New Rifle Break in - Two schools of thought Yes or No

T

Tony2733

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I just purchased a SAKO Model 75 .243 Varminter SS Lam. that has never been fired outside of the factory.

Everything I read is conflicting in that some recommend just shoot it and others tell of a one shot clean, one shot clean one shot clean........... for 10 shots.

Can someone cut though the smoke and let me know from their experience that their rifle did benefit from a breakin process. :cool:
 
And you'll keep getting conflicting opinions....that's the way it is. There are a certain amount of tooling marks left in any barrel and chamber, you can't get away from all of it. Breaking in a barrel is allowing a bullet, or bullets, to smooth these out. Sending a bullet down a barrel that has some tooling imperfections will likely strip away some jacket material. This needs to be cleaned or it will get worse with each passing bullet.

Do what you think is best, what makes sense to you. Does it hurt to spend an hour or two up front and do the one shot and clean for 5 rounds or so? You're going to sight the gun in anyway, and shoot it anyway, so just make your first outing a little longer, watch what the barrel tells you, and go from there.

Regardless, use the right cleaning stuff: bore guide, good solvent, etc.
 
Tony, I have always done the shoot/clean so I can not tell you for certain that there is a difference. But what I can tell you with certainty there is a change after approx. 10 shots (shoot/clean) in the amount of wet swabs it takes me to remove the blueing/copper fouling. I'm sure you've heard the reason why barrel break-in is around, and I would think that barrel break in would be more helpful in a factory rifle than a custom barrel. The customs are hand lapped (atleast the better be) to help remove the burrs on the rifling - which is one of the reasons for break in- also the gunsmith who chambers a custom barrel is using your reamer (or atleast one of his own) which should well maintained and allows a clean cut for the throating and lead-in, which is the other concern for break in the burrs/imperfections left there that can dig into the bullets jacket and the copper will obviously follow the bullet/pressure down the barrel, that is what your trying to get out of there during break in so it does not become imbedded into the rifling the following shots.

Like I said I've never really tested one vs. the other plus I one thing I always thought of is you will never be able to compare what your gun could have done if you did or did not break in the barrel. I've always done a break in mainly because I've never seen any harm come from it and it doesn't take a whole lot of time-plus I don't want to turn a new rifle into a guinea pig to see if its needed or not.
 
Wayne Shaw said:
Breaking in a barrel is allowing a bullet, or bullets, to smooth these out.
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As you can see I am replying to a particular statement. I am curious as how a copper will smooth out crom-moly or stainless steel when rubbed together. Just a question and nothing implied.
 
Wayne Shaw said:
I suppose a barrel will never wear out?
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What wears the barrel out is the intense heat of the burning powder. How many barrels have you seen that for the last 10" were perfect and the first 12" were burned out. I don't think you can apply that much pressure, (60,000 lbs per square of pressure), with the intense heat of the burning powder, without burning steel of any kind. I wish someone who is more knowledgeable about this would jump in.
 
Bill Gammon said:
As you can see I am replying to a particular statement. I am curious as how a copper will smooth out crom-moly or stainless steel when rubbed together. Just a question and nothing implied.
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I guess because the copper is at supersonic speed? Impact maybe? (that is, for any feature inside the barrel)

If the same copper/lead bullet hits a steel plate, it leaves a significant mark. Even at an angle.
 
I understand what you're saying. I have seen what as few as 3 rounds can do to tooling marks, I don't think the break in process is a fallacy. I also think there is more friction in the front end due to bullet swaging. But let's see what others offer.
 
It may be that what is really important is that we expose the sharp corners of the tooling marks to the heat and abrasiveness of the burning powder, rather than the bullet jacket doing the work. In any case if the offending sharp parts are covered in jacket material they are protected, not what we want if we want a shot (pun intended) at dulling them.
 
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Great Advice, and thanks to everyone!!!
Seems that the final results are;
take the time,
do a breakin,
It can't hurt, only help.

Thanks again
 
Now that you've decided what you are going to do in relationship to barrel break in read this set of thoughts by Gale McMillan. I quit breaking in barrels after I read what Gale had to say about it. On a PPC, I'll clean it good to start. Fireform 10 rounds, clean, fireform the rest of the 10 rounds and clean again. 20 rounds fireformed and I'm ready to work up my load. Probably more benchrest barrels are hurt by overcleaning than by firing.
 
+1 on what Mike posted. Not a big deal on a hunting rifle, but on a BR barrell with maybe a 1000 rounds of top notch accuracy I wouldn't wear it out cleaning it.
Butch
 
There are cases where hardly any breakin is needed. Take the 30BR, slow twist, around 3000FPS, short bearing surface bullet, it don't take much. 6PPC isn't much different, but it is a faster twist and faster bullet. But they don't take a big effort either.

You get into the long range stuff, fast twist, long bearing surface bullets, lots of powder behind it, and things need a little more care. And in those cases, barrel life can be less than a PPC.

Your barrel will tell you what to do. Like I said, lots of opinions on this.
 
The Kreiger website has a barrel break in section that explains a bit of theory.Certainly the tooling marks are much resembling the "burr" that one establishes when sharpening a knife blade. this "burr" can be removed by a leather strop so copper bullets could certainly have an effect. Kreiger speaks of the effect of lapping as turning the tooling marks in the direction of bullet travel. seems to make sense to me. they also speak of copper dust and plasma formed during firing. worth reading I think. I love this forum and the people who frequent it, really makes me think and do the research in an effort to understand the nuances of the sport!
 
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I had two identical Krieger barrels. One I broke in using the shoot, clean, shoot clean routine. The other I fired seven shots through before I cleaned it. There was a LOT more copper in the latter barrel and I had to work a lot longer to clean it out. After that cleaning, it copper fouled a lot less. The Krieger explanation makes perfect sense. It was much easier to clean the copper each time on the first few shots instead of letting it build up for seven shots, but the result seems to have been pretty much the same. Both barrels stopped copper fouling after a few rounds.
 
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