Interesting Article on Barrel Break-In

J

JohnKSa

Administrator
John Barsness had an article in the April 2011 issue of Guns Magazine called "Stop the Madness".

He made several good points, a couple of which really resonated.

First of all, unless your barrel break in cleaning method is removing all the metal fouling each cleaning interval then you're pretty much wasting your time. The bullet won't be burnishing the bore if it's tracking over jacket fouling laid down by previous rounds.

Second, if you really remove the fouling (metal fouling included) every time you clean your rifle after a range session then you're going to get the same effect (over time) that you would get from the typical "shoot a shot & clean" break in methods. Basically the first bullet or two of each range session will do some burnishing and over time you'll get the bore as burnished as it's going to get.

Application? I'm not advocating barrel break in, BUT, I can say this: If you're going to try to "break in" a barrel using one of the common methods then you need to actually CLEAN the barrel in between shots or you're just wasting effort. A few brush strokes, some nitro solvent and a patch ain't gonna cut it. The jacket fouling needs to come out or the bullet's not going to be making significant contact with any rough portions of the bore (the places that actually need burnishing) after the first few shots.

Of course, there's a more useful practical implication to the article. Unless you have a barrel that's giving you fairly serious metal fouling symptoms & problems, you can achieve an identical effect to one of the typical break in methods by simply cleaning the bore back to bare metal (removing all fouling including jacket fouling) after each range session and you can do it without having to waste your range time cleaning.

Sure, it will take longer, but unless the bore is having problems with metal fouling build up leading to accuracy issues over the course of a normal range session, it's not going to make any practical difference at all. It will surely make your first few range sessions with your new rifle a lot more pleasant.
 
I was just curious, what will cut it? I have been cleaning my barrels with a brush, solvent, and a white patch when finished since I was a kid,( Bore snake actually now). Have I missed something all these years? how else do you clean your barrel if that is not going to cut it?
 
I've been mulling over everything that's been written and posted about new rilfe barrel break in and what Barsness says makes sense. I would think if you had a bore that really needed smoothing out then bore-lapping before the first shot was fired would be the ticket, and would save a lot of ammo.

Thanks John.
 
The trouble with this type of article is twofold. First, most guys left to their own devises do not really know how to properly clean a rifle barrel, especially one that copper fouls. I'm one of the fools that a long time ago I invested in a borescope. You would be quite surprised what gets found inside the bores of very experienced riflemen that thought they were good at cleaning with a degree of regularity. Second, particularly with factory barrels, a sane, repeat sane initial breakin, often, minimizes the issues with the first point. At the end of the day, it's cheap insurance I guess.
 
I doubt that there is any real proof that a break in routine really does anything good or bad. I don't think that you can make a bad barrel good by a tedious break in nor does a really good barrel get much if any better. How would you tell? Your trigger pull differs slightly from shot to shot. Heat, humidity, dust etc. all have some effect on how we shoot. I am sure the shoot / clean, shoot / clean thing can't hurt but I am very sceptical about how much it helps.
 
Second, if you really remove the fouling (metal fouling included) every time you clean your rifle after a range session then you're going to get the same effect (over time) that you would get from the typical "shoot a shot & clean" break in methods. Basically the first bullet or two of each range session will do some burnishing and over time you'll get the bore as burnished as it's going to get.
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I read the article and was not certain if the article was an infomercial. The article starts with good logic, “maybe you don’t need to break in a barrel”, but ends with a long list of barrel break in products complete with URL’s.

I shoot with competitors who have National Titles and we talk about everything. One guy whom I respect, he has a bore scope and he installs his own barrels. He claims that polishing the throat out (I forget how he did it) to get rid of reamer marks helps barrel longevity. Since he is shooting these 6.5 bullets, a barrel life in excess of 2000 rounds is really good. Some of these 6mm and 6.5 mm barrels loose their accuracy life around 1500-1700 rounds. So for these guys, an "improvement" in barrel life is important but also almost an article of faith. Barrel life is so varible that it is hard to know if the technique increased the barrels life, or it was just luck of the draw.

I am still shooting 30 caliber. My only break in is sighting the barrel in and going home and cleaning it. What I have noticed is that on a high mileage barrel, you really clean the thing out and it takes up to five shots before the zero stops changing. And I am talking some big zero changes as the thing settles down.

Barrel break in will not make a bad barrel good.

However, Frank White of Compass Lake Engineering has seen a lot more target rifles than I ever will. On Commercial Row at Camp Perry he told me of a number of target rifles that stopped shooting well, but were restored to previous shooting condition by cleaning out the throat with JB Bore cleaner. Frank claimed that solvents will not remove impacted fouling in the throat. You had to use a mechanical means to get the stuff out.

