"Breaking In" a Barrel?

[tbaytusmc]

I did a search, and didn't find anything about this, which surprised me a little bit, but my question is -

Is there any need to do any kind of "break in" procedure for a new precision barrel? I've heard of people doing things like shooting 5 rounds, then cleaning, repeat X amount of times, shoot 10 rounds, clean, repeat, shoot 20 rounds, clean, repeat, etc. etc. etc...

I wanted to pick your knowledgeable brains for some answers...

Is anything like this necessary? Will it actually "squeeze" out some extra accuracy? Or is it all bologna and propaganda created by the solvent/gun care product companies?

[austinN4]

Some thoughts on the subject, both pro and con, in this thread:
http://m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=78479

[Littlelebowski]

No. Shoot it. Don't buy into voodoo. Clean if and when accuracy drops off.

[tbaytusmc]

The dude abides.

lol. In all seriousness though, this is what I've been thinking... that it's all "voodoo". Maybe cause I don't like cleaning that damn much, and I also don't believe firearms should have to be pampered like purse dogs to shoot well... I read the provided link through, as well. It sounds like a bunch of crap.

[uwe1]

There is a shit-load of threads on barrel break in. I found this one to be fairly good and full of info.

http://m4carbine.net/showthread.php?...ighlight=break

[Mr. Goodtimes]

shoot the **** out of it.

[MistWolf]

Some swear by it, some swear at it. Emailed the guy at Little Crow Gunworks about breaking in the Lothar Walther barrel he sold me. He does a lot of prairie dog shooting and said the guys who get the longest life from their barrels use a break in procedure.

His break in procedure is to shot one round then clean for the first four rounds, then shoots another 16 rounds and cleans between every four. At the same time, he is testing loads and has a pretty good idea what load the rifle is going to like.

Maybe it's all voodoo and chicken blood, but many very serious, experienced precision shooters break in their barrels.

Since you're going to shoot the rifle, sight it in and maybe develop loads for it right out of the gate anyway, what's it cost you but some time? I did mine just to see what would happen while test firing for function and sighting in the AR I'd just finished assembling.

But if you're the impatient type, you can blow through the first 20 rounds without adjusting sights or load development or breaking in procedures and you still will have sent 20 rounds down range. You won't be drummed out of the League of Extraordinary AR Shooters whichever you choose

[Belmont31R]

I just go out and shoot. I didn't clean my EMC out of the box, and it didn't get a cleaning until a little over 2k rounds. I just cleaned it again at over 3100. Even then my barrel cleaning takes about 10-30 minutes depending on if I decide to use a rod or not.


Just prior to the first cleaning it shot some sub MOA 10 shot groups.



I don't buy into the shoot once clean shoot again clean crap. I've never done any break in procedure on a single gun, and have had a few precision guns that all were capable of sub MOA groups as long as I didn't **** it up. I usually do, and really don't like shooting groups anyways. I just do it for ammo testing and zeroing. If I wanted to shoot groups Id get a bench rest gun.

[Meplat]

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubb...96#Post1562996
Here's a very interesting post over on Sniper's Hide from a guy who did a lot of research and really looked into it.
Ultimately the answer/conclusion that I drew from it was no, barrel break-in is unnecessary. Shooting the gun itself is what's smoothing out any possible imperfections or burrs or anything like that, not dragging a cloth patch and solvent through it every few rounds.

[Sgt_Gold]

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubb...96#Post1562996
Here's a very interesting post over on Sniper's Hide from a guy who did a lot of research and really looked into it.
Ultimately the answer/conclusion that I drew from it was no, barrel break-in is unnecessary. Shooting the gun itself is what's smoothing out any possible imperfections or burrs or anything like that, not dragging a cloth patch and solvent through it every few rounds.

That post has some interesting observations that I also ran across shooting high power. There have always been multiple opinions as to when and how to clean a match rifle barrel. The general consensus has been slowly building toward not cleaning the barrel for the duration of the season. Another question was how to clean the barrel, chemically or with an abrasive. I was in the chemical corner until another shooter explained his reasons for using bore paste. By removing all the copper fouling via chemical cleaning, seasoning the now completely clean barrel causes additional wear and increases the size of the micro fissures on the inside of the barrel.