This question may start a war but do you really need to break in a barrel? I have heard from one side that if you don't clean the barrel spotless after each one of the first 20 shots that you have destroyed it. Then Ross Seyfried in Rifle magazine says that barrel break in is a bunch of snake oil. I have only bought two new rifles but a bunch of used ones. The new ones, one got cleaned after five shots for the first 40 shots the other one I grabbed the wrong cleaning kit so I fired about 50 shots before it got cleaned. So far both are shooting just fine