Break In and Cleaning?

surfclod said:
I never broke in the factory barrel on my 204, never even heard about barrel break-in till reading more about precision and varmint shooting.

My accuracy has been superb though, so can't really complain but when I install my new Shilen barrel I will follow their procedure. I will take a little longer for the first 50 rounds but then I weigh every charge when reloading so I am a very detail oriented guy.
Click to expand...


...and in so doing, you will waste almost 10% of your 204 barrel's accurate life on a worthless process that simply makes you go back and buy another barrel sooner. Jerry will love you.
 
I don't bother with barrel break in. See no point to it.

I do agree with the Kreiger description of a rough throat. THAT does cause fouling to accumulate. If there are strong feeling about smoothing this area instead of letting normal wear resolve this for you, you can polish that area with JB bore brite. Short stroke 30 to 50 times and that should get rid of any high spots.

Barrel break-in in a container.

ALL the quality lapped BR type barrels I have used copper foul very little. That's the whole point of spending that type of money - besides superb accuracy :)

I don't bother with factory barrels either because most of the roughness is BELOW the bore surface. Nothing you do is ever going to get rid of this and copper fouling will be forever. Many of these barrels shoot their best when a nice layer of copper/powder fouling is on the barrel essentially filling the roughness.

I have only seen ONE barrel loose accuracy and even cause bullets to fail after 15 to 18shots. Everything else has shot just fine after digesting MANY rds. One shot its best when copper fouling was so bad, the bore was visibly GREEN from copper oxide.

My most recent Shilen SS Select match barrel in 223 went through this break in - Fired 30rds working up a load, cleaned with a strong ammonia solvent - ZERO copper. Cleaned every now and then with ZERO copper showing. Longest string was 150rds with no cleaning. Shot great but I felt guilty so cleaned. 6 patches later, good to go with ZERO copper present.

I don't think I am going to clean this bore very often.

Fouling is only a problem if it affects the accuracy of the barrel. Otherwise, leave it in. It will likely do more good then harm.

Jerry

Surfclod, please forget about what I said above and break in that barrel. Is sarcasm good for business? :)
 
Obtunded said:
...and in so doing, you will waste almost 10% of your 204 barrel's accurate life on a worthless process that simply makes you go back and buy another barrel sooner. Jerry will love you.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that Shilens in 204 are wearing out (losing accuracy) after only a little over 500 rounds?
 
I'm saying i have shot out 204 barrels in a weekend of gopher shooting. (I don't re-barrel them, I just buy new rifles... not worth re-barrelling a 204 IMHO) They are a high overbore index cartridge with a useful life of about 1000 rounds of accurate life.
 
Maybe some of you should contact Lilja and Kreiger and let them know your theories and set them straight...
 
I inquired about break in with my last Gaillard .224 barrel. Was told to fire a shot and clean the barrel really, really well. Repeat this step two more times and clean real well...then good to go. Entire process too less than half an hour.
 
Duck_Hunter said:
http://www.accurateshooter.com/videovault.html

watch John Krieger's video, see what he thinks about cleaning
Click to expand...

He said what every benchrest shooter knows - a brush in and out of the muzzle is not good and that a clean barrel may require some fouling shots...

He did not talk about breaking a barrel in... but he does put that in writing on his website...

Because the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, very little is done to the bore during break-in, but the throat is another story. When your barrel is chambered, by necessity there are reamer marks left in the throat that are across the lands, i.e. across the direction of the bullet travel. In a new barrel they are very distinct; much like the teeth on a very fine file. When the bullet is forced into the throat, copper dust is released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this gas and is carried down the barrel. As the gas expands and cools, the copper comes out of suspension and is deposited in the bore. This makes it appear as if the source of the fouling is the bore when it is actually for the most part the new throat. If this copper is allowed to stay in the bore, and subsequent bullets and deposits are fired over it; copper which adheres well to itself, will build up quickly and may be difficult to remove later. So when we break in a barrel, our goal is to get the throat polished without allowing copper to build up in the bore. This is the reasoning for the "fire-one-shot-and-clean" procedure.
 
mysticplayer said:
Why not just give the throat a few seconds of polishing while the chamber is being polished?

Problem solved...

Jerry
Click to expand...

I hardly polish the chamber at all and it is very easy to polish a round tapered hole...

I don't really know how I would try to polish a tapered throat that involves lands and grooves... I would think it would be real easy to do more damage than good...

It's really not a problem I have, I do shoot and break the throat in on a custom barrel... it only takes a few and I do it with different loads testing pressure and sighting in... it isn't as big a deal to do as some believe.
 
