Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Breaking in a barrel sure is fun. Not!

Only did "proper " break-in with the Swift. One and clean x 10, then five and clean x 2 for a full box of ammo. Ended up with two 10 shot 1 1/4" groups. Only shoots 1.8" groups at 350yds now. all the other rifles have been shot as JB describes and shoot very well. The Savage 10FCP-K started shooting minute of clay pigeon at 300yds from the get-go, and hasn't let up since.

I saw where one barrel maker said that breaking in was good for business, the customer would just order a new barrel a little bit sooner.

I just go over the barrel with JB and then shoot it. It has been close to 100% that still have some loose metal in them in spite of being oil flushed when chambering. I suspect any metal fines would be blown out ahead of the bullet but it is more a ritual now.

But so is knockdown power.




P

Well, it looks like the break in discussion has been covered, so I will answer your other question.

I have two good loads for my 6X45. One is a deer load, one is a coyote load.

The deer load is 25 grains of XBR-8208, a CCI-400 primer, and a Hornady 87 grain SSP, loaded to mag length (2.295").
My yote load is 25.5 grains of AR-Comp, a CCI-400 primer, and a Sierra 80 grain SSP (which are unfortunately discontinued), also loaded to mag length.

Both shoot very well in my Blackhole Weaponry barreled AR.

Butch,

I simply followed the builder's break in instructions, which were shoot three, pull a bore snake through that has some 0000 steel wool around the brush section and dressed with JB bore cleaner. Pull the bore snake through three time and follow it with a clean bore snake. At 60 I ran a few patches with some Wipe Out copper solvent. They came back clean. Same thing again at 90. Nice clean patches. I haven't had a lot of custom barrels or builds over the years so wanted to do this one according to the builder's direction. If nothing else than to tell him honestly, I followed his break in procedure in case the barrel doesn't shoot. I doubt that will be an issue. It's acting like it wants to shoot well.

HandgunHTR,

Thanks for the load recommendations. XBR-8208 was the first one that came to mind for me. I don't have any AR Comp yet.

Yup. One of the pics I was about to post in my 20 Tac build thread:

Tact over the Pract ?

just curious ?

One of the great joys of the shooting sports is making everything more difficult than is necessary.

Yup. I've got a thread on that in the AR rifles section, and discuss briefly why most of the online comparisons of the two are flawed or at least outdated. Short answer though - with Hornady's 20 Tactical die set, forming 20 Tac from 223 is just one pass through the die and hardly any more effort than normal case sizing, and cases come out perfectly formed. No need to convert a bushing die and size down in multiple steps, and I can load large quantities starting with bulk 223 brass with no complications. That doesn't exist for 20 Practical as far as I know.

I use 223 Redding FL bushing die with .227 bushing

Yes...I have .230" bushing in case of fat necks...WCC..Lake City

Make two passes....finish with .227

Also use a bushing neck die after cases formed & fired

Built my 20 Practical in 2007....throat is toast as we speak......'bout 9500 rds...

May have Pac Nor build another when back running

BS George Foreman had knockdown power

Several years ago a friend called and asked me if i would not mind doing a favor for him.

He had bought a custom rifle and they had much of the same things that needed to be done.

I said ok just bring enough ammo.

It was slow going till i hit their magic number,but was a hoot to shoot it after.

Excellent post.

Break in...a premium hand lapped barrel?

My barrel break in regime consists of running a patch saturated with Hoppe’s No. 9 back and forth through the barrel a couple times before shooting the gun for the first time.

My opinion is it is far more important to put your first 100 rounds down the tube with ammo that is loaded to less than 1 thou runout! If bullets are starting unevenly in the throat how does one expect to get an even wear pattern on the throat! That's the only so called "break in procedure" I do and have had great results.


Trystan

Interesting!

Just curious, why not use "break in" shots as load development. I always do.

Interestingly enough over years of playing the games, I noticed accuracy between broken in and not, was not enough different to tell a trend. OTOH some of the non broken in tubes fouled noticeably. While broken in ones never fouled to the same level.

I'm not sure that any of it matters as I'm kind of in the park that once you get to level X of fouling you can't get worse basically. Carbon has to be dealt with though. But copper not so much.

That said there is ultra bore coat or whatever the name is these days....of which I'm a FIRM believer in.

I am a believer too that it takes some number of rounds to get settled in for best accuracy to start.. in my mind that number was around 100 or a bit more and the tubes usually had made us happy.

I normally would with a bolt gun. And looking back at this I probably should have done the same but this was my first custom on a Mini 14 and the first time getting a rifle from Accuracy Systems. They have been great to deal with and I have no complaints with their service or the quality of their work. As I stated earlier, I elected to follow their break in procedure to the letter so if there was any problem that cropped up (which I don't expect will happen), I could honestly say I followed their procedure to the letter. But with a shoot three and clean protocol, it's tough to do any substantive load development when every first shot is from a clean bore.

I had AS "Accurize" my last Mini-14. The problem I had was POI change between the first "manually" loaded round and the subsequent rounds fired "rifle action" loaded from magazine function. Example: get set up, insert a magazine, pull bolt to the rear, release. Fire, round hits 6" high 3" right. Next rounds all hit at POA, nicely clustered, and worthless for coyote hunting! Bugged me no end. Its a peculiar trait of almost all semi-autos, even M1As. Not all, just the few you really want to use for first round hits!!! Arrgh.