I cannot say I had a barrel go south due to throat crud, but I will say that an abrasive such as JB is to be used sparingly. Like once ever 500 rounds or so and then gently.
 
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This thread was so timely, I can't believe it.

I just got a Savage .243 delivered and have yet to shoot it. I just did the initial cleaning, (CLP twice and patch it clean), along with a few drops of Militec on a patch, wiping the chamber and outside, then another wipe down with a clean patch.

Okay, so now I feel that I'm ready to shoot it for the first time.


My son who is severely anal and precise about everything, (except about cleaning his carry piece, a Glock 23) tried to preach to me about the proper break in procedures on the new barrel, going as far as wanting me to buy the bushing to place in the barrel to minimize the rod hitting the end of the barrel, was trying to tell me the shoot and clean method was the only was to go.

I can see a good cleaning after a session, and possibly a run through after about 10 or so, but shoot and clean, shoot and clean, no way.
 
I think it the process is not needed, the bullet is soft the barrel is hard,........ you are only breaking-in the bullet, which wont get used again........hence the copper in the barrel.
 
Duk......

I believe in the use of bore guides and coated 1 piece cleaning rods. I also use a good solvent which will take out the copper. I use Shooters Choice and let it set awhile to do it's job. I have gotten away from brushing hard. If I still have copper and it's not comming out, a couple of passes with the brush seems to allow the solvent to do it's work again.

As far as breaking in a barrel goes, I've done it both ways. I have a very good shooting Wiinny F/W in '06 which I had before there was such a thing.

I broke in a Rem 308 LTR which is an easy 1/2 MOA rifle. It didn't start shooting good until round 364. I should say it started shooting smaller groups after 364. The break in process was done before reaching this number.

I have a Kreiger barrel on a service rifle which makes no copper period. I followed what they recommed on their website.
 
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I like this article too.

http://www.6mmbr.com/gailmcmbreakin.html

How to Break-in a Barrel
-- A Dissenting Point of View

Gale McMillan, of McMillan Stocks fame, was one of the finest barrel-makers and benchrest shooters of all time. Here he argues that elaborate barrel break-in procedures do more harm than good.

Comments collected from Gale's Gun Forum postings.

As a barrel maker I have looked in thousands of new and used barrels with a bore scope and I will tell you that if every one followed the prescribed [one shot, one clean] break-in method, a very large number would do more harm than good. The reason you hear of the gain in accuracy is because if you chamber a barrel with a reamer that has a dull throater instead of cutting clean sharp rifling it smears a burr up on the down wind side of the rifling. It takes from one to two hundred rounds to burn this burr out and the rifle to settle down and shoot its best. Any one who chambers rifle barrels has tolerances on how dull to let the reamer get and factories let them go longer than any competent smith would.

Another tidbit to consider--take a 300 Win Mag that has a life expectancy of 1000 rounds. Use 10% of it up with your break-in procedure. For every 10 barrels the barrel-maker makes he has to make one more just to take care of the break-in. No wonder barrel-makers like to see this. Now when you flame me on this please [explain] what you think is happening to the inside of your barrel during the break in that is helping you.

Consider this: every round shot in breaking-in a barrel is one round off the life of said rifle barrel. No one has ever told me the physical reason of what happens during break-in firing. In other words what, to the number of pounds of powder shot at any given pressure, is the life of the barrel. No one has ever explained what is being accomplished by shooting and cleaning in any prescribed method. Start your barrel off with 5 rounds and clean it thoroughly and do it again. Nev Maden, a friend down under that my brother taught to make barrels was the one who came up with the [one shot one clean] break-in method. He may think he has come upon something, or he has come up with another way to sell barrels. I feel that the first shot out of a barrel is its best and every one after that deteriorates [the bore] until the barrel is gone. If some one can explain what physically takes place during break-in to modify the barrel then I may change my mind. As the physical properties of a barrel don't change because of the break-in procedures it means it's all hog wash. I am open to any suggestions that can be documented otherwise if it is just someone's opinion--forget it.

It all got started when a barrel maker that I know started putting break-in instructions in the box with each barrel he shipped a few years ago. I asked him how he figured it would help and his reply was if they shoot 100 rounds breaking in this barrel that's total life is 3000 rounds and I make 1000 barrels a year just figure how many more barrels I will get to make. He had a point; it definately will shorten the barrel life. I have been a barrel maker a fair amount of time and my barrels have set and reset benchrest world records so many times I quit keeping track (at one time they held 7 at one time) along with High Power, Silhouette, Smallbore national and world records and my instructions were to clean as often as possible preferably every 10 rounds. I inspect every barrel taken off and every new barrel before it is shipped with a bore scope and I will tell you all that I see far more barrels ruined by cleaning rods than I see worn out from normal wear and tear. I am even reading about people recommending breaking-in pistols. As if it will help their shooting ability or the guns'.

