pretty often with old and new guns.
 
That's simply not true
Manufacturing doesn't work that way
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It's absolutely true. There's no one way that "manufacturing" works.

Kahr's polymer pistols simply do not receive adequate final finishing, and overall quality control is poor. This is self-evident from close inspection of the guns. Reliability issues often begin with the fact that Kahrs are machined for a tight fit but not to very precise tolerances. Tolerance stacking renders many of them unreliable from the outset, and the customer is called on to burnish the mating surfaces of the ill-fitting parts through firing a few boxes of ammo at his or her own expense. If any employees are charged with conducting final finishing work at the factory, those people should be fired immediately, because they're stealing the company's money. It's much more the rule than the exception to find burrs and prominent high spots on the slide rails, the barrel, and the frame rails in the dustcover. The polymer trimming is extremely sloppy. There are a number of other readily apparent and frequent workmanship and quality control issues with Kahrs, ranging from poorly-milled dovetails (mine has them) to poorly-cut barrel crowns (my original barrel's crown was grotesque). The mags seem to be welded and crimped by kids failing their sixth-grade shop class.

Kahr's chosen manufacturing model involves letting these guns out of the factory with these flaws, charging the customer with the responsibility of shooting the gun into more or less the condition in which it should have left the factory, and then sorting out any remaining issues that the customer ends up complaining about through the warranty repair process.

There are other production models. Some companies' workers do a much better job than Kahr's of remedying correctable flaws (small burrs and the like) and of culling out parts that shouldn't pass any decent QC regimen. Some companies then use machines that aggressively cycle the action of each gun several hundred times before they box it up. Those are deliberate production choices that cost money. Kahr skimps in both of these areas (and others), pockets the savings, and outsources the cleanup work to the buyer. Clear as day.
 
If it's an identical gun to one you already own and have trained with, then yes, I agree. However I do not think that is the case here. Even still, I would want to put at least 200 rounds through the gun to ensure it's reliable, and if the manufacturer recommends 500, than so be it, it's really not that big of a deal considering it's a back-up to one you already own, so just do it as time and funds permits, right?
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This still does not adequately address AB's objection in post #16 to the additional expense the consumer incurs.
 
This still does not adequately address AB's objection in post #16 to the additional expense the consumer incurs.
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I'm sorry I didn't "adequately" address the objection to your satisfaction. I stated that to me and a lot of other people the reasons why we don't think it's a big deal. After all, these are life saving devices, and so one has to decide how much their life is worth to them. Is the cost of running a couple hundred rounds of ammo through a new gun to ensure it's reliable worth more than your life, especially considering you are getting practice with it while doing so? On the other side, there are many many gun options whose manufacturer's do not recommend a break-in, so why fret over the ones that do if you object. Pick something else and move on, otherwise stop whining about something so insignificant.
 
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I'm sorry I didn't "adequately" address the objection to your satisfaction.
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No need to apologize. I don't care whether you address it or not -- I was just pointing out that it wasn't in fact adequately addressed.

It's not anything that really affects me one way or the other. My Kahr has had so many problems above and beyond anything related to break-in that this was a non-issue, and the Les Baer is strictly a range toy. That said, regardless of whether the additional cost is relatively minor, etc., I can fully understand why some folks would look askance at the business practice of shifting the cost of effective final finishing onto the customer and express irritation with those manufacturers of assembly-line guns that do so. If you don't understand the irritation, well, diff'rent strokes I suppose.
 
I think there is some truth to new pistols requiring a break in period. It's not like it's going to go from failing every few rounds to flawless...but a gun with 3 to 4 hundred cycles is a different gun than one that has 3 test shots fired from it. The first few magazine cycles definitely help out a new magazine and it's spring. Recoil springs also set in, slides wear in, etc. I had one with a thumb safety that got much easier to use after 300 or so times of working it with my thumb. Again, I'm not saying a break in period will take a pistol with feed problems and make it 100%, but mechanically the pistol and it's mags do change after a few hundred rounds because they break in. The bottom line is, why do people get a new gun and complain about the idea of shooting a few hundred rounds through it while l,earning it's trigger, hold, sights, etc?? That's supposed to be fun.
 
The bottom line is, why do people get a new gun and complain about the idea of shooting a few hundred rounds through it while l,earning it's trigger, hold, sights, etc?? That's supposed to be fun.
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Exactly.
 
I don’t believe break-in is necessary for a well-made firearm. When the firearm functions better after a number of rounds it’s indicative of poor internal finishing and/or ammo that’s too light.
 
I don't consider it a break in with new guns. What I do is a "shake down". 100 rounds of range ammo without any malfunctions of any kind. Then at least a box each of various carry ammo options to prove they function 100%.
So my total"break in" if that is what you want to call it would be between 100 and 200 rounds.
 
The bottom line is, why do people get a new gun and complain about the idea of shooting a few hundred rounds through it while l,earning it's trigger, hold, sights, etc?? That's supposed to be fun.
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I don't think anyone's complaining about shooting a new pistol per se.
 
I don’t believe break-in is necessary for a well-made firearm. When the firearm functions better after a number of rounds it’s indicative of poor internal finishing and/or ammo that’s too light.
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I largely agree with this statement, and I completely agree with it in the case of production guns.

Some companies put much more effort into final finishing than others. It's a business decision, and different businesses approach it differently.
 
I don't consider it a break in with new guns. What I do is a "shake down". 100 rounds of range ammo without any malfunctions of any kind. Then at least a box each of various carry ammo options to prove they function 100%.
So my total"break in" if that is what you want to call it would be between 100 and 200 rounds.
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Me too. I just did this yesterday with my new CZ-75C. Ran four different brands of range ammo, 115gr &124gr, and a box each of 124gr Gold Dots & Hydra Shoks without a hitch, so I feel the gun does not have any glaring reliability issues to worry about.
 
Me too. I just did this yesterday with my new CZ-75C. Ran four different brands of range ammo, 115gr &124gr, and a box each of 124gr Gold Dots & Hydra Shoks without a hitch, so I feel the gun does not have any glaring reliability issues to worry about.
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Which is how it should be - no failures. However, if it had failed on the first magazine and you called CZ to get it sent back I'm sure they would have been accomodating. However,with Kahr they would have likely told you to "go shoot 200 more rounds to get it broken in".

That is the big difference. Shooting a couple hundred rounds to satisfy my own self is fine. Shooting a couple hundred rounds to do the manufacturer's job is not.
 
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