How do you break in a new barrel?
Should I hand lap the barrel first and how do you do this and with what product? I have never broke in a barrel before and I want to do it right the first time. Thanks for your help!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome, JohnM.

Here's how I would answer your question.
Break-in means you clean a barrel down to bare metal, then fire a short string of shots, like 1~5, with COOLING between shots, clean the barrel down to bare metal again, repeat until you have had N shots through the barrel, N can be any number...20 should do it.

[This message has been edited by Pyrotek (edited 03-05-2002).]

There is a good read on Krieger Barrel's site that is informative for breaking in any barrel, I suggest you give it a read here

This is the method I'm using right now (and fireforming brass at the same time)...
Shoot once, clean.
Shoot twice, clean.
Shoot three, clean.
Etc.
After 7/clean, I split up the eight shot sting by cleaning after 4 shots, and again after the next 4. I'll keep using this method until I've fireformed 100 pieces of brass.
I read about this method, and they suggested you'd be done by the time a 20 shot string was done. ~~~Suluuq

I'm the odd one out (geez, again?). Clean the hell out of the new barrel, cleaners, brushes, solvents, hot water, everything. Get all the machining leftovers (shavings, oils, etc) out completely, first.

Then, give it 100 or so strokes with an abrasive cleaner -- I like Flitz (it's actually a chemical cleaner, but close enough) because it's a little quicker than JB's. Get it out, completely with more solvents.

Then, shoot the crap out of it. JM0, Dutch.

I combine most of the above. I give it a good cleaning with solvent, dry it out, then 100 strokes of JB paste. Then I begin the shooting part. Shoot one & clean, for the first twenty shots. Shoot three & clean for the next thirty (50 rounds total so far). Shoot five & clean for the next 50 (100 rounds total downrange). Don't overheat your barrel during any of this. After that, clean as necessary.

Probably more than needed, but it certainly won't hurt it, and may help if you have a less-than-perfect bore to begin with. Don't plan on doing all of this in one range session. Usually, it is broken in well before the 100 round mark, as evidenced by easier cleaning, less fouling, etc, but I use the same routine every time.

Check the "Centerfire Barrel Break-in & Cleaning Instructions" found at "More about our Rifle Barrrels" on the Lilja site.
http://www.riflebarrels.com/

[This message has been edited by kitchen (edited 03-07-2002).]

Found this post by Gale McMillan and thought I would share any comments?
Don

Gale McMillan
The break in fad was started by a fellow I helped get started in the barrel business . He started putting a set of break in instructions in ever barrel he shipped. One came into the shop to be installed and I read it and the next time I saw him I asked him What was with this break in crap?. His answer was Mac, My share of the market is about 700 barrels a year. I cater to the target crowd and they shoot a barrel about 3000 rounds before they change it. If each one uses up 100 rounds of each barrel breaking it in you can figure out how many more barrels I will get to make each year. If you will stop and think that the barrel doesn't know whether you are cleaning it every shot or every 5 shots and if you are removing all foreign material that has been deposited in it since the last time you cleaned it what more can you do? When I ship a barrel I send a recommendation with it that you clean it ever chance you get with a brass brush pushed through it at least 12 times with a good solvent and followed by two and only 2 soft patches. This means if you are a bench rest shooter you clean ever 7 or 8 rounds . If you are a high power shooter you clean it when you come off the line after 20 rounds. If you follow the fad of cleaning every shot for X amount and every 2 shots for X amount and so on the only thing you are accomplishing is shortening the life of the barrel by the amount of rounds you shot during this process. I always say Monkey see Monkey do, now I will wait on the flames but before you write them, Please include what you think is happening inside your barrel during break in that is worth the expense and time you are spending during break in
I answered this and lost it on transfer so will shorten this one and try to get my point across in fewer words. When some one uses JB on one of my rifles I void the warrantee! For two reasons. ! it dimensionally alters the barrel dimensions and not evenly and the second reason is the barrel maker laps the barrel with a grit of lapping compound that is most effective in preventing metal fouling. Then a customer polishes that finish away with JB.
I wouldn't be as apposed to it if it were applied on a lead lap and very sparingly. It is very obvious when you look at a barrel with a bore scopes all the sharp edges are worn off the rifling. if it has JB used on it on a regular basis. As you know ,it is an abrasive of about 1000 grit. As for using it on factory barrels I will say that while it is difficult to hurt a production barrel but the thing that hurts a match barrel will do the same to a factory barrel
I would rather see you use Otters Foul out as it is easy on the barrel. I have only used it on my 50 but it worked well on it.
That is right. it is a waste of barrel and time. I don't know much about lined barrels but it may be that the barrel is rough due to the plating process. With high volume fire as in full auto it helps to protect against erosion and no one is concerned with accuracy as it is spray and pray.
Look at it this way, A barrel starts out with nice sharp areas of the corners of the rifling . Along the way you build a big fire in it a few thousand times and it burns the corners off. Now take a barrel that to break in you put an abrasive on a patch and run it in and out. The result is that you take the corners off the rifling so that all that fire which would have started with sharp rifling is now starting with rifling that is thousands of rounds old. Which means that a lot of the life is gone. A lap always cuts more on each end where the compound reverses direction as it starts back through the barrel which means that it is enlarging the bore at each ends of the barrel. And last picture a patch riding along the barrel with abrasive on it. It is removing material at a given rate. It comes to a place where there is copper fouling and it rides over it cutting the same amount that it was cutting before it came to the copper. You continue until all the fouling is gone and what have you done? You have put the came contour in the barrel steel that was in it when it was metal fouled. It would not be as bad if it were used on a lead lap but I ask why would you want to abuse the barrel when you can accomplish the same thing without the bad side effects. There is Sweats, Otters foul out or just a good daily cleaning with a good bore cleaner till the fouling is gone. To top this off I will relate a true happening. I built a bench rest rifle for a customer and as usual I fired 5 groups of 5 shots and calculated the aggregate. It was good enough to see that the rifle was capable of winning the Nationals so I shipped it. I got a call from the new owner saying how happy he was with it the way it shot. About 4 weeks later the rifle showed up with a note saying it wouldn't shoot. Sure enough when I tested it was shooting groups three times the size if the ones I had shot before I shipped it. When I bore scoped it the barrel looked like a mirror and the rifling wasn't square it was half round. From that time on I put a flyer in each gun saying if any abrasive was use in it voided the Warrantee.
Now I am not trying to stop you from doing what you want but just inform you what is happening when you use JB. Brass brushes are softer than barrel steel and does no harm. S/S brushes are harder than barrel steel is definetly a no no. Nylon may surprise you to know is very abrasive If you doubt this look at the carbide eye on your fishing rod where nylon line has worn groves into it.
The metal shavings would have had to get in the barrel after it was test fired. The barrel was a hammer forged or buttoned barrel which is not machined and is very smooth finished. No one ever said not to clean a new rifle only that it is not necessary to break it in.

I don't hold with any of these majical break-in rituals. I will admit I only own one half-minute rifle, and one quarter-minute rifle, so there MAY be something to the break-in business, I can't say. But, I definitely caution you NOT TO TRY any "hand-lapping". It is not only a waste of time if you own a quality barrel, you will probably ruin the barrel unless you are a trained barrel-smith who knows how to do this!! Even Harry Pope refused to lap barrels, stating that a properly made barrel didn't improve when lapped!! JB Compound is OK for cleaning a REALLY BADLY FOULED bore, and is safe if used as directed.

------------------
Larry