eldeguello

NO

polack

Both me and my son took the advice of a local smitty that builds rifles for 1000 yd competition back here in Williamsport. He said take your cleaning kit to the range and clean the gun after each shot for the first three shots and then shoot at will. Now that 's worked for us on a couple of rifles that were made by him, and some off the shelf rifles. Now if you don't clean it and you start to get poor accuracy you can always blame it on the break-in, and maybe that's a good enough excuse to get another gun-that also worked when I was younger with my wife.
Polack

Sharpshot_71

Why are you going to shoot at Will? What did he ever do to you?


HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA JKJK

sot_II

Here's the REAL answer


If you feel that breaking in a barrel helps you that much...then do it. Buy all the junk you feel like buying, sacrafice a chicken, pour goats blood down the barrel if it makes you feel better.

For me and in my years of experience...you clean the gun, you select a batch of ammo...go to the range and shoot. The when you switch your ammo to another batch to test for accuracy, you clean the barrel, shoot and repeat as many times as you switch ammo.
Once you find your "best" ammo for the gun - you stick with it....when your accuracy degrades, you clean the barrel....and then start shooting again.

You will greatly improve your technique with your rifle by shooting, not by cleaning. Now for some minor technical details...often times a little lead in the barrel is a good thing, it fills in some of the very minor imperfections that are found in ALL barrels. That being said... if you THINK that you will improve the accuracy of your barrel by seasoning it or "breaking it in" ...you are barking up the wrong tree. If your barrel is not accurate from the factory, nothing short of rebuilding the whole barrel to including the contuor will help...and even that wont help.

My axiom:
Shooting is improved by shooting.

bigcountry

Are you saying you don't clean the barrel unless accuracy degrades or change ammo? How many times do you shoot a year? Just curious.

USMC PMI

Take this at face value:
From my experience I can not remember any Marine "breaking in" a barrel, yet their rifles fire true for thousands of rounds. Their lives depend on their weapons and the closest they come to a break in procedure is firing the weapon, then cleaning it after a day at the range (anywhere from 80 to 100 rounds)

My personal view; you can call it whatever you want, you should take your new rifle out and shoot it 100 X's or so, just to get used to the weapon. Maybe happen to clean it a couple times during the process. I have no input on the gun barrel industry conspiracy but I am with bigcountry, shoot and clean, it has worked for thousands over the years. While I do not buy into the excessive cleaning theory, I do clean the bore after a day at the range if I fire over 20 rounds or so. I do not clean between each shot.

Tried lapping two barrels with almost no result other than a mess.

sot_II

This is for his testing cycle (or break in if he likes to call it that) at the range...clean, shoot batch 1, clean, shoot batch 2, repeat. Iif he finds a round that works stick with it and shoot until the accuracy drops off...then clean. Since he doesn't say what firearm he's shooting nor do I know what barrel he's using I can't give him a number of rounds to clean between...it's up to him loss of accuracy is a good indicator on the bench NOW is the the time to clean.

As to how often I shoot- every day, number of rounds? Couple of hundred to thousands, cleaning periods vary based on system and what's going on and what we are testing.

I have a UMP with 3K+ rounds in it with no cleaning. I am running a Mod 0 test that has 20K+ rounds with no cleaning, I have a rifmire that I use to compete with and clean it nearly each time I come off the line. Today I've started playing with the Norell 10/22 conversion...I'll clean it when it begins to malfunction. My LRM 169 gets used almost every day...never really cleaned the barrel or the suppressor, I steam the lower and upper and oil it. When it really mattered, I cleaned my weapon every day, didn't matter if I fired it or not.
Unfortunately there is no magic answer for cleaning firearm and at what interval. In fact some firearms do better when they are not cleaned. I have suppressors that I have NEVER cleand and they have tens of thousands of rounds though them.

Again the question was about break in, not cleaning. My suggestion still stands, break in the rifle by shooting it and testing ammo in it. To keep as many things as equal as possible, clean between batches of ammo...after that whatever procedure you have for long term gun care and PM is between you and your gun.

bigcountry

Don't matter what the question was, I was curious about how many rounds you clean in between for hunting rifles.

HighDesertWolf

Been there done that LOL, From my experience a new rifle doesnt shoot that well unill I've passed atleast 100 rounds through it especially with my Muzzle loader. I've found a few break in methods that seem to speed it up some. But most Importantly always when you buy a new rifle clean the bore real well before firing somany of my friends take the rifle straight to the range and fire it. Thats a no no, especially with Surplus Military rifles I watched a buddy crack his barrel on a turkish mauser because of the cozmoline in the barrel. When it happend I ask him did you clean the bore before coming to the range? He replied uh no........ I didnt know you had to. He lucked out with just some burns and scratches But I have read about worse things happening.

HighDesertWolf

How many times do you recall a marine getting a brand new rifle? Most of what the marines get are Army hand me downs and armory rebuilds.