Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Break in new custom barrel before DBC?

I have new Brux and Rock Creek barrels. Is there any substantial benefit to breaking them in before applying Dyna-Tek Bore Coat? It would be a lot easier to ensure completely clean bores if I don't shoot them first.

No benefit to shooting them first. Clean and degrease the bores, apply DBC, let dry, then "break in".

This ^^^^^^^^

MM

Which takes about six shots--WITHOUT cleaning between shots. Clean after the six and you're usually good to go..

Thanks!

I'll add another comment............

The Brux barrel is hand lapped; the RC is hand lapped if it's cut, not lapped if it's button rifled.

On any non-lapped barrel, before I Dyna Bore Coat, I like to give the bore a little polishing with JB or Flitz on a patch wrapped around a soft bristle bore brush.................probably really doesn't matter, but it makes me feel good.

I'm a big fan of RC barrels.............hope yours works out.

MM

Same for me. I will use 0000 steel wool wrapped on a brush with JB or Flitz and go over the barrel with extra strokes at the throat. Even on custom barrels I will get some fine bits of metal sometimes. This may not really do much but puts you further along on having a clean barrel and if done with a bore guide should not do any harm to the barrel. If I have a chamber with visible roughness I will chuck the steel wool brush in a drill and go over the chamber and throat.

Who Puts DBC in the chamber? I did this accidentally and at first it seemed like shooting with and oily bore. Did the steel wool thing on the chamber only and there was very little difference in what the fired cases looked like and extraction and chambering is smoother. I won't do this again unless it is on a gun dedicated for bad weather use. On shotguns doing the chamber is beneficial and no down sides that I can tell.

I have two new barrels and neither are "custom" but I want to put out my DBC plan and see if you folks think it's smart.
One rifle is a factory TC Compass II with 5R rifling in 6.5 CM. The other is a Douglas XX Air Gauged 256 Newton.
I was planning to clean whatever oil/protectant is there out with solvent then run a lot of passes with JB Paste to maybe take down any remaining factory burrs, then DBC per accepted techniques.
Then shoot the crap outta them bastids....cleaning after each trip to the range.
What should I do differently?
Thanks,
Rex

Sounds good, other than the shooting plan. After the first 10 shots, clean both barrels. Then don't clean again until accuracy falls off. Rinse and repeat. No reason to clean after each range trip.

What Jordan Smith says about cleaning after 10 rounds or so.............that seems to be important.

After that, IMO, more or less what he says, except to say that just running a wet patch or 2, after however many rounds to remove the loose stuff doesn't hurt.

All barrels are different, & I would check yours for copper fouling, at least initially, to see how it's going to perform & what its "normal" will be.............you really shouldn't see much but it can happen with some barrels, but almost never to a significant degree.

MM

Some barrels also benefit from a second appilication.

The example I've mentioned many times before was one of my first DBC'd barrels, a Sako take-off fitted by a local gunsmith to an FN Mauser action. The barrel shot very well, and looked very smooth in my Hawkeye bore-scope. But it copper-fouled so much that after 20 rounds groups would open up to 2+ inches.

I eventually resorted to JB Compound to get the stuff out. This did work--but soon it fouled even quicker, to the point that within 18-20 rounds it was essentially copper-plated. Was about to replace the barrel, but luckily about that time (2007) DBC appeared. t was oroginally called Ultra Bore Coat, and was actually gray in color, not clear.

I was sent an early sample, and after installing it per instructions the fouling was so reduced that after 20 rounds it hadn't copper-fouled nearly as much. Decided to try another application, which really fixed it. The barrel would then go 75-80 rounds before any noticeable copper-fouling showed up. Accuracy was still good, but I decided to clean it anyway--which only took a few strokes with a patch soaked in Montana X-Treme bore cleaner. The barrel still shooter very well--and DBC saved me several hundred bucks in barrel replacement.

MD do you think that barrel might have been too smooth? Ironic but this can also cause copper fouling. Sometimes the metallurgy is off and even smooth appearing barrels can have micro pores and foul badly. Other times it is strictly a mystery.