liljohn, I share your sentiments. I get a kick out of people who report that their rifles shoot extremely well because they broke them in. I ask them sometimes, "how in the heck do you know it wouldn't had shot just as well or maybe even better had you not broken it in?" It's something they'll never ever be able to prove or disprove of course. I wasted some time doing this myself, but I haven't with the last few rifles I've bought and guess what, they shoot perfectly well. Thanks Gale McMillan, where ever you are, for your advice on this.

Barrel break-in is a load of BS. If it does anything at all, it's wear out your barrel.

Think if it--the bullet that goes down the barrel is different every time. It's not like breaking in an overhauled engine that requires certain parts to seat. The piston rings of an engine, for example, need to wear slightly to fit the cylinders properly, thus ensuring a good seal and controlling oil consumption. But a rifle barrel has a different bullet down it each time, and the bullet is not wearing to fit the bore, it's being swaged. If it fits well, it's only going to for one shot, and wearing the barrel slightly with break-in procedures (if it even does this) will not ensure that a group of bullets will fit any better.

In regard to removing machine inconsistencies that affect copper/lead fouling, that will happen by shooting and cleaning it as you normally would. There is absolutely nothing you will do to a barrel by shooting and cleaning normally that will negatively affect it.

If someone disagrees with this theory, I challenge you to prove it empirically. It cannot be done. (but it can be with an engine. Try overhauling it, breaking it in, tearing it down, and reassembling with the same rings. It will burn oil and never stop burning it because the rings will not seat a second time.)

Think about it--to what can you compare a broken-in barrel? Not itself--because it's already broken-in!

Could you shoot it without break in, record the groups, then break it in and compare the difference? No, because according to break in advocates you've got to break it in first or it will never be the same.

Could you compare two identical guns? No--because no two guns are exactly alike.

Could you make 100 test barrels, use a single test action, break in half the barrels and compare the results to the non-break in half? Yes, but it would still be an inductive arguement. And besides, you'd have to shoot each barrel until it was worn out to see if the non-break in barrels ever reached the same level of capability as the broken-in ones, if the broken-in ones showed any appreciable benefit in the first place. And, you'd have to take into account any reduction in life of the broken-in barrels that results from the artificially enduced wear of break-in procedures.

Could you imagine what it would take to perform such an experiment? You'd have to get about a million bullets from the same lot, a ton of powder from the same lot, thousands of cases, and have years and years to spend on the project. And if you could show any difference between the broken-in barrels and those that were not, it would STILL be a statistical correllation, not an empirical fact.

Can you tell this is a pet peeve of mine?

DeltaHunter: You're right on about Gale. Here's what he had to say about it:

http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/Barrel_BreakIn.htm