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Modified barrel break-in procedure
With a great number of posts on this forum, and elsewhere, regarding barrel break-in procedure, I decided to take an objective look and see if there might be something to it. I’ve never done a barrel break-in but surely, the many ardent believers couldn’t be wrong. But which process to follow?
Barrel break-in study, plus forum member Humpy’s excellent post on carbon fouling becoming increasingly hard after 24 hours, caused me to re-evaluate my own gun cleaning procedures. In the process I made some conclusions that you may or may not agree with.
First, to evaluate barrel break-in: There are probably nearly as many procedures as there are proponents! So, if there is anything useful to be taken from them, we must identify common actions and effects. Some will suggest cleaning between every round until certain criteria are met; others, firing several shots between cleaning. Some will clean with brushes, some with solvents, others with mild abrasives. The number of rounds fired in the process could vary from 10 to 20 to 30 or more, etc. How can we sort this out?
The main idea behind each unique break-in procedure seems to be, at certain intervals, to clean the gun bore to bare steel. No matter how you do it, the gun must be clean! Then, the next round (or rounds) are fired through a completely clean barrel, and the process repeated – again, at the intervals suggested by the advocate of that unique process.
While the proponents will claim that there is a certain pattern that must be followed to have any hope of success (which amazingly is different for each process but all claim the end result will be similar), let us consider that Barrel “A” may leave a certain amount of jacket fouling after each shot, when fired from a clean bore. If further shots are fired, then we may assume that the amount of fouling increases with each shot. For the sake of argument let us assume this is linear, that is, shot #2 doubles the amount of fouling as compared to shot #1, shot #3 triples the amount of fouling as compared to shot #1, and so forth.
Then, if we consider that Barrel “B” by random chance could accumulate jacket fouling at three times the rate of Barrel “A”- it becomes somewhat obvious that the number of shots fired between cleaning sequences matters little. The common denominator is that the barrel is cleaned of all fouling. To take the opposite side of the argument would mean it would seem necessary for the amount of fouling to be exactly the same for all barrels between cleanings for the process to be a success. This means that the shooter would have to have some means to accurately evaluate the fouling build-up to a very fine degree. While a barrel that accumulated “too little” fouling would perhaps not need to have the break-in procedure used, then one that fouls “too much” by this logic couldn’t use it, even one shot at a time.
Thus, my conclusion is that we are following a “barrel break-in” procedure, every single time we clean a barrel to bare steel. That is something I had not been in the habit of to be honest. Most of my rifles got a couple of sighting shots at the beginning of the season, and then perhaps a few shots at critters, before being cleaned again sometime after the season.
After considering that carbon fouling could build up and become harder over time, I immediately changed my cleaning process to remove all fouling after every shooting session or hunting trip. Can a clean bore in the field cause problems? While a legitimate argument can be made that a perfectly clean barrel may have a different point of impact, this can (and should) be tested by each shooter for each rifle. It only has to be done once and can save a considerable amount of trouble to know what your gun will do with a perfectly clean bore. My own experience has been that a clean bore is not troublesome, but a bore that has been generously oiled is. Thus, after cleaning, a very lightly oiled patch is run through the bore, going back and forth several times. In the climate I live in this seems to be perfectly adequate to prevent rust. Dry patches could be run through the bore before going hunting to remove any excess.
So, which “break-in” process will I now follow? By combining my new practice of cleaning each gun thoroughly after shooting, with the conclusion that the central tenet of barrel break-in amounts to putting some number of bullets down a perfectly clean bore, means I am going to “break-in” barrels by doing what I’ve always done: take them out and shoot them, as many or as few shots as I please. Then, to complete the process, clean them when I get home.
That’s it.
With a great number of posts on this forum, and elsewhere, regarding barrel break-in procedure, I decided to take an objective look and see if there might be something to it. I’ve never done a barrel break-in but surely, the many ardent believers couldn’t be wrong. But which process to follow?
Barrel break-in study, plus forum member Humpy’s excellent post on carbon fouling becoming increasingly hard after 24 hours, caused me to re-evaluate my own gun cleaning procedures. In the process I made some conclusions that you may or may not agree with.
First, to evaluate barrel break-in: There are probably nearly as many procedures as there are proponents! So, if there is anything useful to be taken from them, we must identify common actions and effects. Some will suggest cleaning between every round until certain criteria are met; others, firing several shots between cleaning. Some will clean with brushes, some with solvents, others with mild abrasives. The number of rounds fired in the process could vary from 10 to 20 to 30 or more, etc. How can we sort this out?
The main idea behind each unique break-in procedure seems to be, at certain intervals, to clean the gun bore to bare steel. No matter how you do it, the gun must be clean! Then, the next round (or rounds) are fired through a completely clean barrel, and the process repeated – again, at the intervals suggested by the advocate of that unique process.
While the proponents will claim that there is a certain pattern that must be followed to have any hope of success (which amazingly is different for each process but all claim the end result will be similar), let us consider that Barrel “A” may leave a certain amount of jacket fouling after each shot, when fired from a clean bore. If further shots are fired, then we may assume that the amount of fouling increases with each shot. For the sake of argument let us assume this is linear, that is, shot #2 doubles the amount of fouling as compared to shot #1, shot #3 triples the amount of fouling as compared to shot #1, and so forth.
Then, if we consider that Barrel “B” by random chance could accumulate jacket fouling at three times the rate of Barrel “A”- it becomes somewhat obvious that the number of shots fired between cleaning sequences matters little. The common denominator is that the barrel is cleaned of all fouling. To take the opposite side of the argument would mean it would seem necessary for the amount of fouling to be exactly the same for all barrels between cleanings for the process to be a success. This means that the shooter would have to have some means to accurately evaluate the fouling build-up to a very fine degree. While a barrel that accumulated “too little” fouling would perhaps not need to have the break-in procedure used, then one that fouls “too much” by this logic couldn’t use it, even one shot at a time.
Thus, my conclusion is that we are following a “barrel break-in” procedure, every single time we clean a barrel to bare steel. That is something I had not been in the habit of to be honest. Most of my rifles got a couple of sighting shots at the beginning of the season, and then perhaps a few shots at critters, before being cleaned again sometime after the season.
After considering that carbon fouling could build up and become harder over time, I immediately changed my cleaning process to remove all fouling after every shooting session or hunting trip. Can a clean bore in the field cause problems? While a legitimate argument can be made that a perfectly clean barrel may have a different point of impact, this can (and should) be tested by each shooter for each rifle. It only has to be done once and can save a considerable amount of trouble to know what your gun will do with a perfectly clean bore. My own experience has been that a clean bore is not troublesome, but a bore that has been generously oiled is. Thus, after cleaning, a very lightly oiled patch is run through the bore, going back and forth several times. In the climate I live in this seems to be perfectly adequate to prevent rust. Dry patches could be run through the bore before going hunting to remove any excess.
So, which “break-in” process will I now follow? By combining my new practice of cleaning each gun thoroughly after shooting, with the conclusion that the central tenet of barrel break-in amounts to putting some number of bullets down a perfectly clean bore, means I am going to “break-in” barrels by doing what I’ve always done: take them out and shoot them, as many or as few shots as I please. Then, to complete the process, clean them when I get home.
That’s it.
