bigcountry

Oh, I bet he's an outstanding gunsmith. No doubt if you are vouching for hi. Does he specialize in accurizing "factory" barrels or 90% of the time put beutifully smooth, no reason to borescope, Dan Lilja, Shilen, Hart, Kreiger barrels on?? A person with his reputation, I seriously doubt worrys about miniscule things like my 500 dollar 700BDL barrel roughness.

I got a good buddy in Ozark, Al that only swears on Charlie Sisk rifles. Another one in your neck of the woods that only believes in Kenny Jerrett.

I bet they are all excellent smiths.

And for what I need, I sure don't need "the best of the best". I looked into benchrest, and decided I need a reason to shoot. I need to be preparing for something, like a hunt. So If I can pull out .5MOA accuracy, I call it a day.

oldelkhunter

Actually the only time he got mad at me was when I suggested he try to establish a website. He is well off financially , makes plenty of money and does this for the love of it. He drops everything he is doing when I walk into his shop and will fix what needs fixing on the spot. He has built more rifles then I care to know to be quite honest. I heard about this guy years before I met him from some people I sold used guns to. His prices are extremely reasonable if he knows you especially for synthetic stocked guns. I will get his rifle and put it against the 7000 dollar Jarrett rifles or whatever ripoff gunsmith there is. He is an absolute artist when working wood and blue guns and I have seen some of his items out on Gunsamerica for lots of money. Hopefully this guy doesn't retire anytime soon that will be a dark day in my life.

Solitary Man

On the subject of barrel break-in I consider the real tedious methods (like shoot-one-clean for several rounds) mostly a waste of time. I haven't done it in several years. I'll take a new rifle and thoroughly clean it, then start shooting for groups right off the bat. After every 15 to 25 rounds I'll thoroughly clean it making sure I get all the copper out. I enjoy shooting a new rifle a lot more now than I did when I was consumed by this break-in business.

bigcountry

Check out Rifle mag a few months ago. Brian Pierce had a great article on the subject.

Solitary Man

I don't have that article, so can you briefly tell me what it said?

bigcountry

Bascially he used a boresope on a 45-70 to mark every in perfection in the barrel from brand new. He then started the breakin procedure with copper coated bullets noting copper fouling and the inperfections at each shot. He stated that copper fouling got less and less as it should, but also the inperfections became less and less until the barrel was smooth all the way down. He also noted the group size becoming smaller and smaller adn velocity spreads lower and lower. He stated that breakin was doing something. Whether it was really sealing up the pours in the barrel, or smoothing out tooling marks. Whatever it was doing was beneficial. I believe you can do the same with alot of shooting. But I like to get staight to load development well before 100 rounds.

I like his writing over Barsness and Bryce Townson so I listen up alot when he writes. I don't just take it all down. But I make note of it.

I proved his idea to myself when I just broke in a new sako 75 stainless. I didn't go in detail with a borescope as he did. But definatley noticed less and less copper fouling each round of cleaning. And noticed group sizes getting smaller and smaller and velocity spreads settling down. This was in the first 20 rounds. I was quite happy with my results as he was.

bsteve

Thanks for the replies. I checked the Remington site, and will use their method.Whether it works or not,I just can't warm up to the idea of using lapping compound on a brand new barrel. My dies and brass came in today so I'll probably hit the range next week.

trailer

I had to break in a new barrel from Virgin Valley and the directions was as Oldelkhunter mentioned. Sure was a pain in the butt.

Solitary Man

Well, all I can say is that I have NEVER noticed an appreciable increase in accuracy due to break-in. That's just my experience. My two Sakos are the most accurate rifles I've owned and they've consistently shot sub 1" groups from day one without break-in. On the other hand I had a semi- custom Rem 700 that went though a whole day's worth of tedious break-in and it never shot as consistently well as the Sakos.

The bottom line for me is this: I haven't missed a deer I've shot at with a rifle since around 1979. I'd say 80 to 90 percent of the deer I've killed were killed with rifles I didn't break in with one of those tedious methods. So, I just can't imagine what I could possibly be missing out on. That's basically it for me.

bigcountry

Well shoot solitary, if all you want to do is not miss a deer, your wasting an enormous amount of money on sakos. Its sure none of my business, so I apoligize for butting in. but If I was you and only wanted to not miss deer, I would just get old 98 mausers or NEF's. You don't need no sakos.

I myself am looking for something different. I am looking for little to no copper fouling . I hate it. And am looking for really nice groups. Both I have been able to achieve with teh breakin. And the most it has taken me to do the breakin is like 3 hours. Never a whole day or the word tedious I keep hearing. I am wondering how slow some guys are moving.

Like I said to oldelk, you have great success doing it your way, I would keep it up. I am sure not trying to change your mind, espeically if all you want to do is shoot a deer, just shareing experiences and ideas. No wrong answers. And the origianal poster can make up his mind from there.