More from Gale McMillan: http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/Barrel_BreakIn.asp
 
Gale knew what he was talking about.. RIP Brother.

That is one post by him that I feared was lost when The Firing Line went down so many years ago. I am glad someone saved it.
 
I took a class from Jon weiler, then of Barrett that was on long range ballistics. I asked about barrel break-in. He noted that the barrel changes with every shot and that you should not expect the barrel to become more accurate just from some pattern of cleaning, that if there was such a pattern, that all the snipers would be doing it and teaching it. They don't have one.
 
I believe that once any minor burrs are shot out,that's the best that barrel will get.The rest is up to the shooter and the ammo.But what do I know?lol
 
As mc223 very tactfully pointed out, this has been discussed previously on TFL. The thread he linked to links to the article. Obviously my short commentary doesn't cover everything in the article. Check it out--it's a good read.
I was just curious, what will cut it? I have been cleaning my barrels with a brush, solvent, and a white patch when finished since I was a kid,( Bore snake actually now). Have I missed something all these years? how else do you clean your barrel if that is not going to cut it?
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If you don't let things get out of hand, a good copper solvent will probably do the trick. Otherwise, you may need to employ one of the abrasive products like JB Bore Paste.

Also, I should point out that I'm not advocating barrel break-in and I don't think Barsness was either. The primary point was that IF you believe it's important and IF you choose to do it then do it in a manner that makes sense. If you're not removing all the fouling--including metal fouling--then the bullet won't be contacting the rough portions of the bore. No burnishing, and therefore no break-in will be taking place.

The other point is that the typical shoot a shot/clean/shoot a shot/clean/etc. procedures are one-size fits all. It's almost certain that some rifles can benefit from having their bores smoothed out (whether you believe it's possible to do that with a break-in process or that it requires some other methods), but I do not believe that every rifle needs it.

Why do anything at all if you have a rifle that isn't metal fouling appreciably in the first place?
I have gotten away from brushing hard.
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Same here. I do use a brush on my centerfires (not on my rimfires) but not NEARLY as much as I did when I first started shooting. The solvents and cleaners we have these days make it unnecessary to do much brushing.
 
Is this really necessary? I been around guns,collectors,avid sportsmen,serious everyday shooters who think they know it all and ive never heard of breaking in a barrel by cleaning it like this that many times when shooting a new gun.:rolleyes:
 
I was looking at a tack driver decent price AR type, and settled on DPMS Mini SASS and the RRA ATH.

DPMS has an elaborate barrel break in procedure (granted the barrel is not stainless and I forget what it was lined with).

RRA says just shoot it!

I fall on the side of lazy, I like to shoot and not mess around with elaborate rituals, if you need that and it acuuyal does someting, you need to fix your produciton process!.

I still think the Mini SASS is a nice deal (great package with some better accesories), but I went with the RRA as they offered a 3/4 MOA accuracy and I could just shoot it.

Look at DPMS in depth and their sub MOA accuracy guarantee actually means it can be 1.25 (or 1.5 can't remember) to as low as .25. Mostly they are .75 or better, but I was not after mostly.
 
Ive been shooting and around shooters all my life. I haven't heard of any rituals involving tools, cleaning anything else for "breaking in" a firearm. The only "breaking in I have herd of is shooting about 500 round of a variety of ammo to see which kind of ammo feeds, fires and ejects the best as well as finding if there is any manufacturer problems. My old 1903 with a barrel made is 1912 30-06 shoots as well as my new S&W AR.223. All I have done with them is shot them till I was done for the day, cleaned them thoroughly with Hopps 9 and put them away.
 
I been around guns,collectors,avid sportsmen,serious everyday shooters who think they know it all and ive never heard of breaking in a barrel by cleaning it like this that many times when shooting a new gun.
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Well, collectors often either keep guns pristine and don't shoot them, or they have guns that are used anyway and so break-in would not be an issue. Everyday shooters would probably not have heard of this either. Serious everyday shooters might not unless they had been involved with folks shooting competition. If you read much on any of the active gun forums, or search them, you can find several threads on the subject in each..

Based on my experience, this barrel break-in stuff seems to be the makings of the gun companies (only some of them), the lore of being a gun ranges and/or at competitions, then spread most widely via the internet.
http://www.chuckhawks.com/rifle_barrel.htm
http://www.varminthunters.com/tech/breakin.html
http://www.accuracysystemsinc.com/Barrel_Break-In.php

Heck, just google barrel-in and see what comes up!
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=barrel+break-in

However, Gale McMillan had claimed that barrel break-in was something started by a fellow (unnamed) that he helped get started in the barrel business some years prior to 1999. He apparently died soon after the posting, unfortunately. http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=12582
 
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