ORIGINAL: bigpapa
What is your routine for breaking in a new barrel? Also, is breaking ina barrel extremely important? The reason I ask that is how do you know if you buy a used gun if the barrel was broken in at all or properly?
There's nothing in particular wrong with breaking in a barrel according to the barrel maker's recommendations. This is particularly true if you paid a lot of money for a premium make and had it installed on a varmint or benchrest rifle.
However, that fancy, arcane procedure for breaking in barrels is totally unnecessary for a hunting rifle, and only succeeds in costing you alot of ammo and cleaning time.
My barrel break-in procedure is to take the rifle to a range, shoot it as much as I want for zeroing and practice, then clean it wellwhen I get it home - and clean it well every time I shoot it!
The barrel that shot this group, and a lot of comparable ones, is a Douglas Premium grade (6mm/284), and it was NOT treated any differently than my other barrels.....
