cleaning, barrel, precision-rifle, break-in, mythsI have seen both sides presented by barrel makers, below is the most direct example of the evidence presented for fiction. A newsgroup posting by Gale McMillan, maker of high-end stocks and high-end rifles, and proprietor of high-end long-range rifle training:
From: Gale McMillan <gale@mcmfamily.com>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Barrel break-in necessary?
Date: 7 Jan 1997 20:40:25 -0500
Mike Sumner wrote:
> ...
As a barrel maker I have looked in thousands of new and used barrels
with a bore scope and I will tell you that if every one followed the
prescribed break in method A very large number would do more harm than
help. The reason you hear of the help in accuracy is because if you
chamber barrel with a reamer that has a dull throater instead of cutting
clean sharp rifling it smears a burr up on the down wind side of the
rifling. It takes from 1 to 2 hundred rounds to burn this bur out and
the rifle to settle down and shoot its best. Any one who chambers rifle
barrels has tolerances on how dull to let the reamer get and factories
let them go longer than any competent smithe would. Another tidbit to
consider, Take a 300Win Mag. that has a life expectancy of 1000 rounds.
Use 10% of it up with your break in procedure for ever 10 barrels the
barrel maker makes he has to make one more just to take care of the
break in. no wonder barrel makers like to see this. Now when you flame
me on this please include what you think is happening to the inside of
your barrel during the break in that is helping you.
Gale McMillan
NBSRA IBS,FCSA and NRA Life Member
And yet on the websites of various other barrel makers, we find long and elaborate procedures for breaking in barrels, claiming to have the benefit of easier cleaning, greater accuracy, and improved barrel life. From barrel maker Lilja Precision:
We recommend that your new Lilja rifle barrel be properly broken-in to obtain the best accuracy. A proper break-in will help ensure that your barrel will clean easily in the future and that you will achieve maximum accuracy potential. Please follow these important instructions.
We are concerned with two types of fouling: copper fouling, which is caused by bullet jacket material being left in the barrel, and powder fouling. During the first few rounds a lot of copper fouling will be left in the barrel. It is important to remove this fouling completely, after each shot, to help prevent a build-up later on. Powder fouling is ongoing, but easy to remove. Do not use moly-coated bullets during the break-in procedure.
And again from Krieger Barrels we have a third story regarding not the bore, but the throat (left as an exercise for the reader).
So what’s the answer to the question of barrel break-in? Is it true, or false? Wisdom for the ages, or merely a common myth perpetuated by superstition-run-rampant?
I’m going to posit a good answer based on the the facts I have seen:
Breaking in a barrel is all about marginal returns. A precision rifle will shoot fine without being broken in, but it will probably shoot marginally finer after having been broken in. Is it worth it? That depends on the shooter.
Anything less finicky than a precision rifle (i.e. a home defense gun, a range toy, any pistol) probably will not benefit from breaking in the barrel. It won’t hurt the gun, but it’s time better spent having fun.
It is difficult to experimentally nail this down as fact or as fiction, plus it’s a bit of a religious item too (see also, “How do I clean my barrel/How often do I need to clean/Does moly work/Does every rifle on the internet shoot a quarter-MOA”?)
You’ll find a lot of good shooters who swear by it, and win matches, and you’ll also find a lot of equally good shooters who say it’s mostly bunk and they also win matches.
I have done barrel break in, and on some other barrels I have not done barrel break in. I’ve never been able to tell whether it helped or whether its lack hurt – but it would be pretty hard to objectively interpret the evidence and come up with a believable conclusion.
Sorry for the non-answer.
I recently found the following comment on the review of an AR-15 clone:
I basically do the same thing (below) to every rifle I buy new or used:
- Shoot 1 and clean 20 times
- Shoot 3 and clean 20 times
- Shoot 5 and clean 8 times You would not believe how many “problem” guns I buy used that are dirty along with complaints that it is “not accurage enough for me”. I clean them thoroughly and then do the above break-in; resulting in a gun that shoots sub-MOA after doing nothing other than that cleaning and “break-in”
Source -> http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/armalite-ar-10-gun-review/#comment-body-1653
When the poster mentions “clean”, he is referring to swabbing the barrel using a procedure similar to this:
After each shot, push a cotton patch wet with solvent through the bore. Then wet a bronze brush with solvent and stroke the barrel five to ten round trips. Follow with another wet patch and then a dry patch or two
My father, who taught handgun marksmanship and made his own rifle barrels, always said the same thing to me when growing up; and I have found this to be true in my own shooting. Cleaning a gun is the most important thing you can do if you’re concerned about accuracy.
The accuracy gains you will get by cleaning are going to be most noticeable if you’re firing the weapon from a bench, or sandbags. Obviously, if you’re taking a standing shot at some running game, the instabilities introduced by that situation itself overshadow most of the gains you’ll get from cleaning the weapon.
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