Considering that firelapping is an 'approved' remedy....SCARY, you can not do any worse.

Some JB bore brite or jewellers rouge on an appropriately sized tapered brass plug (use the throating dimensions on the reamer), light pressure for a few seconds....DONE.

ORRRRRR, we can just shoot the barrel and let it wear naturally. I am sure that after the first 10rds of a magnum or 50rds of a 223, there will be little left of what concerned you in the first place.

I am really not sure why shooters are so afraid of fouling. With modern powders, jackets and well made barrels, the odds of a barrel loosing accuracy even after shooting 50rds is rare.

If shooters would try and just shoot groups until their barrel DID loose accuracy, they may find that their barrel shoots its best AFTER they would normally clean it. Longest was 15rds to settle down but after it did WOW, did it shoot great and dead on cold bore shot out to 800yds (furthest tested). That was the one with the nice patina in the bore- rough like a sidewalk.

And that is the irony. Doing work to actually make the barrel shoot WORSE :)

Jerry
 
mysticplayer said:
Some JB bore brite or jewellers rouge on an appropriately sized tapered brass plug (use the throating dimensions on the reamer), light pressure for a few seconds....DONE.


I am really not sure why shooters are so afraid of fouling. With modern powders, jackets and well made barrels, the odds of a barrel loosing accuracy even after shooting 50rds is rare.


Jerry
Click to expand...

Try JB Bore Brite and Jewellers rouge on the outside of a barrel and see how long it takes to remove extremely small machining marks... it will take a lot more than seconds...

The vast majority of competitive short range (100-300 yards) Benchrest shooters clean after every group... these are the guys that shoot the smallest groups on a regular basis... I think they clean their barrels that often for an accuracy reason.

Other forms of shooting are not so critical and can get by with less accuracy.

.
 
1000 grit then :)

I think SR BR shooters clean so often because they believe that the bore condition will change as it fouls. A clean bore is a "known" quantity and a baseline can be established.

That is the culture and what the top shooters practise SO the rest do the same. Has anyone tried shooting a SR BR rifle AFTER it has digested one relays worth of shooting? What would happen if the winner of the Super Shoot never cleaned his bore or loaded onsite?

Do these amazing rifle shoot like SKS's after 10rds? 14rds? Don't think so...

Their load development is based on this bare bore baseline. However, they do shoot fouling shots and sighters so their barrel ARE fouled before they shoot their score group.

The top grade barrels I have shot have taken as few as 2 to a high of 6 rds to settle down from a bare clean bore - and I do mean BARE bore. I really don't think a SR BR shooters cleans that much- certainly not with the popular cleaners used. With 'light' cleaning, most of my barrels will drop the first rd into the group.

By the time the SR BR guys have done their foulers and sighters, they have shot at least that many rds. At which point, the bore is well and truly DIRTY and stays at this level of filth whether you shoot another 5 or 50rds IF proper components are used.

With some relays needing to go back to the sighter square to verify conditions, how many rds can a SR BR shooter actually fire to make his 5 rds group? Do they limit themselves to X number of rds or just shoot as needed to get the job done?

NO ONE shoots their scoring whatever from a just cleaned bore.

All barrels shot in competition are FOULED....

Jerry
 
mysticplayer said:
1000 grit then :)

I think SR BR shooters clean so often because they believe that the bore condition will change as it fouls. A clean bore is a "known" quantity and a baseline can be established.

That is the culture and what the top shooters practise SO the rest do the same. Has anyone tried shooting a SR BR rifle AFTER it has digested one relays worth of shooting? What would happen if the winner of the Super Shoot never cleaned his bore or loaded onsite?

Do these amazing rifle shoot like SKS's after 10rds? 14rds? Don't think so...

Their load development is based on this bare bore baseline. However, they do shoot fouling shots and sighters so their barrel ARE fouled before they shoot their score group.

The top grade barrels I have shot have taken as few as 2 to a high of 6 rds to settle down from a bare clean bore - and I do mean BARE bore. I really don't think a SR BR shooters cleans that much- certainly not with the popular cleaners used. With 'light' cleaning, most of my barrels will drop the first rd into the group.

By the time the SR BR guys have done their foulers and sighters, they have shot at least that many rds. At which point, the bore is well and truly DIRTY and stays at this level of filth whether you shoot another 5 or 50rds IF proper components are used.

With some relays needing to go back to the sighter square to verify conditions, how many rds can a SR BR shooter actually fire to make his 5 rds group? Do they limit themselves to X number of rds or just shoot as needed to get the job done?

