Depending on who you ask, But this is how I break in a barrel.
Make sure you have plenty of cleaning patches and what ever solvent you like, and a jag and a brush, After every 4 or 5 shots clean the barrel real well, do this for the first few hundred rounds and you should be good.
Also, dont heat the barrel up to much while breaking in. Let it cool after shooting, usually while your cleaning should be cool enough.
Good luck, have fun, be safe.

I never did break in a barrel by methods seen here. I just shoot them. I have a Browning BAR Safari I need to tell you about if you plan to clean as much as others here have suggested...I cleaned my Browning from the business end (botl actions are easier to clean from the breach) and I noticed my 200 yard zero changed the next time I took it to the range. I was puzzled for the longest time, tried many things, but, it came down to a damaged crown to make a long story short. I had it re-crowned & I was back to good groups. If you plan to clean it, at any time, be careful of damaging the crown. I couldn't tell that mine was damaged by merely looking at it.

One other thought, people bragg about how accurate the Savage is new out of the box, I have one, & I agree. Now, do you think that barrel needs to be broken in?
Keep it coming...

Hi

Some time ago, I found (I'm an Internet Junkie) and read a rather long article on barrel break-in. It spoke at length about the metallurgical properties of a rifle barrel.

The author, a real, honest-to-goodness engineer, thought that breaking in a rifle barrel was all about, "educatiing," it about where its home was and how to get back there reliably. To this end, he focused mostly on the HEAT and STRESS of firing the weapon.

Pretty much what he said was to let the weapon cool back down after shooting. If I remember aright, he said that was why the one-shot and clean, two-shots and clean, five-shots and clean method actually worked - it allowed the rifle to COOL THOROUGHLY between sets of shots, what with the cleaning and defouling taking so long.

It was all about the crystaline structure of the barrel settling in during the heat and wringing-stress action of the bullet travelling down the barrel, and not so much about lapping/burnishing/polishing of the barrel itself. While the lapping/burnishing/polishing does occur, the author said that the crystaline structure settling in and the resulting reliable return to a home position was key to the rifle's accuracy and lacking of wandering/walking shots.

He said that cleaning every five shots or so was enough to keep down fouling, but a thorough cooling between shots for the first couple of hundred rounds was vital.

Being a technogeek myself, this appeals to me because:
1) I love sounding like I know what I'm talking about when I say stuff like, "crystaline structure of the barrel,"
2) I'm a dead slow shooter, anyhow, and
3) I've seen more barrels ruined by/during cleaning than I ever have seen ruined by being shot out.

I wish I could find this thing again. His description of the processes of barrel making and the materials used was great, and the whole thing was hip-deep in actual science and technology. The only thing I CAN find is this article which seems to reference the original, but which seems to pretty much be a rah-rah piece for Badger Barrels, Inc., which, in my opinion, NEEDS no rah-rah. (Badger has its own break-in instructions, too.)

I'm used to be in favor of barrel break in procedures a long time ago till I came across the words of someone who knew more about barrels then most even dream to understand.

If you Google for a "Gale Mcmillan" and "Barrel break in" you will see that he wasnt too fond of it

Dimitri

Hi Al..
I think Fred Barker is the author.
He has a Phd and M.E. from MIT and Cal Tech.Staff writer for Precision Shooting Mag.


SHOOTIST

Thank you for your kind information. This will be helpful for me.




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