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Load & shoot

I rarely EVER clean my barrels. All of my stuff shoots under 1 moa.

Load & shoot

I rarely EVER clean my barrels. All of my stuff shoots under 1 moa.

You need to shoot some of the challenges in the AR threads. for long range just under 1 MOA doesn't really say much at least to me.
But for most purposes these days its more than enough.

I'm not saying lots of cleaning is needed though.

Over many years of competitive shooting, and I"m guessing not all that many folks shoot or shot 10-20K rounds a year, the barrels we didn't break in were harder to clean and needed cleaning more often. Accuracy was pretty typical though for the most part, not a lot of difference that I could tell, though I felt that the barrels we broke in often shot rounder groups. They certainly cleaned easier. And tended to be taken to a longer life.

And for the minor work involved in breaking in a tube, vs the cost, its just to easy to do some form of break in.

As to large group shots like the challenge, yes you are right and no you are not. If not shooting at least 10 or 20 shot groups at some point, you never know what the gun does as it warms.
OTOH if you shoot 1 shot groups on the same target 10 or so days in a row you have done the same thing. Essentially the same with 3 or 5 shot groups but they have to be on the same target.

I"m not saying this even tells what the gun does, but it certainly tells what the shooter/gun combo are capable of. VS saying I shot this one group one time.... like the group I shot once, new Kreiger after break in, lol, at 600, 5 shots just around 1.250 inches... thats just a good group for sure, but the gun was not capable of repeating it.

Do you honestly think myself, or any other experienced big game hunter(who doesn't partake in that stupid challenge here) doesn't know you need to shoot multiple, repeatable groups before trusting that particular load to ethically take the animals you're hunting? That's a pretty egotistical stance. I've been hunting big game animals for 47 years now and to this day I have never shot 10 times, or even close to that, in succession, at big/medium game animal.

Barrel makers say it's good.
Top gunsmiths say it's good.
Top benchrest shooters say it's good.

Drunk guys making youtube videos throwing rifles against rocks say it's bad.

Which one do I trust?

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Krieger,

With any premium barrel that has been finish lapped -- such as your Krieger Barrel --, the lay or direction of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, so fouling is minimal compared to a barrel with internal tooling marks. This is true of any properly finish-lapped barrel regardless of how it is rifled. If it is not finish-lapped, there will be reamer marks left in the bore that are directly across the direction of the bullet travel. This occurs even in a button-rifled barrel as the button cannot completely iron out these reamer marks.

Because the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, very little is done to the bore during break-in, but the throat is another story. When your barrel is chambered, by necessity there are reamer marks left in the throat that are across the lands, i.e. across the direction of the bullet travel. In a new barrel they are very distinct; much like the teeth on a very fine file.

When the bullet is forced into the throat, copper dust is removed from the jacket material and released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this plasma and is carried down the barrel. As the gas expands and cools, the copper comes out of suspension and is deposited in the bore. This makes it appear as if the source of the fouling is the bore when it is actually for the most part the new throat.

If this copper is allowed to stay in the bore, and subsequent bullets and deposits are fired over it, copper which adheres well to itself, will build up quickly and may be difficult to remove later. So when we break in a barrel, our goal is to get the throat “polished without allowing copper to build up in the bore. This is the reasoning for the fire-one-shot-and-clean procedure.

Every barrel will vary slightly in how many rounds they take to break in For example a chrome moly barrel may take longer to break in than stainless steel because it is more abrasion resistant even though it is a similar hardness. Also chrome moly has a little more of an affinity for copper than stainless steel so it will usually show a little more color if you are using a chemical cleaner. Rim Fire barrels can take an extremely long time to break in, sometimes requiring several hundred rounds or more. But cleaning can be lengthened to every 25-50 rounds. The break-in procedure and the cleaning procedure are really the same except for the frequency. Remember the goal is to get or keep the barrel clean while breaking in the throat with bullets being fired over it.

Finally, the best way to tell if the barrel is broken in is to observe the patches; i.e. when the fouling is reduced. This is better than some set number of cycles of shoot and clean as many owners report practically no fouling after the first few shots, and more break-in would be pointless. Conversely, if more is required, a set number would not address that either. Besides, cleaning is not a completely benign procedure so it should be done carefully and no more than necessary.
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dave

I find my BTO measurement to the lands with bullet of choice...
Run my 10-12 shot string over MagnetoSpeed to find max pressure and my flat spots in velocity....
Pick my powder charge accordingly...

Load a couple hundred and go shoot it. The shoot/clean, shoot/clean “break in” routine is a waste of time with the custom barrels of today IMO.

Actually for long range work its not a waste at all. But then again not everyone needs the long range accuracy or shoots as many rounds. .

If you need to ask someone a question about barrels,or cite someone else about barrels,rest fhuqking ASSURED that you "know" nothing about barrels. Hint. Congratulations?!?
[blah, blah, blah]
Bless your hearts for trying!

Hint.

LAUGHING!.......................

I didn’t say “break in” itself isn’t needed, i just totally skip all the feel good rod and patch pushing. I consider that first 200ish rounds my “break in” and will usually shoot that in a 1-2 outings off the couch. Brass is fire formed, the barrel should be settled in and past any “speeding up”. Only then do I really pin my chrono numbers down and true the ballistics up.

Past that, I let the barrels tell me when and if it needs a cleaning. I’ve gone to Hawk Hills on about everything and a number of those went the life of the barrel with never having a rod/patch pushed through them.

Careful, you’re going to set the idiot from Orygun into a tail spin