Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Barrel break-in

People, hello, you guys do realize that "the guy" in that video is our beloved Boxer, AKA Big Stick

I proved to myself,about 30 years ago.That a properly conditioned or broke in free bore.Will yield less overall copper fouling and longer intervals between cleanings.

dave

Nothing escapes you.

I'd be curious to hear about the testing procedure you used to prove that. And whether the "break-in" described by RC yielded different results

The reference to harmonic oscillations blew it wide open for me. No doubt, that's him!!

There's no way following any "procedure" will make a difference. Reading about breaking barrels in is what causes people to think it does. I've tried it on a few and, on others, just shot 'em. No difference.

If you have a good barrel, it shoots good. Bad ones shoot bad.

My gunsmith summarized it like this after a "break in" discussion.

He said, "this barrel has been rifled and hand-lapped with the best equipment and skills available. What can anyone do to possibly improve it?" Especially someone with a cleaning rod. More chance of damaging it with the rod than helping it

I remember when Gale often wrote disparagingly about break in on the Firing Line forum from his hospital bed ~~ 15 years ago. I had some email from him about his getting scopes made in Asia for the Marines, but that is 4 or 5 computers ago.
Although he built some elephant rifles and took them to the range, he was primarily thinking in terms of Rem700 round bottoms and benchrest competition.

I liked Gale, but he never offered anything more to support his opinion than a line of reasoning.

If barrel break in is to increase the number of shots between Copper fouling, then everyone breaks in their barrel regardless if they believe in it or not and regardless if the number of shots increases or not.

I have seen people post "objective data" on barrel break in, and even get a sticky, but I have never seen an experiment that would stand up to the testing standards I would need to sell it as part of my engineering biz.

There are barrel makers that make excellent barrels that believe in barrel break in, but they don't have any raw data supporting it on their web sites.

Nor do they show any firing range data supporting the need for the cryogenic tempering service they offer.

What does it all mean?
Just more accuracy rituals in the gun culture where... you have to want to believe.

The truth lies - well - wherever it does... if one set up a properly controlled experiment then one might get unbiased objective emperical data.

I believe in cleaning but also believe improper or excessive cleaning can damage or ruin a barrel.

Re the video - seen in the past and thought it would be of interest - for different reasons to different folks.

Dave thanks for the science of fouling and cleaning.

Only thing i have to offer on barrel break in...

One barrel i bought was brand new. I read the sheet that came with it from Kreiger. I broke the barrel in per the instructions. That barrel cleans so easily it is laughable.

ALL my other rifles were either bought used, or built with new barrels i just went and shot. They all come clean enough of copper fouling, but none of them clean like my Krieger. None of the other ones are Krieger though. They are an Adams and Bennett, and AR Stoner.

The other rifle i refer to here has a Krieger barrel on it sure enough, but i got it used and it does not clean as easily as my other one. For reference, the easy clean barrel is a 30-06, and the not as easy clean barrels are a 22-250 AI and two .223 Remingtons.

Satire at its finest.

My gunsmith summarized it like this after a "break in" discussion.

He said, "this barrel has been rifled and hand-lapped with the best equipment and skills available. What can anyone do to possibly improve it?" Especially someone with a cleaning rod. More chance of damaging it with the rod than helping it [/quote]

Both my gunsmith and Shilen told me the exact same thing. So I put 100 rounds through my Shilen and when I cleaned the bore there was next to zero copper.

Perhaps if I'd have taken the time to ruff the bore a bit with a cleaning rod I may have been more justified in a good copper cleaning.

Shod

I'm more interested in how Dave tested break-in vs no break in. People smarter than me have said it would be a very difficult thing to test, because all barrels are different, even from the same barrel maker. But if it's difficult to prove that it works, then it's also difficult to prove it doesn't.

Having said that, proving something to yourself (as he put it) is different standard than proving it, period. I know from his posts that he's an experienced shooter, so I'm just interested in his method. I have my own opinions but I'm pretty sure that like everyone else posting on this thread, I don't know everything there is to know about barrels.

And I do find it interesting that he focused on the throat, and not the rifling. Seems I've read something similar from a pretty well-respected gunwriter who posts here.

My guess is that the inherent quality of a Kriger [I only own two] is much better than the Adams and Bennett [I own at least two], that difference is going to be more important than the difference from break in, if break in difference exists.

I do not have a bore scope, but I can see ~ 1" of the muzzle very well. I put a 16" Nite Ize fiber optic flashlight or Underwater Kinetics beam guide up the breech and observe the muzzle with a magnifier.

The Krieger will be mirror like in the grooves from being lapped. The Adams and Bennett will be rough in the grooves.

Krieger, Lilja, Shilen Select Match, and other very expensive custom barrels will be mirror like.

Factory barrels on Rem700, Win M70, Ruger #1, Sav110, etc will be rough.

Having said that. I have a couple Rem700 barrels and a Ruger #1V that stay very accurate for a lot of shots between cleaning.... but, still, smooth is better and more important than break in.

Amen brother. I had a conversation a while back with Jack Sutton of Hart Barrels and to make a long story short, he told me that the reason they listed a barrel break-in procedure on their website was because it helped slow down all the emails they got from folks who were convinced that break-in was necessary. It's still listed in their Q&A section but also states what others have already stated about custom "match grade" hand lapped barrels. They also think cyro freezing and coated bullets are BS too, but WTF do they know, right ?

I've had more than one other barrel-maker and custom gunsmith tell me the same thing.

The heart of the matter...............

MM

The most interesting cryo treatment working thing I've read since it's inception in the mainstream was from Mike Venturino about black powder fouling.

Mike

The only thing I seem to recall hearing more than once was that cyro treating made things easier to machine (maybe easier on cutting tools, reamers and such) but I'm not positive on that one. I don't know if cyro treating is done before or after heat treating and I do know that cutting after heat treating is hard on tooling. Maybe cyro after heat treating makes it easier on tooling then ? All I do know about what Hart Barrel barrels told me was that they said that Crucible did "extensive testing" on cyro treating and that on 416 stainless, the treatment had virtually no effect on it. Hart said they offer the (cyro) service because some customers are unaffected by facts.

I remember that Jarrett said that he wouldn't "warranty" one of his barrels that had moly coated bullets run down them. I think I've told you John that I use a lot of those Nosler Combined Technology bullets in my 280 Ackley, 06 and 300 WM, but not because I think they offer some huge advantage over standard BT's, but I've used enough of them to say that my cleaning intervals are further apart. I don't know what "Lubalox" is exactly, but so far it hasn't seemed to harm anything.

Cryo talk,3:30


Not sure if he is talking about stainless or chrome moly, but that austinite (sp?) will not respond to heat treating, but does convert to martinsite (again, sp?) that does. This allows for an almost complete stress relief.