Break-in?

[tundraman]

Do you really need to break in your new gun? If so, how do I break-in my new Springfield XD 45 ACP? I have never broke in a gun and owned a few. Thanks.

[762cavalier]

SHOOT IT

I broke in My ruger by putting about 300 rounds through it at a friends property.Went home and cleaned it.

I don't think its necessary to break in a handgun barrel

As far as rifle barrels there is a lot of controversy about breaking in barrels and I don't think its necessary either. When various militaries issued rifles they were put to use and used hard in some instances and some of those rifles are still tack drivers

[tundraman]

SHOOT IT

I broke in My ruger by putting about 300 rounds through it at a friends property.Went home and cleaned it.

I don't think its necessary to break in a handgun barrel

As far as rifle barrels there is a lot of controversy about breaking in barrels and I don't think its necessary either. When various militaries issued rifles they were put to use and used hard in some instances and some of those rifles are still tack drivers

I agree. I have always shot my new guns as usual. I always clean my guns after shooting them, but that is about it.

I get my gun next Friday. I am heading to the range that weekend. You should head up there if you are not busy.

[762cavalier]

I am probably going to sac valley shooting center next weekend to get in some rifle work. maybe we can meet there as it is probably closer to you than elk grove

[tundraman]

Sounds good! I'll give you a call later this week.

[SJshooter]

Clean it before you shoot it first, but that is it.

[762cavalier]

Clean it before you shoot it first, but that is it.

OOPS! forgot that part.

[Vigilante]

When I got my last rifle my dad's friend told me that I needed to break the barrel in. So I then asked him how this is done, and he explained to me that it would take about 3-4 hours, involve cleaning after every shot with a variety of chemicals, never letting the barrel get at all hot, and a bunch of other things that I can't remember. He then told me that if I didn't break the barrel in this way that I would ruin the gun and it would never be as accurate as it could have been. It sounded rediculous to me, so I took it out and shot it like I normally would and everything has been just fine. I personally don't believe the whole break in deal. And yeah the gun is still accurate.

[zenbubu]

I know that I had a Sig P226 that had a stiff trigger, but after a few months of shooting it smoothed out nicely.

[triaged]

I always fully disassembly any gun I get and give it a full cleaning. That also helps get me more familiar with the gun. I place a drop of oil (I use MP-10) on the key areas, and cycle/dry fire it a few times and hit the range.

Rifles are a different story because they don't have as smooth of barrels as handguns normally have and get copper deposits in the barrel quickly when new.

[Mute]

You should always make sure that your gun is reliable with the round you have chosen as your self defense round. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to fire 500 rounds through it, but for most range sessions I shoot minimum of a hundred rounds anyways. Many feel that two hundred trouble free rounds in a row should indicate that your gun isn't going to be a problem child.

[Aluisious]

Handgun break in = shoot

When I get my AR going, I'm going to break it in with a hundred rounds back to back. Someone else can sit there pampering their damn barrel to get an extra 5% out of it, I really don't care. I shoot offhand mostly anyway, I doubt I'll ever have an assault bench handy if the SHTF.

[TonyNorCal]

This is one of these questions that goes around and around on various gun sites with no definitive answer (like many things in life ).

Some feel it's bunk and actually shortens barrel life and some feel it really helps.

I've never done it. I suppose if I were a competitive shooter and someone could convince me of the wonderous merits of cleaning after every shot/couple of shots I might give it a whirl...

I have a little difficulty visualizing how a convoluted cleaning regimen actually helps...my understanding is that it's supposed to 'smooth out' imperfections left over from the machining process? Well, wouldn't any imperfections that are small enough to be dealt with via cleaning also be smoothed out by sending bullets down the barrel at 1000s of FPS?

Bottom line is I'm one of those guys who for the most part doesn't really care about extreme sub-moa group size. Now, it's fun to shoot a nice tight group...don't get me wrong...but I'm not hand loading and hand wringing over .08 inch variations....

Nothing against enjoying that...just not my thing.

Another problem I see with this sort of thing is it seems really anecdotal. Ideally you'd have a controlled study...X number of Remington 700 barrels...one group attended to, one not...mechanical shooting rests...same ammo, etc...and even this is hard to do if the differences are small enough due to things like variation in the machining process from one barrel to the next.

Anyway...it seems like a bit of a drag to me

[Aluisious]

Yeah a real scientific study is the only way to figure this out, with a big sample size.

The theory I heard is that very small pits build up copper deposits that scrape the bullet jacket as a bullet is shot, making the bullet less accurate in its flight. Cleaning during break in removes that copper and allows the bullet to "slough" the small pits closed so that copper will not build up as much any more.

They claim that this increases the number of shots that a rifle will make to a point of aim before thermal changes in a session change the point of aim. Whatever.

Seems to me that damn near any bullet is rife with imperfections from casting, machining, etc, and loading it into a magazine, stuffing it into a chamber at any angle at all, etc etc is going to do far more than a little patch of copper tugging at the jacket ever will.

Some people need to pray to God to feel in control of chaos, others need to "break in" their barrel.

I bet you military snipers don't bother with that crap, they just shoot and build their skills in the field.

[m1371]

I bet you military snipers don't bother with that crap, they just shoot and build their skills in the field.

This question has been beaten to death in the military precision shooting community. There are some high-grade barrel makers who say you need to break in a barrel before you start to seriously use it. There are other high-grade barrel makers who say it's not necessary.

I've heard this same discussion among Marine snipers and most of the ones I knew advocated some sort of breaking in procedure for a brand new rifle. There were also some who scoffed at the idea for various reasons.

There was even one MSgt I knew who swore that every rifle that was "new" to him would get a modified re-break in session. I would imagine after 20 years or so of shooting he might have a clue.

My rudimentary understanding of the process, as was explained to me a long while ago (by a far better shooter than I'll ever hope to be), is that you're polishing off the tooling marks left over from the rifling process so the copper from the jackets won't build up and make the barrel harder to clean. Overall, this is supposed to enhance the accuracy of the rifle and give the barrel a longer life.