Is it necessary to "Break in" a new gun

silverfoxdj

silverfoxdj

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I have ordered a new Savage 12BTCSS rifle for bench rest use in 223 and this will be one of my most expensive rifles so far and want to do the right thing right away.

I have read that the following is highly recomended and wanted to see what the general concensus was to the process.

Do I do it all nothing or add some steps..

Step 1: Fire ONE round. Put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this procedure for FOUR more rounds.

Step 2: Fire TWO rounds. Put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this procedure five times. By now you will have fired a total of 15 rounds through the barrel.

Step 3: Fire THREE rounds in succession, put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this one more time. Now you will have a total of 21 rounds through the barrel.

Thanks in advance for any guidance and tips in this area..
 
Break-in is so hodge podge but I'll weigh in. The rougher the bore is the better a break-in will help. This is why very high quality barrels do not benefit much if anything from it because a worker already lapped out the small burrs and machining chatter/marks. On factory rifles bores are a little rougher and can benefit more. I fire one and clean until copper fouling reduces then clean when accuracy starts to suffer. Don't bother with a regimen, every bore is different. Let the rifle tell you when you've done all you can then shoot until the rifle says clean me. It usually takes less than 10 rds. The smoother bore will foul slower letting you shoot more before needing cleaning. That is all, its not as crazy voodoo life-critical as some would have you believe.
 
well this is a loaded question, and you will get load and shoot, call it good, to shoot one clean and repeat x 5 to, clean, shoot one x 1000, voodoo chant , sacrifice a cow chicken and drink the blood of a cobra..

for me, for a factory barrel rifle..

unpack, clean the bore with something like hopes 9, and shoot and clean x5 with a copper solvent done deal..


its a factory gun, do you think they "broke it in" when test fireing? some barrel manufactures have recommended break in procedures for their barrels, in which case, i follow those, just in case by some fluke chance some went wrong in the manufacturing stage of the barrel i can honestly say it was installed and broken in exactly how you wanted
 
silverfoxdj said:
I have ordered a new Savage 12BTCSS rifle for bench rest use in 223 and this will be one of my most expensive rifles so far and want to do the right thing right away.

I have read that the following is highly recomended and wanted to see what the general concensus was to the process.

Do I do it all nothing or add some steps..

Step 1: Fire ONE round. Put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this procedure for FOUR more rounds.

Step 2: Fire TWO rounds. Put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this procedure five times. By now you will have fired a total of 15 rounds through the barrel.

Step 3: Fire THREE rounds in succession, put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this one more time. Now you will have a total of 21 rounds through the barrel.

Thanks in advance for any guidance and tips in this area..
Click to expand...
When I bought my Savage 10BA I scoured the Internet in search of the answer and in the end there are 2 schools of thought.
The first scoop of thought is to load up the firearm and start shooting while the second school of thought is to break in the rifle.

The way I looked at it is I'd rather spend the 20 or so rounds and do the break in since I am shooting ammo to sight in the rifle and get used to it anyway.

For what it's worth my rifle shoots better than I do and doesn't need to be cleaned often.
If the break in procedure had something to do with that or not is anybody's guess.

The one thing you should know is that more damage is done to a rifle bore by cleaning than by any other method.
Buy a good quality bore guide which will prevent solvents from getting into places it shouldn't be.
It also keeps the rod centered in the bore.
Always clean from the breech and never from the muzzle end.
Always push the brush all the way out before pulling it back towards you.
 
From my experience and skill level, I have found the difference between breaking in a precision rifle and not breaking it in is negligible.

I have tried various break in techniques, down to no break in whatsoever, all with no degree of reliability that I can personally measure.

This said, I am not an F Class shooter, going for 1/4 MOA at 1000 yards, but I am a practical shooter, looking for torso size targets at 500+ yards. If my firearms can achieve this to this distance and further with ease, I am happy, and with these constraints, I have never noticed a practical difference in firearms I have meticulously broken in and those that I did not clean until the 500th shot.


Just my experience, and by no means the be all and end all, but take it for what it is worth.

You can not hurt the gun by doing an extra hundred cleanings during the first few hundred shots, but I personally think it is not necessary unless you are looking for the ultimate accuracy, and even then, you will probably know that kind of detail about your personal firearm by this point if you are truly serious enough to get every last bit of accuracy out of your platform.
 
I talked to a gunsmith who makes firearms and manfacture's barrels. The break in helps make the rifle easier to clean that's it. You wouldn't notice a difference in accuracy.

Follow the manfactures recommendations.

Me I would clean it before I shoot it as many companys test fire the firearm meaning it has already gone bang before it gets to you they don't want it not working or blowing up in a customers face so they proof test the firearm from the factory if something is going to fail it tends to be there when they find out. He runs 20-40 rounds through a firearm to test it and he does it rapidly to test it so boom, boom, boom. boom, boom done.
 
Ive never bothered to break in a barrel other than run a patch through it before I start shooting. It doesn't sound like it makes a big difference overall.
 
most precision shooters i know dont break in barrels and they win many competitions. if the bore is rough and needs the burrs filed down then 'break in' is necessary.
 
haha49 said:
I talked to a gunsmith who makes firearms and manfacture's barrels. The break in helps make the rifle easier to clean that's it. You wouldn't notice a difference in accuracy.

Follow the manfactures recommendations.

Me I would clean it before I shoot it as many companys test fire the firearm meaning it has already gone bang before it gets to you they don't want it not working or blowing up in a customers face so they proof test the firearm from the factory if something is going to fail it tends to be there when they find out. He runs 20-40 rounds through a firearm to test it and he does it rapidly to test it so boom, boom, boom. boom, boom done.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your useful post.. it helped
 
silverfoxdj said:
I have ordered a new Savage 12BTCSS rifle for bench rest use in 223 and this will be one of my most expensive rifles so far and want to do the right thing right away.
Click to expand...

IMHO, first thing to do is get a "Lucas" bore guide and a stainless one piece cleaning rod for your rifle. You can do more harm than good with the wrong tools and technique doing all this cleaning.

I have read that the following is highly recomended and wanted to see what the general concensus was to the process.

Do I do it all nothing or add some steps..

Step 1: Fire ONE round. Put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this procedure for FOUR more rounds.

Step 2: Fire TWO rounds. Put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this procedure five times. By now you will have fired a total of 15 rounds through the barrel.

Step 3: Fire THREE rounds in succession, put two patches with powder solvent through the bore and dry patch it out. Put a patch soaked with copper solvent through the bore. Wait a few minutes and put two dry patches through the bore. Do this one more time. Now you will have a total of 21 rounds through the barrel.
Click to expand...

This is very close to what I do but I do a bit of brushing too and for that you'll want a supply (they're cheap), of nylon bore brushes. Between the steps outlined in your method you should actually see a reduction in the amount of blue (evidence of copper fouling) on your patches as you near the end of each step. If you don't, try adding a shooting cycle or two to the step before moving on to the following step. When you complete the process, you'll have a rifle that takes more shots to copper foul and fewer patches to clean. I've had rifles that took well to the process and showed results as anticipated. I also had a rifle that required many more than the prescribed number of shots per cycle before improvement was evident. They don't all respond the same.
 
Breaking a barrel always been overated for me... I just give it a few minutes between shots on the first mag... et voila, it's ready... Good shooting... JP.
 
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