"Seasoning" a new barrel?

[SKS Ray]

A friend of mine recently got a Bushmaster and was telling me about how the instructions mentioned the proper way to season the barrel by shooting X number of rounds, cleaning, then shooting X number, then cleaning, etc.
I've heard of this being done with new rifles. I myself have never done it with any of mine, but with my RRA upper coming any day now, should I be doing it too?
I'm guessing since I ordered an upper and not a complete rifle that its not going to come with an owner's manual for info. Anyone here know about it?

 

[crak]

Bushmaster actually says not to go nuts with the cleaning before 100 rounds, or something like that. Their break-in instructions seemed more liberal than other regimens I'd read for things like bolt guns. Some guys clean after every round with those. I'd call whoever makes the barrel.

 

[adweisbe]

Break-in procedure varies from barrel to barrel. You don't break in a chrome lined barrel the same way you break in a stainless steel barrel. For a chrome lined barrel BM recommends not cleaning except at the chamber area until you see accuracy start to drop. Then it is time to clean out the copper fouling.

 

[TonyD]

Take it to the range, shoot whatever you plan to shoot, take it home and clean as usual.

Most of this hype came about from a certain barrrel makers to actually cause you to wear the barrel out quicker. You can probably still find some mention of this by Kreiger.

 

[dvajda]

Yeah, this break in stuff is all BS. Some barrel maker made it up so you would waste rounds using your barrel, and that would result in you buying a new one faster. Don't take it from me, take it from McMillan, they know what they are talking about and they say not to buy into such silly things. Shoot and clean as you would normally.

 

[TY43215]

Funny, my upper from Clark Custom Guns came with very explicit instructions for proper break in. Shoot 1, swab, shoot one, swab for a number of rounds, then shoot ten and so forth for 200 rounds. Spent an afternoon at the range.

With the reputation the Clarks have in rifle and pistol shooting, I think I trust their recommendation.

Regards.

 

[adweisbe]

Having zero experience. I think it's voodoo. A good rifle with a rigid free floating barrel, and rigid receiver/stock is going to shoot better than MOA @ 100 with the right loads either way. I would be more worried about shooter error.

It's kind of like the obsession with slide to frame fit on semi-autos with sights mounted on the slide. It doesn't matter and accounts for maybe %5 of accuracy.

 

[TonyD]

Funny, my upper from Clark Custom Guns came with very explicit instructions for proper break in. Shoot 1, swab, shoot one, swab for a number of rounds, then shoot ten and so forth for 200 rounds. Spent an afternoon at the range.

With the reputation the Clarks have in rifle and pistol shooting, I think I trust their recommendation.

Regards.

Maybe, you should trust those with more knowledge and experience. I know Clark Custom Guns and have done business with them. I am NOT putting them down. If you're not familiar with McMillan, you should be - I offer you the following;

From: Gale McMillan <" gale"@mcmfamily.com>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Barrel break-in necessary?
Date: 7 Jan 1997 20:40:25 -0500

Mike Sumner wrote:
> ...

As a barrel maker I have looked in thousands of new and used barrels
with a bore scope and I will tell you that if every one followed the
prescribed break in method A very large number would do more harm than
help. The reason you hear of the help in accuracy is because if you
chamber barrel with a reamer that has a dull throater instead of cutting
clean sharp rifling it smears a burr up on the down wind side of the
rifling. It takes from 1 to 2 hundred rounds to burn this bur out and
the rifle to settle down and shoot its best. Any one who chambers rifle
barrels has tolerances on how dull to let the reamer get and factories
let them go longer than any competent smithe would. Another tidbit to
consider, Take a 300Win Mag. that has a life expectancy of 1000 rounds.
Use 10% of it up with your break in procedure for ever 10 barrels the
barrel maker makes he has to make one more just to take care of the
break in. no wonder barrel makers like to see this. Now when you flame
me on this please include what you think is happening to the inside of
your barrel during the break in that is helping you.

Gale McMillan
NBSRA IBS,FCSA and NRA Life Member



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From: Gale McMillan <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Good barrels for Rem 700 in .308?
Date: 10 Feb 1996 12:50:53 -0500

Consider this, every round shot in breaking in a barrel is one round off
the life of said rifle barrel. No one has ever told me the physical
reason of what happens during break in firing. In other words to the
number of pounds of powder shot at any given pressure, is the life of the
barrel. No one has ever explained what is being accomplished by
shooting and cleaning in any prescribed method. Start your barrel off
with 5 rounds and clean it thoroughly and do it again. Nev Maden a
friend down under that my brother taught to make barrels was the one who
come up with the break in method. He may think he has come upon
something, or he has come up with another way to sell barrels. I feel
that the first shot out of a barrel is its best and every one after that
deteriorates until the barrel is gone. If some one can explain what
physically takes place during break in to modify the barrel then I may
change my mind. As the physical properties of a barrel doesn't change
because of the break in procedures it means it's all hog wash. I am open
to any suggestions that can be documented otherwise if it is just
someone's opinion forget it.

Gale McMillan


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Gale McMillan <" gale"@mcmfamily.com>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Remington 700 break in
Date: 8 Aug 1997 00:01:07 -0400

Arthur Sprague wrote:

# On 29 Jul 1997 22:50:26 -0400, [email protected] (John W. Engel)
# wrote:
#
# #This is how (some) benchrester break in barrels, and it does work.
# #The mechanism is that the bore has pores in it (microns in size).
# #If you simply shoot a box or two through it without cleaning, the
# #pores fill up with gilding metal, and stay that way. If you
# #follow the above procedure (and they mean *clean* between shots!),
# #the pores are "smoothed over" with each successive shot. A barrel
# #correctly broken in is MUCH easier to clean than one that is
# #not. If it is a good quality tube, it will also be more accurate.
# #Regards,
# #whit
#
# Well, the range hours here are quite limited. On my first trip I
# managed to fire a whole fourteen rounds, with a thorough cleaning
# after each round. It couldn't hurt! Fun gun! Difficult to think of
# .223 as a battle round after experience with .30-06 and .45ACP, but it
# surely going to be a pleasure to shoot.
# Thanks to all for their advice.

This is total hogwash! It all got started when a barrel maker that I
know started putting break in instructions in the box with each barrel
he shipped a few years ago. I asked him how he figured it would help
and his reply was If they shoot 100 rounds breaking in this barrel
that's total life is 3000 rounds and I make 1000 barrels a year just
figure how many more barrels I will get to make. He had a point it
defiantly will shorten the barrel life. I have been a barrel maker a
fair amount of time and my barrels have set and reset bench rest world
records so many times I quit keeping track (at one time they held 7 at
one time) along with HighPower,Silloett,smallbore national and world
records and my instructions were to clean as often as posable preferably
every 10 rounds. I inspect every barrel taken off and every new barrel
before it is shipped with a bore scope and I will tell you all that I
see far more barrels ruined by cleaning rods than I see worn out from
normal wear and tear.I am even reading about people recommending
breaking in pistols. As if it will help their shooting ability or the
guns.
Gale Mc.

 

[Pilgrim]

Take it to the range, shoot whatever you plan to shoot, take it home and clean as usual.

yup

 

[jhrosier]

DPMS has a similar routine. I followed it and the gun does shoot well.
There's probably no down side to following the makers instructions.

 

[dvajda]

sure there is. you shorten life of barrel before u feel ready to "use" it.

 

[jhrosier]

sure there is. you shorten life of barrel before u feel ready to "use" it.

The extra half dozen cleanings reccomended by DPMS, during break-in, is probably not going to affect a decent barrel in any significant way. Their theory seems to be to remove the fouling to allow the bullet jackets to contact and polish the surface of the bore. It certainly sounds reasonable and fairly low impact.

 

[bpm990d]

With a good barrel, the first thing I do is clean it to get any crap out. I then shoot five shot groups for twenty rounds and I clean it in between those strings. I do use those rounds to get the zero on the rifle and see if it shoots.

If everything patches out without too much trouble, I consider it broken in. If I get copper out of it, there is something wrong (like it is a rough barrel). I almost always get next to nothing if they are good barrels.
With a really good barrel you can probably fire fifty rounds and then clean it and you would be ok, as really good barrels are not typically rough.

With a factory OEM barrel, I do the same thing, but if it coppers up or feels rough when I run a patch down the barrel, I'll probably fire lap the barrel. I had a Winchester varmint rifle that coppered pretty badly until I fire lapped it. I think if I fired fifty rounds out of it all at once, I would have had a mess on my hands trying to get out the copper.

Unless you are going to do some target shooting with it, I probably wouldn't bother.

B