My Remington PSS is finally ready to go to the range this weekend. I have not fired it and bought it new. My gunsmith tells me that in his opinion I should fire about 15 rounds very slowly cleaning the bore between each round. His opinion is that further break-in is not needed. I would like to hear the opinions of any of you gunslingers, star warriors or any other assorted polecats out there.
Rifle break-in
- Thread starter Alex49
- Start date
J-B Bore Cleaning Compound first
Before you fire the first round, thoroughly clean the bore with J-B's. Assuming its a .308, use a 7mm bore brush (one size smaller than .308) to hold the patch and then clean and polish the bore as the directions indicate. Make 10-15 passes though the bore with each patch and repeat for 3-5 patches. Do not let the brush and patch exit the bore at the muzzle as a small amount of damage/rounding to the crown may occur (or so I've been told). I mark the rod so I know how far to push the rod. It's slow and tedious but worth the effort. J-B's will clean out all the fine pieces of metal remaining from cutting the rifling and will also polish the bore to some extent. After the J-B's, swab the bore with Kroil, then dry patch before you go to the range.
As far as cleaning between shots, the idea is to shoot the first few (10-20) bullet's through a clean, dry bore. I clean after each round for the first ten, then at 15 and 20. Then it goes home for a thorough cleaning with a heavy ammonia solvent (eg., Sweet's 7.62) and maybe another round with J-B's. After that I wouldn't worry about break-in.
Before you fire the first round, thoroughly clean the bore with J-B's. Assuming its a .308, use a 7mm bore brush (one size smaller than .308) to hold the patch and then clean and polish the bore as the directions indicate. Make 10-15 passes though the bore with each patch and repeat for 3-5 patches. Do not let the brush and patch exit the bore at the muzzle as a small amount of damage/rounding to the crown may occur (or so I've been told). I mark the rod so I know how far to push the rod. It's slow and tedious but worth the effort. J-B's will clean out all the fine pieces of metal remaining from cutting the rifling and will also polish the bore to some extent. After the J-B's, swab the bore with Kroil, then dry patch before you go to the range.
As far as cleaning between shots, the idea is to shoot the first few (10-20) bullet's through a clean, dry bore. I clean after each round for the first ten, then at 15 and 20. Then it goes home for a thorough cleaning with a heavy ammonia solvent (eg., Sweet's 7.62) and maybe another round with J-B's. After that I wouldn't worry about break-in.
This topic always provokes a lot of controversy and, after reading all the posts on the many threads, I have come to a mid-point in my practice. I clean after every round for 5 rounds and then after every range session from then on. From what I gather, "breaking-in" has most to do with copper buildup in the bore. I figure a little extra cleaning at first can't hurt and it might help.
Steve Smith
New member
The late Gale McMillan couldn't come up with a good reason for "breaking-in" a good barrel...he said "just shoot it." He did, however, say that he'd heard a barrel maker say that "breaking in" was a good way to get shooters to wear out their barrels faster. I think he advocated just shooting, and cleaning with patches and solvent often in the beginning...no abrasives. I now have several rifles that I've never used a brush or abrasive compound on, and they shoot great. It makes me feel good that the only wear the barrels get is from the bullet passing through.
Benchrest1000
New member
Always thought the same thing. If the barrels bad, it gets quick and heavy copper build-up. If it was cut well, it doesn't. Oh well. I sure would not have wanted to argue the point with Gale M. His opionion is good enough for me on just about anything. 
You may want to put yourself through that misery for an expensive match barrel, but for a factory barrel just give it a good cleaning and shoot it. You can clean after each round for the first 5 - 10 rounds as another poster pointed out if that makes you feel better. That's all I do and I've never noticed a degradation in accuracy of my rifles over the years. However, I am not a match shooter.
Jack Kreiger has some thoughts on barrel break in at:
http://www.jarheadtop.com/article_breakin.html
FWIW, when I asked about breaking for a Peerless service gun, Clint McKee at Fulton's advise was to just shoot the thing.
I tend to follow more closely to Krieger's advise. My thinking is if you don't check during the 1st few rounds how will you known how bad the bore is fouling? How will you know when the fouling drops off?
http://www.jarheadtop.com/article_breakin.html
FWIW, when I asked about breaking for a Peerless service gun, Clint McKee at Fulton's advise was to just shoot the thing.
I tend to follow more closely to Krieger's advise. My thinking is if you don't check during the 1st few rounds how will you known how bad the bore is fouling? How will you know when the fouling drops off?