Got my Accuracy Systems mini 14 back Saturday and got to the range today for the break in. I was bound and determined to follow their break in procedure. Arduous would be a good description. Shoot three. Clean. Shoot three. Clean. Repeat for 90 rounds. It was 15 degrees, gray, overcast and gloomy. Not my most fun day at the range, but it is done. Now I can start on some load development.

Anyone have a favorite accuracy load for a 6x45. I have a lot of load data for it, a plethora of powder choices and a bunch of different bullets from 58-85 grains. Just curious what some of your favorite combinations are with the 6x45.

Barrel break in is a myth.

You're probably right. After today's fun I probably won't ever follow break in instructions on a new barrel again.

Well I ain’t no gun writer but AFAIC Barrel break in is a waste of time,
Effort, Barrel life, &. Components.

It will naturally ‘break in’ (read) WEAR as you Shoot, do Load development ,
Sight in, Practice, & Hunt the Rifle.

Jerry

No, to hell with those directions, shoot that thing till accuracy lessens, then clean the hell out of it and shoot it some more, congrats on the new iron Mart.

I Dyna Bore coat a new barrel then just shoot it. After a few shoot and clean cycles, I end up with minimal fouling and an easy to clean barrel.

That’s my break in process. Works.

DF

On a few factory barrels I have followed the following procedure.

Clean after each of the first 3 or 5 shots. (3 if there isn't much copper 5 if there is) I use these shots to get on paper and make scope adjustments.

Clean after each group for the next 3 to 5 groups. Do it while the barrel is still hot. Has the advantage of cooling down the barrel before the next group.

Clean after each range trip for the first 100 rounds.

Cleaning is accomplished with a good solvent and several strokes of J.B's. Bore paste for each shot .

Don't know if it actually helps but each of the barrels I have done it to clean fairly easy and are fairly accurate. Easy, doesn't take long and gives me the warm and fuzzy feeling. The 7/08 I am doing had very heavy copper fouling for first 2 or 3 groups but by the time I got to the fifth group it wasn't bad at all. After that I put 20 some rounds through it and it was very easy to clean.

I probably wouldn't bother with a lapped barrel.

As I have pointed out many times before, the one-shot-clean "break-in" procedure was developed by benchrest shooters who wanted their (very fine) barrels to be shooting their best before the first match. The technique accelerated the smoothing of (again) very fine barrels, because each shot was--supposedly--fired over bare steel.

If you just clean to bare steel every 10-20 shots (about how many rounds most of us shoot during range sessions) the same thing happens--at least with good barrels, With most factory barrels it makes little difference, because they're not as smooth as the very fine barrels benchrest competitors use.

I just broke in a new 22 creedmoor on Sunday.
Shot 20 rounds
Brought it home and cleaned with Wipe Out and Boretech carbon killer. very little blue on patches.
It's clean, and broken in. It should speed up after I get another 50-100 down the pipe.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


THIS

Amen brother.

90 break in rounds ? I haven’t heard of that many before... 50 yeah, 90... wow.

True, with the exception of high-powered and military-grade rifles.

Over the past 20 yrs....I've had Pac Nor build my p/dog barrels......never got a bad one

Followed their procedure for maybe twenty rds....during scope sight in.....

Keep 'er clean & cool.......after 50 rds switched to moly bullets......

Keeping barrel cool in a dog field is a must...bring a spare rifle

retired my 6BR two summers ago...was pushing 13K rds and still killin dogs at 600 yds

Cham Wow in the dog patch helps too ......

Next time stop at 20 rounds. As above, shoot one, clean. Repeat for 3-5 shots. After those single shots are done, shoot groups of 3-5, clean, repeat until you hit 20 rounds, clean good, and you're done. Sight it in while you're breaking it in. You'll feel the difference in pulling the snake or patches through after about 5-10 rounds. Editing to add, you'll actually feel the difference between the first few patches, and by round 5-10 it will feel smooth.

Pac Nor's suggestion

http://pac-nor.com/care/

You just shortened your barrel life by 90 rounds!
I always like to team up 'break-in' and load development, at the same time, kills two birds with one stone.

"I always like to team up 'break-in' and load development, at the same time, kills two birds with one stone."

Bighorn, that's what it do as well--unless the rifle is "pre-owned," so I assume it's been shot enough to be broken-in.

Will also note that I have talked to more than one gunsmith and even barrel-maker who made up some sort of break-in technique just to give to customers who insisted that they wanted to break in their barrel "properly." The smiths and barrel makers grew weary of telling such customers that they could just go shoot their rifle, finding it a lot easier to provide a break-in routine. They got more work done, and the customers convinced that break-in was absolutely necessary could waste their time instead.

Exactly.

Break-in? Do you know what you are doing and why? What needs breaking in on a custom lapped barrel?
Only one thing-the throat has a little "fluff" from the chambering reamer. I use a quality bronze bore brush, wrap 0000 wool around it. Now get your trusty Makita hand drill and polish the throat for about 5 seconds. It is now broken in.

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.

Not having that issue with mine. All rounds from first to last are all close to each other.

barrel break-in ,load developement,scope sight - in , all done in the same day or two ,for me as has been posted,i clean the barrel at the end of the day on custom barrels,factory barrels i clean even less. my big game hunting rifles i wipe these rifles down and clean the barrel once a year or two . break in is a myth and stressed by manufactures who sell cleaning products for rifles,shotguns,pistols or whatever.

add me to this philosophy.

Barrel break in is a waste of time, effort and ammo

My break in procedure for either chrome moly or stainless is the same.
Clean it properly and shoot it. When accuracy goes off clean again. My 22K Hornet, 25 cal and 35 Whelan all had this treatment and none shoot over 3/4 inches with the load it likes. My 25 regularly groups .9inch 200 yards 5 shot groups

Why waste time and expensive ammo just shoot and enjoy.

20 years ago Gale McMillan was ardent that it was a myth.

I think if you shoot a new barrel and clean it....that is what you were going to do anyway.