bigcountry

It doesn't hurt anything. I just broke in my Sako75 STW. Here's the deal.

Cleaned every shot for 3 shots (copper in barrel every cleaning) (3 shot group 1.7MOA)
Cleaned every 3 shots (heavy copper for the first 3 cycles of cleaning, but by the 6th cycle of cleaning, shot 18, almost no copper) (Groups got better and better until 3 out of 6 of the groups were .75MOA, first two groups were 1.1" and 1.4")
Cleaned every 5 shots (Did this for two cycles, very little copper) (two groups 5 shot .75MOA)

Copper fouling is always going to be there. No matter what. The above results must be doing something. I mean the copper fouling is getting less and less. Groups size is getting less and less. Proof is in the pudding.

Now I have not broke in barrels before, and velocity's have not settled out until like shot 100. Or you have to foul the barrel 5 shots until group size and velocitys settle to a repectable level. You should not have to foul a barrel 5 shots to get good groups or velocity spreads under 30fps. No matter what John Barshness says. He and Gale McMillian are a tad full of it here. I don't with most of my rifles. One fouler is all it should takes. And thats to put some carbon down and get out all oil. I get so tired of hereing claims on how a rifle will shoot and you meet the guy at the range, and he tells me first 3 or 4 shots don't count.

Some rifles I have had recently never did smooth out. I had one remington 270win BDL that no matter what, copper fouled so bad, it took 1 hour of scrubbing to get it out. I had 300 rounds thru the barrel and it still fouled badly. And it does take 3 fouling rounds to get good groups.

If you do it or don't do it, sooner or later the barrel will be broke in. Just take alot longer.