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| One of Us |
OK....I have bought a new Winchester Classic Feather Weight in 270 WSM. Now then, just how to break-in the barrel with out having to shoot over a $100 of ammo? | ||
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Why not just go and sight it in, and play with it a bit to get to know it, and then give it a good cleaning afterwards? Most makers of match grade barrels suggest a break in procedure (which varies from maker to maker) but for a factory barrel on a hunting rifle I doubt you are going to hurt anything by just shooting it and cleaning as you normally would. If you feel compelled to use a more formal procedure then clean between shots for 10 or 12 rounds then between 5 shot groups till you’ve shot up about 25 or 30 rounds. | |||
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Before you shoot it, clean the bore with your cleaner of choice (I like JB's paste, followed by Shooter's Choice or Hoppe's), a 1 piece coated cleaning rod, and a bore guide. Then go out and shoot it. If I'm feeling really anal, I might swab the bore after the first 5 rounds, just to see what it looks like. After that I'll finish zeroing the scope if I need to, then shoot for groups. When groups open up, I get out the JB's. I'll also clean the bore before long term storage. I've never worried about breaking a barrel in. It will do so on its own, just by regular shooting, usually after only a couple of hundred rounds. Realistically, if you think about it, new barrel break-in rituals don't make sense. Somehow a superthin layer of copper in the grooves of a new barrel is going to prevent a bullet moving at 3,000 fps with 55,000 psi behind it from giving the barrel its "magical" final polish? I don't buy it, and would rather spend my time shooting then cleaning. If a new barrel is going to be ruined by sending a few rounds downrange between cleaninings, I want a different barrel. To answer your question, you can only break in the barrel by shooting it, but I wouldn't worry about it, get your gun zeroed, shoot a few groups, and go hunting. If the gun is a shooter, you'll know in the first box of ammo, break-in won't turn a dog barrel into a hummer. | |||
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skyeskye I'm not a believer in barrel break-in. Shoot varmints and do a bit of Bench rest shooting. I'll tell you of the people I know in the sport you don't see BR guys doing barrel break-in. I've tried it both ways and I have found nothing to make me believe anything is to be gained in a quality barrel. Custom barrels are already lapped. So I would not be using any JB or anything else abrasive in one of those barrels. Having said that I'll say a factory barrel might benefit from that. But first I'd shoot it and see if the barrel appeared to have a coppering issue. I did in my .17 Remington and I JB’ed it and it did seem to help somewhat. But that was a non lapped factory barrel. I would just zero the thing in and use some care in cleaning it regularly. I heard a lot about the break-in process. But the fact is I've seen no data done on a large number of barrels using scientific control methods that would suggest that there is a real advantage. If one of you guys has some of this done under a controlled test and a large number of barrels I'd sure like to have a copy of it to read and I'm sure that others here would have the same interest. Barrel makers yada yada yada I want empirical evidence and scientific testing data. | |||
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JB's will not harm a custom hand-lapped barrel, but since a good barrel shouldn't copper foul much, if at all, you also shouldn't need JB's very much, if at all. | |||
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Whatever you choose to do, don't let the barrel get too hot. Excess heat will do more damage to your barrel than not following a proper break in procedure. | |||
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What a pleasant surprise to read all good advice above. I include the mild abrasive RemClean in my barrel cleaning regimin. I can see that it works. Join the NRA | |||
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| one of us |
Pass a few patches down the bore and feel how smooth she is.That will be the last you feel of that because from then on its all down hill. | |||
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skye, I think it is worthwhile to go to the Krieger website and look at what they have to say about barrel 'break in'. It is a fact that tool marks exist in even the best barrels. Handlapping will eliminate them to a degree, again look at what is written on the Krieger site. At the temps in a barrel at firing, copper material can be scraped off by tool marks in the throat area, and is turned into a plasma, which comes out of suspension and adheres to your barrel some where ahead of the throat. Copper also adheres well to itself, and copper fouling can build up quite quickly if this residue is allowed to build up. Breaking in a barrel does make some sense, I always do some version of it..... whether it makes a difference or not is hard for me to say, since I don't not do it. (is that a double negative?) One thing I can tell you, is that I have been involved in firelapping over 35 barrels, from used rigs with many, many rounds through them, to new factory barrels, with just enough rounds through them to establish base info, (like whether they foul a lot or not, or are hard to clean) and all of them showed some improvement, most in accuracy. I think this indicates that the firelapping rounds helped polish out the barrel and/or remove existing tool marks. Good Luck--Don | |||
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I read that article on the Krieger site. They just say to do it. They don't offer any comparison or control group data. My personal opinion is that it's a customer service warm fuzzy for their customers. Having said that I'll say this my best shooting barrel is a Krieger. It did not under go any break-in. It fowls less than any other barrel I have. All this and without the mythical break-in how could that be? | |||
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I've read other custom barrel makers' statements to the effect that they don't think a special breakin procedure is necessary, but they offer one because they get asked for it so often. "A cheerful heart is good medicine." | |||
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When I broke in my new Krieger, I shot it once and cleaned the livin' hell out of it. Did that ten times over and it shoots excellently now. The worst part of owning a new gun is breaking-in the barrel. Those ten shots took me and my shootin' buddy four hours... | |||
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Yep making the customer happy even if it isn't required a very good observation. Show them you really care and they'll be back because we're listening to you. Don't just depend on your quality to do the job. A little  goes a long ways. | |||
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I did the break in routine on a Winchester Featherweight in 7mm-08 that I bought new in 1995. I fired one shot and then took it home and cleaned it thoroughly until no more blue came out. I would do this whenever I went to the range. It copper fouled heavily until round number 8 IIRC when there was a dramatic improvement. It has had about 1000 rounds through it to date and fouls very little to this day. I don't know if it was worth it. I suspect I could have accomplished the same thing by shooting it normally and cleaning to bare steel after each range session. It was interesting to see the sudden improvement though. | |||
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I look at barrel break-in like this. If a new barrel is rough and full of tool marks and you shoot and clean, shoot and clean then you are using the bullet as a means to smooth out the rough tool marks, yes? On the other hand, if you do not clean between shots then the copper from the bullet will continue to build up on these rough spots and the bullet is no longer smoothing anything. It is only coating the rough tool marks with more copper. Which may not be a bad thing. I have a few rifles that shoot very well with a snoot full of copper. I just started with my new Win M70 Featherweight in 6.5x55. Cuz of the weather here I just took it out and shot 3. Took it home to clean, no copper. Went back the next day and fired 6. Took it home to clean and again no copper. I am now done with the shoot and clean, shoot and clean. | |||
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As it was explained to me once, the “theory’ (because that’s all it really is) is to have the first dozen or so rounds down the new bore to be in full contact with the barrel steel and not riding on any copper fouling from the previous round. Whether or not this “theory†has any scientific merit can, and will be debated endlessly. I disagree with the equally unproven theory that some custom makers say this just to satisfy customers. The top barrel makers are back ordered up the ass and are hardly in need of BS to sell their products. In fact, claiming that their barrels are made so well that they don’t need any break-in would be a far more effective marketing tool if that’s what they were after. | |||
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Well, I have heard Kenny Jarrett give his pitch on barrel cleaning a couple of times now. Kenny has his theory, and it is based on his barrel-making experience. He shows videos of bores taken with a bore scope to illustrate what he observes. The chamber tooling rotates in cutting the chamber, while the barrel tools cut longitudinally. At the junction of the barrel and the throat, you need to blend the two different zones of machining, or a donut of alternate layers of jacket material and powder fouling can build up. Break-in removes this problem. jim if you're too busy to hunt,you're too busy. | |||
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