Breaking in a barrel - Legitimate, or Worthless?

[Greenspartan117]

I will go by what Gale McMillan says about barrel break-in... :-P

[bohoki]

i would love to test this

my experiment would consist of 10 sequential savage's of the same caliber

alternating serial numbers have half just shoot 200 rounds have the other half do the "proper break in procedure" firing 200 rounds not really sure what is the best i'll have to get a consensus on that

then the double blind test i would have someone else fire each 5 shot groups
then average the spread over each set of 5

hmm i would need a sponsor and a volunteer

of course which caliber to choose? and where to get 2000 rounds of the same lot of ammo

[CSACANNONEER]

I will go by what Gale McMillan says about barrel break-in... :-P

I'd go by what the barrel maker or rifle builder says on his particular barrel and/or build. If Gale built the rifle, I'd listen to his advise in a heartbeat. If it's not one of his rifles, I'm sure he would defer to someone who knew how and with what components the rifle was built with.

[nobs11]

i would love to test this

my experiment would consist of 10 sequential savage's of the same caliber

The variance in accuracy you would see with 10 factory rifles would cast doubt on any test done to measure the effectiveness of barrel break in techniques.

[Some Guy]

cow barrel, lmao

[Army GI]

I started to do it with my AR50 but stopped after 9 rounds. The gun still shoots .5moa when I do my part (which is rare). When I got my other 50, I shot a whole match before I cleaned it for the first time and I'm able to shot .5 moa with it as well.

That's easy all you have to do is fire one shot

[dexter9659]

I season every production rifle I buy. Shoot, run a patch, let sit for a few days, rinse and repeat till it only takes a few patches to clean after a shoot. The whole process takes roughly 5 months, but I find it results in the barrel becoming ridiculously easier to clean. I have yet to see any accuracy difference. It sounds like a long time, but that is why you own more than one rifle.

[Artery]

I really don't know what I think anymore. I've been drinking the shoot one clean, repeat kool-aid for a long time now but on the AR I just built I took a much more lax approach to break in and it shoots fine.

The way I figure it can't hurt. People say that its a waste of ammunition but its not as if you are shooting into the hillside while breaking in, its a chance to get to know the rifle, zero it, and practice. Plus, I find I make my shots count for more when I have to clean more frequently.

I think the claims that break in is a conspiracy by barrel manufactures to make people shoot more and wear out barrels faster doesn't stand up to the logic test. It certainly takes me longer to shoot 100 rounds when I'm cleaning every other one or every five than if I'm shooting 100 and then cleaning at the end of the day. If the evil barrel manufactures wanted us to wear out barrels faster they would say the proper 'break in' procedure would be to rapid fire the first 200 shots without cleaning.

So yeah, I don't know what I think, +1 vote for 'unknown'

[rayra]

Voted No. Tremendous waste of time / exercise in OCD. IF you've got a quality barrel you don't need it and if you have a crappy barrel it won't make enough difference to matter. And in most shooters' hands, the marginal difference is beyond their skill to make use of anyway.

[jlh95811]

cow barrel, lmao

Harmonic Oscillations

[Prc329]

http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/Barrel_BreakIn_II.asp

I've talked with 4 metallurgist and 3 barrel manufactures (Rock Creek, Hart and Shilen), on the subject. From a scientific point of view, they all said and agreed to pretty much the same thing.

First, barrel break-in processes keep them in business. This shoot and clean, shoot and clean every round or few rounds break-in process only damages your brand new match barrel. Think of a car engine for a moment. Why do we use oil in the engine? To prevent metal-to-metal contact and reduce friction between two metal surfaces. Your barrel is no different from the engine. Mike Rock at Rock Creek barrels gave me the most detailed explanations on barrels and ballistics. Mike has his degree in metallurgy; he was also the chief ballistics engineer for the Army for many years at the Aberdeen Proving grounds. Stan Rivenbark was one of the top ballistic engineers for Raytheon before he retired in the 70's and also has a degree in metallurgy. I also talked with two local metallurgists here in North TX. I confirmed my findings with each person to see if they agreed or disagreed. Conclusion, they all agreed with each other's assessments.

[Artery]

So let me get this straight, barrel manufacturers advocate a process that will make their product perform worse and fail sooner, in the hope that after this short lived poor performance, I as a customer will return and purchase another barrel?

I'm not saying barrel break in works or not, I just don't buy the evil barrel manufacture conspiracy theory.

[Mute]

I've done break-in and have gone with just shooting the rifle as is. On similar type rifles, I've not notice any difference in accuracy or ease of cleaning for the barrel. I don't bother to break in my barrels anymore.

[Jicko]

If its a custom, hand lapped barrel then its a waste of time. The only reason to break in a barrel is to remove minor tooling marks/ridges that collect copper and cause copper fouling. Any hand lapped barrel will already have had those ridges lapped down so its pointless.

I voted yes, because in some cases, yes it helps. Also, barrel break in cant hurt a barrel so thats another reason why i votes yes.

+1 SAID IT ALL, right there.