NO ONE shoots their scoring whatever from a just cleaned bore.

All barrels shot in competition are FOULED....

Jerry
Click to expand...

Not so many absolutes here as you may think.

I have seen targets shot from a clean bore. A lot depends on whether the first shot can be counted on to go into the group after a cleaning. Not all rifles can do this, but if a favourite condition is present on the commence fire command you will see some try and shoot the group from a clean bore, just to catch a condition.

Pretty much every short range BR shooter experiments with different cleaning regimes to find what the barrel likes. Generally it will be cleaned every target or every second target. There are unlimited sighters and most use about 8-12 shots to make a 5 shot record group. Cleaning will be done usually by the 25th round.

This means most clean after every target or every second target, not because they like cleaning, but the rifle does. Speaking of course about naked bullets here.

In regards to the Super Shoot, you won't see a lot of experimentation at that match. It is the biggest and pretty much everyone there will be using techniques proven on the home range. That includes preferred cleaning regimes and loading at the range. The time for experimentation will have long since passed.

In regards to sighters I like to make sure the rifle is riding the bags well before I go to the record, that usually takes 2 shots, and I like to have some heat in the barrel, especially on cold days. So sighter shots can serve several purposes some of which aren't related to fouling at all. Of course on top of it you will also be trying to get a read on the wind.

BTW there are some people experimenting with using using pre-measured charges in glass vials to drop at the match. This has its pros and cons, but there is some traction here.

You really should try BR sometime. It suits your personality and drive to shoot small groups. Not only is it a great wind reading game, but it is also the greatest refuge of the ballistic tinkerer.
 
When I was shooting Benchrest along side Al Murdoch and Terry McCracken we all had rifles that required at least one fouling shot. I think most rifles did that. Some required two foulers...

That fouling shot was always on the sighter. My heavy .222 would consistently shoot the first shot 1/4 inch low of the group. I could count on it...

I think cleaning the rifle after each group in Benchrest is done for the sake of consistency in the accuracy. No Benchrest shooter wants to wait for the accuracy to decline before cleaning the barrel. That could easily cost you the match...

I have shot 5 5-shot groups in a row without cleaning on a broken in and tested barrel but never in a match...
 
rpollock said:
Pretty much every short range BR shooter experiments with different cleaning regimes to find what the barrel likes. Generally it will be cleaned every target or every second target. There are unlimited sighters and most use about 8-12 shots to make a 5 shot record group. Cleaning will be done usually by the 25th round.

BTW there are some people experimenting with using using pre-measured charges in glass vials to drop at the match. This has its pros and cons, but there is some traction here.

You really should try BR sometime. It suits your personality and drive to shoot small groups. Not only is it a great wind reading game, but it is also the greatest refuge of the ballistic tinkerer.
Click to expand...

And that is my point - Let the barrel tell you what it likes. Some will, others will not like being dirty. Some will fall off accuracy after say 25rds. Others after 64rds. Some need a warm up or a couple of foulers, whatever. It doesn't matter except that you have to make sure you know what it needs and never 'overshoot' your bore in competition.

And if the barrel will not do what you need for your comp, GET RID OF IT.

There was a change in the number of sighters on Sunday of the Farky. Well, that really thru some shooters for a loop because they knew their barrels needed X number of shots to settle down from a cleaned bore. A bunch of diplomacy and a compromise was made. I am sure these shooters didn't trust their sighters as much as they would have liked.

I like the idea of premeasuring powder. Would sure save alot of running around setting up equipment BUT if varying a powder amount does matter due to changes in ambient conditions, you are going to have ALOT of viles.

With F class, you simply can't do that so you tune your load for the widest range of condition. Shaving another tenth in MOA would be great but conditions are where we need to concentrate.

I have thought alot about joining SR BR but there are no matches locally and I am quite enjoying F class. As much as I like to tinker, I don't like tinkering while I am competing. I prefer to go grey and loose my hair trying to figure out the winds a few secs away.

I think that will provide me a lifetime of amusement....or is that abuse.

Jerry
 
mysticplayer said:
I have thought alot about joining SR BR but there are no matches locally and I am quite enjoying F class. As much as I like to tinker, I don't like tinkering while I am competing. I prefer to go grey and loose my hair trying to figure out the winds a few secs away.
Jerry
Click to expand...

Jerry, BC was a hotbed of score shooting in BR a number of years ago. An informal match using 100 or 200 yd score targets would draw quite well if word was put out. Easy to run and you wouldn't even have to close the range down. Heck, I'll send a stash of targets to get it going!

The first hit is free......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom