To break it in you have to clean it first,then you cango shoot and target practice.

Assumeing you are refering to a 22 rimfire?

NOTHING at all will happen!

Just enjoy your 22lr and stop worrying...

BTW, i don't own a 22lr that was "broke in"...

DM

just shoot it! its a 22, its meant to be shot and shot and shot again, you cant kill them. Just clean it evey now and then and dont worry about it.

I don't think that a .22 rimfire will ever really "break-in". Between the low velocity (1100fps +/-100fps), soft all lead bullets, tiny powder charges and low pressure, you could shoot 50,000 rounds before you'd see any measurable difference in the bore. One thing it will do is get a bit of lead wash in the barrel. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as all the .22LR's I've owned shoot better dirty. The worst mistake I ever made was cleaning my 10/22. I've had it for at least 10 years at the time and it'd never had the bore cleaned after at least 15000 rounds. One day I got the wild hair to give it a thourough bore cleaning, so I scrubbed the crap out of it until it met my definition of "clean" for a CF rifle. Well, the nest time I shot it it was all over the paper. It had consistantly shot about 1.5" at 50 yards. Post cleaning it was like 5-6" at 50 yards. It took almost an entire brick of ammo before it got back to where it was before. The bore's never been cleaned since!

Don't sweat it. Break in is something that MIGHT be beneficial for some high-powered CF rifle barrels, and that is a subject of vigorous debate and the benefits are highly subjective. Just shoot your rifle and have fun with it. Keep the action clean for sure, and clean the bore if you are so inclined.

Mike

I don't know that I ever worried about breaking a gun in. As soon as I get one, I clean it, sight it in, then clean it again. The next shot after that will either be to test handloads or shoot game.

I used to shoot 3-5 bricks of .22lr through my old .22 a week. I didn't break it in, just cleaned it after about every 100K rounds. It still shoots true.

You are in serious trouble that is a mortal sin.I bet ytou are the same guy that tears the tag off the matress!!! Dude just clean it and shoot it some more and have fun its not that big of deal!!!

I love to hear people tell other people not to clean their guns. [:'(]

I don't "think" you can hurt a 22 by the way you break in. Go ahead and follow the factorys cleaning and break in proceedures now.

A .22 doesn't need to be broken in like a high powered centerfire rifle. The combination of slow speed and soft lead won't harm a barrel. Use copper plated bullets and pull a bore snake through it every once in a while. Just like what stalkingbear said, powder residue in a semi-auto action causes more problems than a dirty barrel.

On the 1st shot it will shoot great.
On the 10th shot it will still seem ok.
On the 25th shot you will hear a little crack.
On the 50th shot the barrel will melt from the friction of the high caliber bullet your shooting.
Once you re-barrel the gun:
On the 51st shot the barrel will again melt and your fingers will fall off onto the ground.
Once you put your fingers back on and re-barrel the gun....again:
On the 52nd shot the barrel will again melt, your fingers will again fall of onto the ground, and your wife will shake you out of the dream only to tell you it's time to go to work.